Illegal power lines a ‘fire hazard’

WITH the onset of winter rains, illegal electricity connections that hang precariously low above many city homes are being cited as a major fire hazard.

This was among the frustrations expressed by some residents of the Witsand informal settlement, after a fire ripped through the area yesterday morning, leaving one man dead and about 150 people homeless.

Resident Nolufefe Mbombo, 43, said the combination of illegal connections and rainy weather was “very dangerous”.

“Once it rains then you hear the static, and with a lot of wind there’s friction, which cause fires.”

Standing amid the scorched remains of what was once people’s homes, Mbombo pointed at wires on the ground which might have snapped during the fire.

“Other people are already fixing damaged wires. It’s very dangerous.”

Ward 32 councillor Barbara Rass, in whose jurisdiction Witsand falls, agreed that illegal connections were a serious cause for concern.

Rass said she had appealed to Eskom to provide the area with “legal” electricity.

“Tragedies like these can be avoided if we don’t have these illegal electricity connections. Water and electricity just don’t go together.”

Rass explained that residents were desperate to generate more heat during the cold spell. But without a safer alternative, they would continue setting up illegal connections.

Eskom’s Western Cape spokeswoman, Jolene Henn, said that despite having invested millions of rands in campaigns to raise awareness about electricity and safety, the practice of “electricity tapping” still occurred.

“Communities are fully aware of the dangers in distributing electricity in the manner they do, but still continue with these unsafe acts. Eskom regularly removes illegal connections, but the perpetrators reconnect as soon as staff leave the area.”

Henn said Eskom would continue treating illegal connections as a “serious social issue”, and engage communities to curb the dangerous practice.

Witsand, she added, had been earmarked as part of Eskom’s electrification project.

The city’s Fire and Rescue spokesman, Theo Layne, said the cause of the Witsand fire was still being investigated.

He said that while it was difficult to determine how many homes were razed as a direct result of illegal connections, it was definitely a huge problem.

Last year, the fire service recorded more than 1 000 shack fires, and since January this year 400 shack fires had already been reported.

Layne said the dangling wires were present in almost all informal settlements, posing a risk not only for residents, but also for firemen.

“Each time we respond to a call and have to drive between the overhead wires, we put ourselves and vehicles at risk.”

Two firefighters had been shocked by illegal wiring.

Due to the poor quality of wire being used, the connections proved “extremely dangerous”.

“This often leads to the wires overheating, short circuits and the insulation being ignited, which spreads rapidly.”

- Cape Argus

Corruption claims halt housing project

Payments to a housing project in Middelpos, Western Cape have been suspended following claims of corruption around site allocation, the province's human settlements department said on Friday.

"There have been allegations of corruption against the outgoing Saldanha municipality, relating to the allocation of up to 1 350 sites to housing beneficiaries," department spokesperson Bruce Oom said.

"It seems like sites were allocated by council members without following due processes. They kind of hijacked the process and allocated to favourites, relatives and who they felt like really."

Two housing developments exist in the informal settlement, containing 550 and 800 sites respectively.

The area had been part of the ANC-controlled Saldanha Bay municipality. The DA took over the reins following last week's local government elections.

Provincial human settlements MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela halted the project until corruption claims were investigated and the allocation process was reviewed.

"We need to consult with the Middelpos community to make sure we are in agreement with them about the beneficiary selection process and who will get the houses," he was quoted as saying in a statement.

"This will be done through a series of community meetings. Once agreement has been reached, then work will resume."

Madikizela said the shared vision between regional and local government would "unblock" a number of cases caused by a previous lack of co-operation.

- SAPA

Man dies in row over electricity

A fight between residents in two informal settlements over illegal electricity connections has left one man dead, another in hospital and two homes petrol bombed.

Some residents in the Philippi informal settlement of Nevernever packed up and moved out yesterday because they feared more violence after Sunday’s clashes.

Police have stepped up patrols in the area and have called in colleagues from other stations to assist them in keeping the peace.

Nowethu Sautana, 68, who said she was a community leader in Nevernever, said she had been sitting at home on Sunday with a friend, whose name she gave only as Dorah, when she heard people calling her.

The group outside her house asked her to go to neighbouring settlement Marcus Garvey and illegally set up electrical connections for them.

Sautana said homes in Nevernever, which was established in 2001, did not have electricity, and some residents went to Marcus Garvey to steal electrical connections.

In recent weeks, she said, the electricity in Marcus Garvey had started tripping and Nevernever residents had been blamed.

She had been called in to mediate between the two communities, she said, and was surprised when people arrived and asked her for help with illegal connections.

The group had entered her house, she said, and “started beating me”.

“Then Dorah ran out to get my husband. When my husband tried to protect me, they started hitting him as well.”

“Then they took me to an open field where one of the guys threatened to shoot me but he didn’t because at that stage someone had already called the police and we could see them coming.”

Sautana said the police had taken them to the police station where they made a statement and laid a complaint.

While she was at the police station, her house and three others had been petrol bombed, Sautana said.

