Suffering as elderly, infants are stranded in the winter cold with no water, with tents as only shelter
Inline image 1Several families are spending their third week out in the cold after they were evicted on July 11. The 27 people who are now stranded with tents as their only shelter include a three-month old baby, a pregnant mother and elderly people. The cold and the lack of water cause suffering not least to the children of the community.
The Workers and Socialist Party is supporting the Thula ‘Mntwana residents, who are organised in the Masakhane Transformation Forum which unites several communities south of Johannesburg, in challenging the eviction legally as well as through mass action. WASP and Masakhane have formed part of the Thula ‘Mntwana residents’ struggle against the rampant housing corruption for some time.
The 27 were the last remaining residents in the 300 RDP houses which were occupied in March in protest against the corrupt sale of the houses; the majority having been compelled through intimidation led by the City of Johannesburg MMC for Housing, Dan Bovu, to move out and resettle in squatter camps.
– The court order that has been used to evict the residents is a fraud, says Zweli Ndaba of the Masakhane Transformation Forum.
– Neither the applicant, the ‘Grace Christian Fellowship’, nor the respondents in the case are known to the Thula ‘Mntwana residents, and there are several different dates on the court stamps, including from last year, before the houses were even occupied.
– WASP calls for poor communities across the south of Johannesburg to unite in joint action for a massive expansion of the housing programme to provide for the needs of all, under the democratic control of communities and workers to put an end to the corruption that runs through-and-through in the housing department, says Liv Shange, the Workers and Socialist Party.
INQUIRIES:
Zweli Ndaba, Masakhane Transformation Forum/ WASP, 071 139 0659
Bulelwa Mgqadaza, evicted resident, 078 426 9273
Cynthia Mzileni, evicted resident, 078 502 1011
Liv Shange, Democratic Socialist Movement/ WASP 081 3931914