Subpoena for tardy BCM on home sharing

THE Gender Equality Commission subpoenaed BCM municipal manager Andile Sihlahla to appear at their Johannesburg headquarters on Wednesday.

This was after several failed attempts at getting answers on what was being done to end shared housing in Mdantsane, the Commission (CGE) legal advisor, Kerry Anne Oosthuysen, told the Daily Dispatch.

The issue of sharing houses was first brought to their attention in 2015 by an elderly woman who fell victim to abuse because of the undignified housing system, which was implemented by the apartheid government in the early 1980s.

“We received a complaint from a visually impaired elderly woman concerning allegations of domestic violence due to shared homes in Mdantsane.

“We intervened and obtained an interim protection order.

“It was discovered many shared dwellings still exist and they were a breeding ground for domestic violence. ”

Oosthuysen said the commission engaged the municipality on the apartheid housing legacy.

“The complainant and a secondary family sharing the home each held a letter dated March 11 2004 and May 23 2005 citing they are to remain in the house [Notice in terms of section 23 of Chapter 2 of the Proclamation 293 of 1962].

“We were advised of the establishment of an Appeals Tribunal which was tasked to rule upon any disputes regarding which family should stay and which should relocate to Unit P.

“The Commission’s plethora of requests to BCM legal department as to when the outcome of the hearings would be released and implemented was met with resounding silence.”

Oosthuysen said a report by the metro indicated that despite this R2-million tribunal held to resolve the matter, families continued to live in shared houses with no resolution in sight.

In his report, presented at the CGE headquarters this week, Sihlahla says 26 families still remain in shared homes in Mdantsane.

“It was resolved that the municipal manager would place the appeals tribunals findings before BCM’s counsel in April 2018 for consideration.

“The CGE urged BCM to resolve the shared homes matter as a priority as it was a root cause of domestic violence within homes and to place interim measures to mitigate tensions.

“Of concern to the CGE was that about R2-million was spent on the appeals tribunal process with the outcome not resolving the 26 families’ disputes,” said Oosthuysen.

Although questions sent to the municipality were not responded to this week, the metro told the Daily Dispatch last year that the sharing houses appeals had been heard by a housing tribunal which had sat for more than a year.

Buffalo City Metro’s spokesman at the time, Sibusiso Cindi, told the Dispatch in May last year the metro had to wait for resolutions from national departments and courts before the matter could be resolved. —