One of her neighbours, Gcinikhaya “Majola” Willem, 36, had rushed to try to extinguish the flames. It is not clear what happened to him, but his family has suggested that he was beaten to death while heading towards his neighbours’ burning homes.

Nomsa Deli said that her brother had died in hospital at midday yesterday.

Deli said she and Willem had heard the commotion on Sunday and ran to help extinguish the burning homes.

She said they had run to Sautana’s house first and then, while on their way to a second house that was on fire, they had seen a group of men coming towards them.

“Majola hid among houses and I carried on to the second house. When I came back, I saw him lying there and asked for help to take him to the main road where we could get help.

“He had a wound in his head and he was just lying there not able to speak,” Deli said.

She said her brother left his girlfriend, Noxolo Tono, and his two children, Lilitha, 4, and Ludumo, 17.

Tono described her boyfriend as caring and said that although he was unemployed, he always tried to be helpful around the neighbourhood.

Sautana, Deli and Tono have sent their children to stay with family elsewhere because they fear another attack.

Philippi East police station spokesman Nondumiso Paul said they were investigating two cases of assault, two cases of arson and a case of public violence after some people had thrown stones at the police vans on Sunday.

Paul could not confirm that four houses had been petrol bombed: “There may have been more but these were the only two that were reported to us,” she said. At the time of going to print, she was unable to confirm that a murder case had been opened in connection with Willem’s death.

- Cape Argus

The Scientific Law of Revolution

The man best known for the Boooooo Report and other such famous lines:

"We can't continue to do business like this"

"My houses will rock'

"In-situ upgrading" and "high-rise innercity rental"

"5% rental collection rate"

"I'm not moving my people until I've worked with them".

"I AM NOT THE MINISTER OF RECTIFICATION"

" What is a challenge is the quality of houses that we build. Why do they crack only six months after we have built them? It is because we give tenders to our friends, families and girlfriends."

"I cannot sleep properly in my house if my people are homeless, when they can't be protected from the weather when it is rainy and windy ... suffering in their shacks."

"it's a plot" not a plot to build a house on..... Noooooooo a plot to overthrow the government...

(Rivonia all over again)

has something to say about the Sexwale Scientific Law of Revolution; after all it was him who first succumbed to this law. Why at the Rivonia trial all back then he stated before the court:

Defendants response:

(...) We lived in poverty and we were all subjected to the humiliation which the whites imposed upon the blacks.

We lived in the same typical 'matchbox' houses; we were continually aware that there was not enough money available to meet our needs for food, clothing and education;

and when we went into town and saw the relative luxury in which white people lived, this made an indelible impression on our young minds...

It is true that I was trained in the use of weapons and explosives. The basis of my training was in sabotage, which was to be aimed at institutions and not people...

We believe, and I believe, that the black people cannot be passive onlookers in their own country. We want to be active participants in shaping the face and course of direction of South Africa.

My Lord, these are the reasons why I find myself in the dock today... I realised that the struggle for freedom would be difficult and would involve sacrifices. I was and am willing to make those sacrifices...

The Cold War: A history in documents

Sexwale stresses scientific importance of property ownership

Human Settlement Minister Tokyo Sexwale on Thursday emphasised the importance of property ownership at the 43rd South African Property Owners Association (Sapoa) convention in Cape Town.

“Everyone wants to own property. Everyone has a right to property ownership,” he said, adding that the issue of ownership had to be dealt with.

“We have so much land that will be divided into many plots. The more plots we have the better,” Sexwale, who is accused of being part of a plot to unseat President Jacob Zumain 2014, quipped at the convention.

The Minister stressed that, according to the Constitution, no one should be deprived from owning property, except in terms of the law of general application, and that no law may permit arbitrary depravation of property.

“Our Constitution cannot be treated as a piece of toilet paper. It is a formidable law that comes with the dreams and hopes of the people.”

Using the unrest in the Middle East as an example, Sexwale said that the revolution was as a result of people struggling of find their voices. The people of Libya, Egypt and Tunisia, are saying to the rulers, it is time to go.

“They are fighting for a voice in a system that rendered them voiceless. They want to talk about jobs, land and owning property. They are 40 years behind South Africa. We have the voice and they are in a struggle to use their voices as a tool for change.”

He cautioned that in a developing country, if people do not have a sense of belonging, one is asking for a revolution.

“A fundamental revolution to bring change. If fellow South Africans do not have a sense of belonging, the scientific law of a revolution will kick in.”

He bemoaned the fact that the “tentacles of apartheid” in terms of spacial planning were still evident in South Africa, citing Soweto as an example of the largest sprawl in Africa.

“We have a shrewd system to redress and address. We need to reverse the legacy of apartheid to unite Johannesburg and Soweto, Umlazi and Durban. We need to close that gap and unite the people.”

He pointed out that the 2,1 million housing units backlog and the 2 700 informal settlements without water, electricity and sanitation as an “enormous challenge”.

