FEISTY LANDLADY TAKES ON BIG SHOT
Sub-let room dispute
A FORMER Umkhonto wesizwe member, now an ANC Gauteng leader, allegedly descended on an elderly landlady in Alexandra in Johannesburg and instructed a tenant to break down a burglar door of a leased room.
Ntombi Kubheka, 71, told Sowetan that Dipuo Mvelase last month cornered her with six other people, including ANC ward councillor Julia Moloi, and forced her to allow one of her tenants to sub-let the room.
Kubheka had erected a steel burglar gate on the room to prevent it from being sub-let by her tenant.
She said whenever her tenants have a problem they call Mvelase, who grew up in Alexandra.
“Property owners are abused in Alexandra,” Kubheka said.
Mvelase, a former SA Communist Party deputy chairwoman, downplayed the incident, saying the matter stemmed from Alexandra ’ s painful past.
“I was only present as a neigh- bour, ” said Mvelase, adding that tenants asked her to be present for that Saturday’s meeting.
Mvelase said the dispute was over property ownership.
Under apartheid an entity called Peri-Urban took over rental properties in the township and tenants were given permits.
After 1994, aggrieved property owners like Kubheka were given R50 000 in compensation but many were still unhappy, Mvelase said.
Mvelase said she was against the breaking of the burglar gate but was later informed it had been forcibly removed.
Kubheka said some of her tenants built their own rooms and shacks for leasing on her property.
“Bangidelelisa ngabantu [They ’ re making people disrespect me],” Kubheka protested.
She appealed for the government to sort out the land issue in Alexandra.
But the feisty septuagenarian may have to wait a lot longer.
Moloi said although land claimants had been paid R50 000 in compensation, they were still waiting to engage with the new reopened process.
The ANC councillor said she got involved because Kubheka’s home was in her ward and she had been approached by the tenant.
“I work with a [ward] committee. Kubheka was wrong to put in a burglar gate,” Moloi said.
Moloi said Mvelase got involved because she grew up there and is related to the tenant.
Kubheka said this was not the first time Mvelase has descended on her with other ANC big shots.
In March 2009, Mvelase, an SA Revenue Service executive, brought along former local councillor Sizakele Nkosi-Malobane, now Gauteng community safety MEC, to instruct Kubheka not to evict a tenant.
Mvelase, who is also part of the Defence Force Services Commission, confirmed involving NkosiMalobane in the dispute but said her role was to try and bring peace.