eThekwini Municipality Disobeys Court Order to Provide Housing and Investigate Corruption: Residents go back to court to compel Mayor, City Manager and Director of Housing to provide houses or be held in contempt
In 2009, 37 poor families won the right to receive permanent houses in terms of an order issued by the Durban High Court. The families must now return to court to force the eThekwini Municipality to obey the order. The Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa (SERI) and Abahlali baseMjondolo (ABM) are suing the Mayor of eThekwini on behalf the families, who now live in the Richmond Farm Transit Camp near KwaMashu, Durban.
The order directed that the families be relocated from an informal settlement to a transit camp in order to make way for a new road. The order also stated that the families must be given permanent housing within a year of arriving at the camp. The order further directed the municipality to investigate the corrupt allocation of housing at the Khulula Housing Project near KwaMashu. It had been originally been intended that the families would be given permanent housing in the Khulula project, but the houses meant for them were irregularly re-allocated to other families by provincial and municipal officials.
If successful, the case will mean that the Mayor, City Manager and Director of Housing must take steps to provide housing to the families within 60 days, and must investigate the corrupt allocation of housing at the Khulula project. If they fail to do so, they will face a fine or jail time.
Teboho Mosikili, SERI attorney for the families, said: "Both Abahlali and the families themselves have patiently attempted to engage with eThekwini Municipality for three years now. Yet the Municipality is still in defiance of the court order. It is very sad that an organ of state - whose duty it is to uphold the rule of law and respect the authority of the courts - has chosen to act in such a blatantly illegal manner. The Mayor, City Manager and Director of Housing have all been served with the court order, and meetings have been convened with the Mayor to discuss compliance with it. Yet nothing has been done."
Sbu Zikode, ABM's Chairperson, said: "The corrupt allocation of housing in Durban has been a concern for Abahlali's members for a long time. People are dumped in transit camps, told that it is just temporary and then left to rot while other people are allowed to jump the queue. Now the council is supporting this by refusing to obey a court order. Moreover the Manase report which is due to be tabled to full council today in eThekwini Municipality confirms this view."
The residents will be represented in court by the SERI Law Clinic and Trudie Nichols Attorneys, together with Advocates Geoff Budlender SC, Stuart Wilson and Nicole Lewis.
The papers filed in the case so far are available here: http://bit.ly/wE2BpV
A short film about the case is available here: http://dearmandela.com/?q=node/76
Statement issued by Teboho Mosikili, attorney at SERI and S'bu Zikode, chairperson of AbM, February 29 2012
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