Sexwale also urged Sapoa to partner with the government in terms of funding bulk services.

“We have a number of projects on stream, but water, electricity and sanitation remain a challenge,” he said.

Outgoing Sapoa president and Liberty Life Properties CEO Samuel Ogbu also said that the industry and government had to work together to create new opportunities.

He urged the industry to find new ways to recover from the slump in 2008 and to find opportunities and exploring them.

Meanwhile, Ogbu said that Sapoa had a busy year engaging policy makers on national discords. Over the past year, it has been looking at over 90 pieces of legislation that impact on the real estate industry.

- Engineering News

Land grab clashes escalate

Live ammunition was fired at police during a second day of violent clashes with groups of Mitchell’s Plain backyard dwellers who have invaded land in Tafelsig and refuse to leave.

Bricks and rocks were also thrown at police, who responded with rubber bullets, teargas and a water cannon.

The clashes followed land invasions next to the Swartklip Road sports field and an open piece of land near Kapteinsklip train station in Tafelsig on Friday and Saturday. The City’s Anti-Land Invasion Unit demolished hundreds of structures the backyarders erected during the invasion, leading to a tense stand-off.

On Monday, scores of residents pelted police with stones and set fire to tyres in bushes when officers arrived at the stretch of land along Swartklip Road, and which residents have named New Horizons.

On a wall leading to the settlement, the name New Horizons was spray-painted near the words: “Whe shal not be moved”(sic).

As officers moved around the settlement, a few residents could be seen running towards officers, threatening to use live ammunition. Two young men had handguns and could be seen shooting at police.

They bragged afterwards they had fired at the officers.

As a police helicopter hovered, a police water cannon sprayed jets of bright blue water at residents and a number of teargas grenades were lobbed at the residents throwing rocks and stones.

Eighteen people, including police officers and children, were injured and at least 14 residents arrested since Sunday.

On Monday, as police were shooting at the invaders, a man could be seen running away with a bleeding neck wound.

A policeman could also be seen bleeding from a cheek.

Plumes of thick, black smoke rose in the air as residents burnt tyres and bushes on dunes alongside the field.

Residents gathered at the top of the dunes as police in armoured vehicles and officers with riot shields approached.

“The police can try and kill us or force us away, but we will be back and stay here,” screamed a resident, who was hit by a rubber bullet.

Mitchell’s Plain police spokeswoman Mugelaine van der Vent said officers had been called to Tafelsig, and while they were there shots had been fired at them.

“Police fired rubber bullets and teargas to disperse to crowd,” she said,

Following a brief visit to a field nearby New Horizons, Cape Town mayor Dan Plato said he believed the invasions were politically motivated and set up to happen just before tomorrow’s local government elections.

“It’s so close to the elections that I have to say it’s politically motivated. It’s well-timed ahead of the elections,” he said.

City of Cape Town spokesman Pieter Cronje said only five of about 400 illegally erected structures were still at the Swartklip Road invasion site.

He said the city’s law enforcement officers and metro police were there in support of police, who led the operation.

“We are preparing for a possible eviction order or for an interdict. The city has had reports, but cannot confirm, that it seems the invasion was well organised.

“There are allegations that there was a meeting on Thursday evening at the Freedom Park Hall where the occupation was discussed. The timing (of the occupation) seems significant.

“We reacted with calm as it is in nobody’s interest to have another Hangberg (in Hout Bay, where residents clashed with police trying to evict them and to demolish their informal homes in September),” Cronje said.

Asked if the city would probe the allegations, he said: “We have a 24/7 fraud and corruption hotline and we appeal to people and those who had been offered something that is too good to be true, to report it.”

- Cape Times

Shiceka: It's Tokyo's poo

Embattled Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Sicelo Shiceka has shifted the blame for the open toilets saga onto his Cabinet colleague, Tokyo Sexwale.

Shiceka, who has been on indefinite sick leave since February, told City Press in a telephone interview that he could not be made the “scapegoat” for the debacle as sanitation was the responsibility of Sexwale’s human settlements department.

“He is the person responsible for the matter of sanitation. It has nothing to do with us. When the president came into power in 2009, sanitation was transferred to human settlements,” he said.

He lashed out at Cosatu president Zwelinzima Vavi, who earlier this week called for Shiceka’s head to roll over the open toilets ­scandal.

“Vavi must do his research. It is not our responsibility and you must go to the people who have a role to play. When you give money you have to follow up on the quality and quantity of that which is built with the money you gave,” he said.

City Press exposed the open ­toilets in Rammulotsi township at Viljoenskroon in the ANC-led ­Moqhaka municipality in the Free State in July last year after Shiceka said open toilets were a “Cape Town phenomenon”.

He was referring to the open ­toilets built by the DA in Makhaza, Khayelitsha.

Asked if he had been contacted by the ANC this week regarding the Rammulotsi toilets, Shiceka replied: “It is not my area or ­responsibility. Why would I be contacted? People should go to those responsible (for sanitation).”

