‘It’ll happen again’ say Silver Town
Residents claim politicians flock to Khayelitsha in times of tragedy, but leave with empty promises
Thuliswa January, like many others who lost their homes in the fire that left over 1 300 Khayelitsha residents homeless last weekend, blames the devastation wrought by the blaze on the limited space they have to erect their shacks.
On Tuesday evening, January stands on the sidelines as her husband, Nkosinathi, uses the materials sent to the scene by the City of Cape Town to rebuild their home — “back to back” with others.
January speaks loudly so she can be heard over the sound of Nkosinathi’s hammer colliding with the new sheets of zinc. She points to the 60cm corridor between their and their neighbour’s newly built shacks, saying: “It is going to happen again.” January later repeats this sentiment, her voice now straining to be heard over the hammering.
In the early hours of last Saturday, a fire broke out in Silver Town, Khayelitsha, gutting more than 300 homes. One person reportedly died.
There’s a photograph of the aftermath that has been circulated on social media. It shows a dark depression in the landscape of the Cape Town township — like a footprint left by a monstrous force.
As residents rebuild their homes, provincial and local government say there are plans to improve living conditions in the area. But residents are not convinced.
January wasn’t home when the fire started. She and her family — Nkosinathi and their two children — were visiting her mother in adjacent Town 2. She only heard about what had happened in the fire when a neighbour told her on her walk back to the site of her home.
“I didn’t want to come home because I was afraid to see what happened. I waited for my husband to return from work,” she says.
What they found was a patch of ash where their small home, which once housed the bed in which all four slept, used to be.
January says she wrote to the City of Cape Town 10 years ago to complain about the conditions in the informal settlement. She says she wanted government officials to inspect the place, but they never did.
She says that, despite the recent tragedy, and the apparently renewed public interest in the lives of Khayelitsha shack dwellers, not much has changed.
After the tragedy, and the circulation of the picture of its effect, aid — mostly food and clothing — has been sent to the victims of the fire. Drives to raise supplies are being advertised on social media.
But the only evidence of this is the odd polystyrene container propped in the white beach sand of the township. Many say they have been wearing the same clothes for days now.
Officials still won’t visit the scene of the tragedy, choosing instead to address residents on the outskirts of Silver Town, January says. “We only saw them on the TV. They never came to where the disaster really is.”
Reblocking
Western Cape Human Settlements MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela did visit the township on Saturday afternoon. He reportedly made a plea to residents to clear the site before erecting new structures.
January exaggerates every syllable of the MEC’s name. She says government officials like him have failed them. “They keep telling us that they were going to negotiate land for us. Since we voted in 1994, they have told us this … All they do is speak at Parliament and then go to their houses, their mansions. They have left us, but they must speak for us.”
Khayelitsha residents talk about promises made to them by Madikizela and others, involving moving some of them out of Silver Town to another location to open up more space. No one knows where they will be relocated to if this does happen.
Spokesperson for the Western Cape department of human of settlements, Nathan Adriaanse, says that in the meantime it is implementing its informal settlement support plan, “which provides a clear roadmap to address the challenges faced by informal settlement residents”.
The department has prioritised the upgrading of informal settlements in the province, Adriaanse said.
The City of Cape Town’s MEC for transport and development Brett Herron says the city approved a new municipal spatial development framework (MSDF) in April. The framework will pursue new forms of city planning with the aim of making Cape Town more spatially equitable, he says.
“The very purpose of the MSDF is to reverse the legacy of separate devel-