DELFT ANC councillor Khayalethu Makaleni told transit resident area community members, who were protesting in front of his Cape Town office yesterday over new houses, that they will not get houses from him.
About 100 protesting residents from TRA 5 and TRA 5.1 urged the councillor to call an urgent meeting with Housing Development Agency (HDA) officials to resolve the housing backlog.
"Firstly, let me tell you that I'm not HDA and you will not get houses from me. But I'll ask you to wait and I will phone HDA officials to come here (to his office) to talk to you," Makaleni said, and went to his office escorted by police.
TRA 5 resident Masibulele Gusha described Makaleni as "arrogant and disrespectful".
"Makaleni undermines us. He forgets that we voted for him to be there. How can he tell us that he is not HDA when we come to him," he asked.
Gusha said they called Makaleni on Monday to a meeting and he didn't come and when they came to him he told them "nonsense".
He said that if their grievances were not resolve they would march to the HDA offices in Cape Town tomorrow.
Nolwandle Bhotsi of TRA5.1 said: "We are tired of staying in shacks, we want to stay in TRAs. The shacks are leaking and cold. We got pneumonia and TB infections because of bad conditions. We want decent houses."
She said she sent her child to study in the Eastern Cape because she got asthma staying in the shack.
Bhotsi said there were empty TRAs as the people who were staying in them had received new houses.
"There are more than 100 empty TRAs as their owners got new houses. And we know they (HDA officials) will want to be bribed."
TRA 5 chairman Siviwe Nondonga said they wanted the HDA to relocate them to new houses.
"When we were relocated by HDA to TRAs they promised us it's for temporal and they will move us soon to the new houses," Nondonga said.
"But what we have observed that there were people coming from Tsunami TRAs to our area. Some of them only stay for only three weeks or a month and were relocated to new houses."
He said the TRAs were designed for people who were relocated from several informal areas for various reasons.
"I was relocated from Joe Slovo informal settlement in Langa because of road construction, and others from New Rest informal settlement in Gugulethu," he explained.
An HDA official, who was contacted, declined to comment, saying he was in the meeting.
- Sowetan
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