Sexwale said the Rammolutsi situation will be investigated and the contract will have to be reviewed with the possibility of terminating it.

“We will be working closely with anyone who is prepared to come forward to ensure that the culprits who caused the fiasco at Makhaza and Rammulotsi are brought to book and blacklisted,” he said.

Residents in Rammulotsi are not impressed by claims by the ANC it was not aware of the open toilets.

When City Press visited Rammulotsi on Wednesday it found the same exposed toilets as were reported on in July 2010.
Paulina Tonyane (74) said the ANC couldn’t claim it didn’t know about the toilets.

“We’ve been reporting it all the time. Now they came yesterday (Tuesday) but they just walked into my yard and looked at the toilet and were just pointing and pointing the whole time. They did not even ask me my name,” she said.

Calls for Mayor Mantebu ­Mokgosi to be axed intensified this week after it became known that a company owned by her husband was awarded a contract to build the toilets.

The Moqhaka municipality defended its mayor from accusations that she had personally benefited from the tenders to erect the open toilets.

Municipal manager Mcedisi Mqwathi said Mokgosi was not a councillor or mayor when the contract was awarded to Danteb Construction, a company owned by herself and her husband, Daniel Mokgosi.

Mqwathi said when Mokgosi became a councillor in 2001 she was no longer involved in any ­Danteb business activities.

- City Press

Bricks, bullets fly in land grab

An open field in Tafelsig turned into a war zone yesterday as a group of land invaders pelted police and city law enforcers with rocks and bottles.

Gallery: Backyard dwellers invade Tafelsig

The officers retaliated by firing rubber bullets and blasting the invaders with a water cannon to bring them under control.

The group, who call themselves the Mitchell’s Plain Backyarders’ Association, moved on to the Swartklip Sports Field on Saturday.

They built makeshift shacks and set up tents on the field, saying it should belong to them.

Yesterday, members of the city’s Anti-Land Invasion Unit tore down 338 structures and 100 tents before they were forced to retreat.

In tit-for-tat moves, the land invaders continued to move in to rebuild their structures, only for them to be torn down again by a phalanx of policemen, flanked by a water cannon and heavily protected metro police officers.

Residents claimed they had been pepper sprayed, and insisted that metro police had used “live ammunition”, a claim the city strenuously denied.

City of Cape Town spokeswoman Kylie Hatton said rubber bullets had been fired several times, but officers had “definitely not” used live ammunition.

She said two law enforcement officers and a metro police officer were injured.

Police said today 14 people had been arrested after yesterday’s clashes.

Yesterday, residents showed the Cape Argus injuries they said were sustained during the day’s skirmishes. Some said they had been hit by bottles and rocks, and others by rubber bullets.

The water cannon blasted the land invaders with coloured water, marking them for later identification.

This morning, some of the invaders, many of whom had slept in tents on the field last night, were slowly rebuilding their structures.

Cooking fires were dotted across the field, and people started their day by brewing coffee in small pans.

Some said they were uncertain of their next move, with others saying they would try to keep the police at bay without using violence.

Hatton said the area was quiet this morning.

This weekend, another group of people also invaded a plot of land in nearby Kapteinsklip, and city law enforcement officers moved in swiftly to dismantle 75 structures, Hatton said. Building materials were removed from that site.

The plot of land in Tafelsig is city-owned.

“Residents have been trying to illegally occupy the land and we as landowners have the right to prevent the illegal occupation,” Hatton said.

As the invasion started this weekend, members of the Mitchell's Plain Backyarders’ Association cordoned off “plots” on the Tafelsig field using rope and sticks.

They also assigned erf numbers to people, saying these had been given to them by the council.

But Hatton said the numbers were “certainly not sanctioned by council”.

“We found that the people themselves marked off and pegged the numbers to the area,” she said.

Tempers started flaring yesterday as the Anti-Land Invasion teams moved in to pull down structures on the demarcated “plots”.

One man, Nasief Abrahams, swore as he watched his tent pulled down and shouted: “They don’t do anything for us but they want our vote!”

Abrahams said he, his wife and their two children had been living in a friend’s backyard for seven years.

“All we ever wanted was for the government to offer us a piece of land with electricity and water… they have the budget for other projects. Why can’t they invest in a project that will help us get the land?” he said.

He said he had spent all Saturday night in his tent on the field and he would not go to work because he felt he was fighting a just cause.

“I will keep fighting until I get what I want… we’re going to be back here (today) until we’ve got our land,” he said.

Terence Hosking, spokes-man for the Mitchell's Plain Backyarders’ Association, said they would stay on the land “until the day of death”.

He said it was unfair |that backyarders in Tafelsig were paying between R500 and R1 500 to live in people’s yards.

“We have been negotiating with them (the city) and now we’ve said enough is enough.”

- Cape Argus

16 hurt in land grab clash

Sixteen people, six of them Metro Police officers, were injured in a clash when people invaded two pieces of land in Mitchell’s Plain at the weekend

The City of Cape Town anti-land invasion unit was called out on Saturday and yesterday to demolish structures built by about 150 backyard dwellers on land next to the Swartklip sportsfield in Tafelsig, near the Kapteinsklip station.

