Shack dwellers protest for basic services
SHACK dwellers who invaded land during last year’s Covid-19 lockdown in several townships across Cape Town are now demanding that they be provided with basic services.
Yesterday, several hundred of the shack dwellers, who have grouped themselves as the Intlungu yaseMatyotyombeni Movement (Pain of the Slums), arrived at the legislature, demanding to hand over a memorandum of their demands to Premier Alan Winde.
Movement chairperson Xoliswa Tsholoba said all that they needed was service delivery, like all other human beings in the province.
Tsholoba said the movement was based in areas occupied during the Covid-19 pandemic in June last year. She said they did not have access to water, toilets, electricity and housing.
“We see ourselves treated as outsiders, not people who belong to South Africa. We are treated as animals, under a difficult period of corona, and we are still expected to be healthy citizens during the pandemic,” said Tsholoba.
She said the threats and eviction orders from authorities needed to stop. “We are not from any other country. We are South African citizens.”
Lockdown regulations have meant that shack dwellers could not be evicted.
Land Party leader Gcobani Ndzongana, who was among the group, said he went to support the shack dwellers, who were allegedly neglected by the Western Cape government.
The group was told that Winde was not in his office, and their demands would be accepted by the director-general in the department of the premier, Harry Malila, on behalf of the province.
Malila said the group refused to hand over their demands to him, because they insisted on seeing Winde.
“The premier is not in his office. He is not around, otherwise he would have been here,” said Malila.
Malila said the premier requested him, as the head of the administration, to accept the memorandum from the group, and hand it to the administration, but the movement was not prepared to do that.
City Traffic spokesperson Maxine Bezuidenhout said all role-players were on scene when Wale Street between Burg and Queen Victoria streets was closed due to the march. The road was opened after the crowd dispersed.
Police spokesperson Noloyiso Rwexana said members of the Public Order Policing Unit and other law enforcement agencies monitored the peaceful march.