My mother once advised me: “You don’t extend your house by building new rooms while at the same time destroying old rooms. Otherwise your house will never be fully extended”. I think this advice is highly relevant to the African National Congress (ANC) which is a master at solving problems by creating new ones.
It is common knowledge that the ANC thinks the best way of reducing poverty is to take the wealth from the previously advantaged and redistribute it amongst the previously disadvantaged. Moreover, the ANC reasons that the best way of improving schooling is to take resources from the former Model C schools and distribute them amongst the township schools.
In its endeavours to mitigate its loss of support amongst black communities, sometimes the ANC disadvantages the very people whose support it yearns for. For example, twenty-four families in Meadowlands, Soweto, have been ill-treated by the ANC’s administration which governs the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality (hereafter City of Joburg).
In 2007, the City of Joburg relocated the abovementioned homes from Van Onselen Road in Meadowlands Zone 7 to Zone 1, to make way for the construction of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) route. The relocated families have experienced a number of unexpected problems which the City of Joburg officials have failed to resolve.
Amongst others, these families were promised that they would be relocated to nearby empty land adjacent to the Zone 7 shops; this promise was never fulfilled. When the City of Joburg failed to relocate them as promised, they were subsequently relocated to a site in Meadowlands Zone 1. However, they have since learnt that the current site on which they have been relocated is in fact not re-zoned as a residential area, and that there is a large water pipe above which their houses have been built.
As a consequence, the houses have cracks developing on the walls, ceilings are falling in and there are further associated problems. In a typical ANC governance tradition, the City of Joburg has given the Soweto residents a bus service, but took away the comfortable homes of other residents in order to do so.
Furthermore, over and above the structural problems with the houses for the relocated families, the City of Joburg instructed these families to surrender their original title deeds, with the promise that new title deeds, updated to reflect their new houses, will be issued to them.
It is disappointing to note that even though these families complied with this instruction, to date (eight years later), they have not received the new title deeds as promised and thus they are justifiably uncertain about their rightful ownership of the new houses.
Seeing that the City of Joburg is ignoring their pleas for assistance regarding the physical defects of their houses and the lack of new title deeds, at the beginning of 2012 twenty-two of these families approached the opposition party in the City of Joburg Council, the Democratic Alliance (DA) for help.
The DA advised them to compose and submit a petition to the Council’s Petitions and Public Participation Committee. Indeed, the families took heed of the aforementioned advice and begged the Committee to intervene as a matter of urgency. However, to date, three years later, these families have not yet received any response from the Council’s Petitions and Public Participation Committee. The DA has found that this petition is one of the thousands of petitions that have not yet received attention.
As a DA Public Representative (PR) in Meadowlands Wards 43 and 45, I stepped in to assist the affected families. I submitted the questions in August 2015 to the Member of the Mayoral Committee (MMC), Cllr Dan Bovu, who is responsible for housing in the City of Joburg Council. Bovu indicated that I will receive responses to my questions from the MMC of Environment and Infrastructure, Cllr Matshidiso Mfikoe, during the Council Meeting which was scheduled for the 23rd September 2015.
However, during the aforesaid Council Meeting, I was informed that I will receive responses from the MMC of Housing during the Council Meeting scheduled for the 29th October 2015. This merry-go-around by the ANC MMCs made me suspect that they did not have satisfactory answers to my questions. My suspicion was confirmed when I eventually received the responses as follows:
Question 1: Why were these residents’ houses relocated to a site at Zone 1 in Meadowlands?
Reply: There were 24 families affected. The land is zoned as park land.
Question 2: What will the City of Johannesburg do to remedy the cracks appearing on the houses of these residents and ceilings that are falling in?
Reply: There are guidelines that need to be followed following occupation of a newly built house. However, in this instance Housing will have to liaise with City Parks to ascertain whether guidelines were followed and also engage with the contractor to check if they can be held liable for defects.
Question 3: When will these residents receive the new title deeds regarding the new houses?
Reply: Following completion of the house number changing process being undertaken by D Thomas and Heyns Attorneys.
It is astonishing to note that the ANC government has deliberately moved families to a site zoned as park land and where there is a huge water pipe running underneath the houses. As may be deduced from the above responses, eight years after the event, the ANC administration has not yet taken tangible measures to intervene in this matter.
The DA does not believe that the City of Joburg is serious about this matter. The good thing is that the Democratic Alliance will win Local Government Elections in 2016 and will then govern the City.
With regard to this matter, we will speedily build new houses in a site zoned as a residential area and move the affected families. Whilst the new houses are being built, we will ensure that their current houses are habitable, and we shall provide them with new title-deeds immediately after they move to the new houses.
Rabelani Dagada is a DA PR Councillor in the City of Johannesburg Council.