The backyarders, who were from Rocklands and Tafelsig, became unruly after the SAPS and Metro Police were called.

During a stand-off yesterday, stones were hurled at the officers, who fired rubber bullets.

Metro Police spokeswoman Yolanda Faro said six officers were injured, while backyarders said 10 people were wounded and eight arrested.

Last night, motorists used alternative routes because the intersection at Spine and Swartklip roads was blocked, with people burning tyres.

About 2km from the intersection, Rico Willemse and his wife, Natasha, were sitting beside a fire on the land near the Kapteinsklip station. They had been on the land since Saturday. They built a shack yesterday, but law enforcement officials demolished it.

Willemse said he, his wife and their two disabled children had been living in his in-laws’ Tafelsig backyard for five years.

“We will stay here until they build us houses,” he said.

“(Human Settlements MEC) Bonginkosi Madikizela said 10 percent of new houses in Eastridge would go to elderly people and disabled people, but if you go there, you’ll see young people.”

Backyarder Clifford Bernardo alleged officers had assaulted people.

“We don’t want violence, we just want housing. If they come at us violently, people react.”

Mayco member for safety and security JP Smith visited the scene, but refused to comment, saying he would have to “assess the situation before we say anything”.

- Cape Times

Polishitians

Sexwale unveils new rental housing project

Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale on Thursday unveiled 341 units of the Morgan’s Village III affordable housing project in Mitchells Plain, Cape Town.

The project is a partnership between the national human settlements department, its Western Cape counterpart, the National Housing Finance Corporation (NHFC) and the Cape Town Community Housing Company (CTCHC).

The Morgan Village housing project provides affordable rental units to people earning between R1500 and R3500.

“Our priority is to ensure that we provide not only decent, but affordable rental units within the city centre in line with our mandate to ensure that people stay nearer to places of work, clinics and schools,” Sexwale told guests at the event.

The Morgan’s Village project is the second to be opened by Sexwale in the past two days, the first being in Polokwane.

He said the government was increasing the pace of providing affordable rental units within the city centres across the country, in line with its programme “to do things differently and faster”.

“Part of our objective as a department is to ensure that we increase the pace at which we construct and renovate inner city buildings.

“These houses we are opening today provide exactly that; it gives our people dignity and decent shelter at a very affordable rate,” Sexwale said.

Affordable rental units in the inner cities would also help alleviate the housing backlog in the country.

“Many of our people come to cities for work. They come from different provinces of our country, leaving their homes. What they are looking for is decent and affordable rental options, a place they can put their head down, but a decent place,” he said.

The aim was to build more than 25 000 rental units over the next three years.

Once complete, the Morgan's Village project would consists of 682 mixed development units.

- Sapa

Shit

ANC can't see for the shit in their eye

The Human Rights Commission is investigating why about 1 600 toilets in a Free State municipality have been left without enclosures for the past eight years, the Sunday Times reported.

A complaint had been laid with the commission, its spokesperson Vincent Moaga told the paper.

The toilets are located in Rammulotsi, near Viljoenskroon, in the ANC-run Moqhaka municipality.

Municipal acting technical services manager Mike Lelaka was quoted as saying: "Our audit indicated that there were 1 620 toilets which were left unattended to, the so-called open toilets."

He said there was an agreement with residents that the municipality would provide only sanitation, and residents would put up the enclosures.

It would cost the council more than R8-million to cover about 200 toilets as part of the next phase of the project (about R40 000 per toilet), but only R4,2-million was currently available.

'It's worse if that's being done by an ANC municipality'
"Everything is dependent on funding, but we have approached the departments of water affairs and human settlements. We are still awaiting a response from them."

ANC spokesperson Jackson Mthembu told the paper: "We will investigate, and whoever is responsible will have to answer. We cannot allow our people to be disrespected like that. It's even worse if that's being done by an ANC municipality."

On April 29 the Western Cape High Court ordered the Democratic Alliance-led City of Cape Town to enclose 1 316 toilets in the Makhaza settlement on the Cape Flats.

The DA was taken to court by the African National Congress Youth League, which accused it of violating residents' right to human dignity after 51 toilets were erected without enclosures in Makhaza in December 2009.

- Sapa

Shit in the political eye of the beholder

On the 28th April 2011 the SABC television programme Cutting Edge screened a programme on life in Grahamstown. The title of the story was ‘bucket of shame’. In Grahamstown there are vast areas that continue to use the bucket system to shit seventeen years after democracy.

People are shitting in buckets and plastic bags in Ndancama, a township that was erected in 1972. The few RDP houses that have been built are crumbling down. The sewerage is not working.

People are also shitting in buckets and plastic bags in eLuxolweni. RDP houses were supposed to be built here in 2010 but the project was never completed and the contractors have abandoned the site even thought thirty houses remain unbuilt. The quality of the work on the houses that were built is shocking and the sewerage is not working.

