SHOCKING CONDITIONS AT MEADOWLANDS HOSTEL
Thousands of people live in shocking conditions in the Meadowlands Hostel area in Soweto, which is now known as Meadowlands Zone 11.
I visited there yesterday as part of the DA's "Don't forget the forgotten" campaign, where every month I visit a neglected area in Gauteng and stay the night to experience conditions for myself. This was my eighteenth stay over in an informal settlement.
I was accompanied by DA Constituency MPL Khume Ramulifho and DA Councillors Toni Molefe, Tsepo Mhlongo, Graham de Kock and Moipone Rakosa.
The original hostel houses have been converted into family units with two rooms, but most of these are hugely overcrowded, some with 10 people in them.
Shacks have been built everywhere, mostly for children of the original hostel residents.
Sanitation is grossly inadequate, with about 150 people sharing one toilet in certain sections. People use night buckets, which they dump into the streams of water that are everywhere in this area. The stench is awful and very unhealthy for children.
There is one huge leak that residents say has gushed water for as long as they can remember. This was reported to Mayoral Committee Member Christine Walters in November 2010, but has still not been repaired despite the huge loss to the council of the wasted water.
Surely a competent water engineer can fix it once and for all?
In June 2008 Nomvula Mokonyane was Gauteng Housing MEC and promised to "eradicate" the hostel and place everyone in new housing.
There are newly built and smart looking blocks of flats nearby that were meant for rental and RDP beneficiaries, but they have been empty for more than two years.
In September 2010 then housing MEC Kgaogelo Lekgoro said in reply to the DA's questions in the legislature that the allocation of units was to start from the end of January 2011, once all services and electricity had been installed.
It's absolutely bizarre that these 226 new flats remain empty while people nearby are suffering in vastly overcrowded rooms and shacks. It is apparently due to a squabble over who gets to occupy these units.
I visited two other shack settlements in Soweto:
- Izimbuzini, where 150 families live near the Orlando Stadium, with only 6 toilets.
- Nomzamo in Orlando East, where hundreds of shacks are built near poorly planned and poorly built RDP houses. The shack dwellers have to beg for water from the formal houses.
I stayed overnight at the shack of local DA activist Sicelo Sithole.
The DA will campaign for the upgrading of the lives of the forgotten people of informal settlements in Soweto.
Political will is needed to implement simple, effective measures that could make a big positive difference in their lives.
Statement issued by Jack Bloom MPL, DA Gauteng Caucus Leader, February 21 2013
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