Group seeks monthly damages
A GROUP of residents from Winnie Mandela Informal Settlement, east of Joburg, want their municipality to pay them R5 000 a month in constitutional damages and rent for failing to provide them with houses.
The 134 residents have hauled Ekurhuleni Municipality mayor Mzwandile Masina, city manager Imogen Mashazi, and head of human settlements Andile Mahlalutye back to the North Gauteng High Court, demanding to be paid the money as from July following the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) imposing a deadline of June for houses to be built for them.
The residents, who form the Ekurhuleni Concerned Residents Association, argue in a counter application that the payment of compensation will serve to effectively deter future breaches of their rights and those of people in similar situations.
In an application to the high court, the municipality wants the order made by the high court setting December 2018 as the deadline for building the houses, and later amended by the SCA to June this year, to be extended to the end of June next year.
The municipality had appealed against the high court order handed down in December 2017 at the SCA, and was granted the extension to June 30 this year.
The municipality’s executive manager for corporate legal services Selven Frank, has told the high court that the municipality had complied with parts of its original order, including ensuring that Masina, Mashazi and Mahlalutye comply with it and setting up a steering committee to oversee the construction of the houses.
The municipality blames unforeseen circumstances for the delay in building the houses, such as having to undertake a new town planning process and the disruption of work on-site by the Tembisa Business Forum.
But the residents are unconvinced, with their legal representative, Nomzamo Zondo, the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of SA’s director of litigation, telling the court that the municipality’s application was unjust because it would prolong the clear and continuing breach of the residents’ rights of access to adequate housing.
Zondo said the appropriate relief for each of the residents would be to direct the municipality to pay damages equivalent to one month’s rental for a house in Tembisa, and that this amount must be paid monthly from July 1, 2019, until the municipality provided the residents with the houses to which they were entitled.
She said the residents would need R5 000 per month each to rent a home in the area. The residents were entitled, in terms of section 38 of the Constitution to appropriate relief for the ongoing breach of their rights.
Residents are entitled in terms of Constitution to appropriate relief Nomzamo Zondo Residents’ legal representative