In the Sun City shack settlement, founded in 1982, and the Transit Camp, RDP houses are supposed to be being built but the emerging contractors are struggling to complete the project due to government delaying the payments.

My brother Sizakele Maxhegwana (his number is 046 – 637 0587) used to work as a casual worker, collecting the buckets full of shit. When we witnessed the unpleasant working conditions we advised him to stop working. No medical support was given. We felt that the work was hazardous to his health.

The Cutting Edge show on Grahamstown was carefully researched and it told the truth. Workers were interviewed and they narrated their unpleasant working conditions. Residents were interviewed as well and they told their stories about the indignities and dangers that come from not having access to proper toilets.

All these devastating ills are emerging from a Municipality that is rotten at the base. The Mayor is personally indebted to the Municipality for an amount of not less than R60,000.

In the 2010/2011 Financial year the Makana Municipality could not account for an amount of R19 million.

In the 2009/2010 Financial year the very same Makana Municipality could not account for R24 million.

Old ladies are shitting in plastic bags while millions of rand cannot be accounted for! This is disgraceful.

Since the Cutting Edge show on Grahamstown was screened we have witnessed a lot of anxiety from both the municipality and the ruling party. Some senior members of the ruling party accused us of paying SABC, Cutting Edge in particular, for screening what they called “a right wing agenda that seeks to destabilise ANC ahead of the local government elections”. An employee of the municipality publicly accused us of being drunk with wine that we get from reactionary white academics. The local ANC said the Luthuli house is looking at the video and that both UPM and SABC “shall shit bricks”. Zandie Mahlahla, a senior member of the ANC, publicly threatened me on the campus of Rhodes University. She said that I am “going to be killed and be buried in the township”. She closed the way of our Publicity Secretary Xola Mali. She just stood like a zombie.

We have now learnt that the Makana Municipality has taken South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) to the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa (BCCSA). This is another signal of the death of democracy in South Africa. It is another signal that corruption is entrenched in our society and that who ever seeks to expose it we be met by all kinds of hostilities and intimidations. It is another signal that the party that once aimed to be a national liberation movement is now a means to private accumulation and top down social control.

After what happened to Abahlali baseMjondolo in Kennedy Road and Pemary Ridge in Durban in 2009 and the Landless People’s Movement in eTwatwa on the East Rand in 2010 no autonomous poor people’s organisation can afford to ignore public death threats from the ANC.

Now that the ANC has openly declared its tensions to be able to censor the media we should not see this attempt to intimidate journalists as an isolated instance.

It is clear that the Municipality can not prove


· Distortion: Nothing is being exaggerated in this programme. It is a fact that our people use the bucket system to shit. It is a fact that our municipality is corrupt. The workers told the truth when they narrated their unpleasant working conditions

· Material Omission: I wonder what sort of defence of such appalling conditions that our people continue to endure after 17 years of “democracy” could be claimed to be a ‘material omission’?

· Summarisation: The summary presented in the show presented the reality of the lives of our people in a very fair manner.

The real problem here for the ANC is the screening of a programme on the bucket system on the eve of local government elections. The real problem here is that local authorities do not want to be exposed as corrupt. The real problem here is a political party that is so obsessed with power that anything that threatens their government must just be suppressed and vanquished.

The ANC is silent when we suffer day in and day out. The ANC can ignore our people for seventeen years while we shit in plastic bags and buckets. But when we speak up they jump into action and threaten to kill and to make us shit bricks. They are very efficient and effective when they want to be. They do not leave us to suffer because they have a capacity problem. They leave us to suffer because they want to leave us to suffer.

On the day of the hearing against Cutting Edge the people of different areas still using buckets’ will protest outside Makana Municipality Hall. We will dump all the shit in front of the Town Hall because that is where it belongs.

We are sick and tired of being dehumanized by the ruling power elite. We are fed up of giving and giving and not getting anything, but bullshit. We are told that it is our sacred, national and revolutionary duty to put our crosses next to their name in the IEC’s boxes. But they have no interest in allowing us to put our shit in toilets.

If our lives and voices matter, of which they should, the Municipality must drop the case against Cutting Edge immediately and focus on eradicating the bucket system, fighting corruption and servicing the people with basic social rights.

Leave Cutting Edge Alone!

Yours truly;
Ayanda Kota
UPM – Chairperson
078 6256 462

A tale of two city struggles

The Social Justice Coalition's (SJC) perfectly orchestrated march on Freedom Day for safe sanitation featured a long queue for the toilets at the Cape Town mayor's offices.

The first thing I noticed was that most of the more than 2 000 marchers were children, which made sense -- they are especially vulnerable to the heath dangers posed by inadequate sanitation. The second was that the handwritten placards all bore the same handwriting.

Third, most of the marchers had been bused in from Khayelitsha and were sporting SJC T-shirts. And fourth, the posters advertising the march competed in Adderly Street with those displaying ANC and DA candidates in the local government elections.

