Ekuphumleni residents hand over petition to Ndlambe council speaker
EFF supports march, demanding water, electricity, sewerage
About 50 residents of Ekuphumleni, supported by members of the EFF, marched to the Kenton Town Hall on Monday March 18 and handed over a petition to Ndlambe Municipality via council speaker Andile Marasi.
The petition demanded service delivery (electricity, water, sewerage) in two of the township’s informal settlements, Horseplay and Kariegaview (Sgaqa).
The EFF’s Ndlambe caucus leader and regional secretary for the party’s Sarah Baartman region, Nokuthula Memani, said her party had participated in the march, in support of the residents.
Memani said there had been a group of around 50 protesters; however, some had left to go to work.
The group proceeded to the Kenton Town Hall, where they handed over the petition.
“The residents want the municipality to provide electricity, water and sewerage,” Memani said.
“In 2018 they were told that Eskom could only bring electricity to a settlement that was aligned to a grid.
“Now, the grid layout has been achieved, but the municipality hasn’t come back to install the electricity.
“School children are
struggling to do their homework at night, because of a lack of electricity,” Memani said.
She said ward 4 councillor Simphiwe Kolosa had failed to attend a meeting with residents two weeks ago.
“He didn’t come and so they took raw sewage to his house and dumped it there,” Memani said.
Talk of the Town has not been able to reach Kolosa to confirm this.
“The residents asked the EFF for help,” Memani said.
“So we have supported them in today’s protest action.
“We helped them draft their grievances in a petition.”
Memani said they had given the mayor seven days to respond and provide a timeframe to resolve the grievances. Marasi confirmed this. “Other informal settlements are getting electricity and they want to know why,” Memani said.
On Monday morning, SAPS spokesperson Captain Marius McCarthy confirmed that the
EFF was marching in Kenton-onSea. The march had originated from a meeting the previous week and permission for it had been granted.
Ndlambe’s integrated development plan (IDP), along with its budget, is the policy blueprint for everything the municipality does.
The IDP for 2023/24 deals extensively with informal settlements.
A study of existing land use and spatial patterns is the basis of models for spatial reconstruction in Ndlambe Municipality.
The study notes that there is a prevalence of informal housing around Ekuphumleni and within Marselle and says those areas need in-situ upgrading.
The department of human settlements has a provincial business plan for informal settlements upgrading.
In the IDP, the municipality says it is committed to the promotion of the concept.
But the high cost of upgrading or installing the required bulk infrastructure could influence the available finance for existing and prioritised infrastructure projects, the municipality notes.
The housing backlog in the municipality is estimated to be 10,026 units most for households living in informal settlements with an income less than R3,500.
According to the IDP, there are 860 people in Bushman’s River Mouth on the housing waiting list; 626 in Kenton-onSea and 71 in Klipfontein.
A number of housing projects are under way, or in the planning stages, in Ndlambe Municipality.
Quoting from the 2009 human settlements plan, the 2023/24 IDP says institutional capacity was a major obstacle to efficient and effective housing delivery in Ndlambe Municipality.
Under the section, ‘Informal settlements as a tool to reduce housing backlog’, the study quoted in the IDP advises that Ndlambe Municipality leads the development of informal settlements as this would lead to planned and organised informal settlements around the municipality, paving the way for them to be formally upgraded by the provincial department of human settlements.
Ndlambe Municipality, along with many others, had started the process of formalising informal settlements
The formal upgrading of informal settlements programme (the provincial human settlements UISP programme) would be the next stage.
The preliminary pegging and survey started in April 2019 for Braakfontein (311 structures) and Wentzel Park (45) in Alexandria; Nemato Airfield/ New Rest, Port Alfred (556); Horseplay (80) and Sgaqa (50) in Kenton and Trappes Valley, Bathurst (50).
The residents’ grievances are that they want the municipality to provide electricity, water and sewerage