Toilet cleaners in East London are complaining about bad working conditions. Working under the Expanded Public Works Programme, the cleaners, the majority of them women, say they do not get protective gear and sometimes have to buy cleaning materials themselves. Some work without an uniform.
It might be 23 years after the dawn of democracy in South Africa, but there are some communities that still do not have basic services like electricity and sanitation provided by the government. C-Section in Duncan Village in East London, is just one of many cases.
Residents of Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality use the Mayor’s report back to lash out at the City for lack of service delivery, especially in informal settlements.
Following the senseless murder of 11 people last weekend, the residents of Marikana informal settlement with the Social Justice Coalition marched in Cape Town and handed memorandums to the City of Cape Town, SAPS, IPID, the Department of Community Safety and the Police Ombudsman, demanding better policing and services to the area.
After the mass killings in Marikana informal settlement, Cape Town, on the weekend that took 11 lives, the full force of ministerial bluster descended on the area to try reassure a community in shock. Police Minister, Fikile Mbalula, continued with his tough talk as he presented a new Station Commander for the Philippi East Police Station.
Throughout the water restrictions in Cape Town there has been a narrative that accusses the black working class in townships of wasting municipal water. The accusations have gotten worse after the City of Cape Town introduced level 5 water restrictions which entail a ban on all uses of municipal drinking-quality water for outside and non-essential purposes. Out on fact-finding mission, Elitsha found out that people in informal settlements only use up to 4% of total of municipal water.
Sweet Home Farm shack dwellers are not prepared to move to new houses built by the City of Cape Town. They say the houses are very small and there is no enough space for children to play.
There has been an increasing number of land and housing activists that have been murdered lately. Mthunzi “Ras Moziah” Zuma was shot and killed during a road blockade next to the land they were occupying near Khayelitsha Mall. Less than a month later another land and housing activist in Imizamo Yethu in Hout Bay 41 kilometres west of Khayelitsha was shot by the police during a housing protest and later died in hospital.
Land and housing activists have pledged to continue taking and occupying vacant land despite brutal repression by the state and the killing of those who fight for land. The commitment was made at seminar in Khayelitsha Monday night where different groups of organisations representing activists from Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town met to share their experiences of state and police brutality.
“I have lost goods worth almost R45,000 and I do not know how I will restart. I am running out of ideas. This is the third time my container was looted and burnt. When I noted my container was on fire I rushed to take out some goods but while I shoved the goods out some were busy looting so I ended up leaving everything to burn”
Another land activist and leader of the group of backyarders from Town 2 who are occupying land next to Khayelitsha Magistrate court has been killed. Philela Gilwa, 23 was stabbed in Khayelitsha on Saturday night.
In the space of just 4 weeks, another community leader and housing activist has been killed and this time at the hands of the South African Police’s Public Order Policing. Songezo Ndude died at Groote Schuur Hospital after he was hit by rubber bullets during a housing protest in Imizamo Yethu in Hout Bay.
A week full of clashes with law enforcers saw residents of Alexandra Township, north of Johannesburg, no less determined in their quest for land. Calling […]
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