Clearly, a lot of resources had gone into the protest -- about R200 000, according to some estimates. By contrast, on the same day Abahlali baseMjondolo Western Cape, another Khayelitsha-based organisation, held a shack fire summit in the township's QQ informal settlement. This was to commemorate those who had lost their lives in shack fires and to launch a campaign for the electrification of shack settlements.

Only 100 people turned out, according to the Cape Times. Other estimates suggested 200. No buses here -- most who made it to the Abahlali marquee arrived by their own means, some walking across the vast area that constitutes Khayelitsha to get there. But the SJC and Abahlali differ from each other in more than an unequal access to resources.

Last October, after the protracted civil servants' strike, Abahlali Western Cape called for a nationwide "month of informal settlement strikes". The organisation urged affiliates and non-affiliates to take to the streets and barricade them.

"Let us make the whole city of Cape Town ungovernable and let us create chaos throughout the city," the organisation said. The action reportedly led to the damage of property and was strongly condemned by the SJC, the Treatment Action Campaign, Cosatu and Equal Education. Abahlali was made up of "self-styled revolutionaries" who attacked working people with stones, they said in a joint statement.

Upping the heat, the South African Communist Party later weighed in against Abahlali, calling the road blockades "anarchist and populist". Abahlali replied: "When the SACP condemns us, it condemns the struggles of the people across the country."

Back at the Cape Town Civic Centre on Freedom Day the marchers were efficiently marshalled into a snaking queue behind a gleaming porcelain toilet seat propped up on a makeshift stage. To one side was a line of rented toilets in case nature prevailed over symbolism.

After testimonials from Nosakhe Thethafuthi (who endured raw sewage in her yard for two years) and Makhosandile Qezo (who was robbed while relieving himself in the veld), the protestors handed over a memorandum and then watched a rap song about sanitation.

Then a sudden shower of rain sent the crowds scattering away from the courtyard into an adjoining square for shelter. One latecomer, who supported the protest action, commented on the apparent lack of crowd control. If Abahlali baseMjondolo had let a march descend into that kind of disorder, arrests would have been quick to follow, he said.

The standoff between the two organisations is not sitting well with activists. In February, members of both camps attended the Johannesburg conference that formed the Democratic Left Front.

"We mandated people in the Democratic Left Front to get the two organisations together to try to reconcile their differences," said Martin Legassick, who is on the front's national steering committee. "Abahlali was willing to do that, but SJC was not," he said.

Mazibuko Jara, expelled from the SACP, now sits on the same committee as Legassick. The fact that there were differences over the strike did not mean friction between the two groups should be permanent, he said. Efforts to unite the two were continuing and there were some who identified with both formations, Jara said.

"The sharing of perspectives, resources and strategies would be of great benefit to both constituencies and would project a stronger voice to society," he said.

Legassick added that, although there was a lot of militancy on the ground in the black and coloured townships of the Western Cape, resources were a setback in uniting the various struggles.

- M&G

I've had enough of 'plot' rumours, says Tokyo

African National Congress (ANC) heavyweight Tokyo Sexwale wants a thorough investigation into an intelligence report placing him at the centre of a plot to unseat President Jacob Zuma.

"A thorough investigation is going to have to be conducted to get to the bottom of this ugly episode," Sexwale, the human settlements minister and a member of the ANC's national executive committee, told media in Pretoria on Thursday.

"We want to get to the bottom of this sordid matter."

Sexwale was reacting to an intelligence report that surfaced at the bail application hearing of murder-accused crime intelligence boss Richard Mdluli.

The alleged intelligence report portrays Sexwale as having presidential ambitions, with high-level ANC members named as co-conspirators.

Sexwale dismissed the report as a fake created to inflict "maximum damage" and to "sow confusion" -- he charged that the report had ramifications for the ruling alliance.

Looking for answers
An angry Sexwale said he wanted answers. He wanted to know who commanded Mdluli to conduct the operation, who he was reporting to, which other high-level intelligence officers worked with Mdluli, and who provided the resources for the operation.

Another key question, he said, was "are there any other covert operations" unfolding.

He also urged Mdluli to "come clean" on which other politicians or government officials, if any, were involved.

Sexwale has appointed a legal team to keep a "watching brief" on the Mdluli case and to apply for discovery of all documents relating to the operation from the court and elsewhere.

Sexwale also wants his legal team to advise him on the need for any criminal or civil action to be taken by him.

The operation amounted to a "serious abuse of office" if true.

"I have had enough of these rumours," he said. -- Sapa

5,000 left homeless

Pensioner Nomalizo Mhlabeni, 67, lost everything in a devastating fire in Masiphumelele early on Monday morning in which 5 000 people were left homeless, and more than 1 500 shacks burnt down.

One man was killed and one was treated for severe burns to his hands, feet and face.

Holding her tears back and in shock, Mhlabeni said her brick walls had collapsed due to the ferocity of the blaze.

The mother of four foster children aged two months, 11, 13, and 15 years, said she does not know how the fire started but she was sleeping when she was woken by screams and went to investigate.

She returned to find her own home engulfed by flames.

“I lost everything. I never saw anything like this fire before,” said Mhlabeni.

Her house was the only one among a group of about 10 homes situated across a road and about 100m from where the fire started which was destroyed in the blaze. Asked why her home burnt and the others were untouched Mhlabeni said apparently “a fireball flew from where the initial fire started and landed on my house”.

Late on Monday afternoon those who had lost their homes and belongings started rebuilding their houses with what they could salvage and with some material given to them by the City’s Disaster Management.

About 15 RDP houses were also burnt.

Ivy Ngovana, 43, who owned the house where the dead man was found, said: “I don’t know who he is, but my two children are safe”.

Ngovana suspects that the man might have been trying to douse the fire in her shack when he was trapped inside.

“I only saw this morning that someone had died in my shack,” said Ngovana.

She said all she had left were the clothes she was wearing.

In five months, Nosandiso Maphungwana has had to rebuild her house three times after a fire.

She said she lost her belongings in a fire on December 26 in which more than 150 shacks were destroyed and more than 700 people were displaced.

Maphungwana has lived in Masiphumelele for seven years. She shared her two-room shack with her boyfriend and one-year-old daughter.

She said that they had been promised housing several times in the past.

“It’s very difficult for us here, we have fires all the time but no one ever comes here to listen to our needs.

“I don’t know how I’m going to rebuild my house right now We don’t have material because we don’t work,” Maphungwana said.

She said they saw the fire from afar and went back to sleep, but minutes later they were woken by a neighbour after the fire had burnt a few shacks to the ground.

Another victim London Daka, 33, who lives with his wife and a six-year-old child, said he was also awakened by people screaming.

“I quickly put on my clothes and went to help douse the fire, but the fire spread and my house was also affected.

“I could not remove anything,” said Daka.

As a result of the fire Daka lost all his furniture, as there was no time to pick up anything

Another victim, spaza owner Nomabhelu Maki, said all her stock has been lost in the fire.

“I don’t know what to do and who to turn to for help. Like everybody here, I am devastated,” said Maki.

City’s disaster risk management spokesman Wilfred Solomons-Johannes said displaced people would be housed in a community hall.

“All city infrastructures are on the ground helping the victims,” said Solomons-Johannes.

After assessing the damage and speaking to residents, Mayor Dan Plato told a gathering of community leaders that “brick houses damaged by the fire would have to be demolished and rebuilt”.

Plato said the victims should wait for the city to level the area before anyone could rebuild their houses.

- Cape Times

Homeless fire victims refuse to move

Residents whose shacks were burnt to the ground in Masiphumelele on Monday refused to move to alternative land while the City of Cape Town levelled the area before they rebuilt their shacks.

The City asked residents to wait before rebuilding their shacks so the informal settlement could have some sort of street system to enable emergency services to move freely in case of another fire.

Emergency services could not get to the fire because of the density of the informal settlement.

After inspecting the fire, Cape Town Mayor Dan Plato told a gathering of local community leaders that only 600 shacks could be accommodated in the area and that alternative land would be provided to others.

This sparked anger among some residents, who wanted to know what criteria would be used to identify the 600.

The residents wanted Plato to order that those who were not among the 600 be allowed to place their shacks on an open space adjacent to where the fire occurred.

“We will discuss that later,” Plato said but residents said they wanted answers immediately.

Akhona Mangaliso, 42, said the “people are refusing to stop rebuilding their shacks unless Mayor Plato gives them surety that they have a right to use the open land”.

Mangaliso said people were afraid the city might destroy their shacks if there was no written land-usage agreement.

Resident Nobesuthu Mntuyedwa, 45, who lost everything in the fire, said she hoped to be part of the first 600.

“The other land would take longer because we have to wait for the government to approve it first. If I wait, where would my children stay?

City risk disaster management spokesman Wilfred Solomons-Johannes said: “Despite the request by the city to clear and level the site before construction commences, the community proceeded with the erection of structures.

”This has hampered the recovery operations and the layout for emergency vehicular access routes within the informal settlement following the fire.”

- Cape Times

Pre-election shack fires kills one displaces 5000 humans from their settlement

An unidentified man has died in a fire which has displaced 5000

people at Masiphumelele informal settlement near Kommetjie, the Cape Town Disaster Risk Management Centre said on Monday.

“The man was trying to escape from the fire, but unfortunately he was engulfed in the flames and died as a result,” spokesman Wilfred Solomons-Johannes said.

About 5,000 people were displaced by the fire, which destroyed about 1,500 shacks and a number of formal houses overnight. Thirty fire engines responded to control the blaze, which started just after midnight.

Cape Town's fire and rescue service spokesman Theo Layne told the SABC two firefighters were slightly injured.

The city would supply food parcels, blankets, baby packs and building material to those affected. Solomons-Johannes said community halls had been opened for those left homeless. -

- Sapa