Port Elizabeth – Anti-apartheid struggle activist and scholar of the Black Consciousness Movement, Moki Cekisani, said that he was being discriminated against because he did not belong to the African National Congress in Nelson Mandela Bay.
Cekisani was speaking to journalists on Thursday at an event where the metro handed over 436 title deeds to people who had received RDP houses in Walmer Township.
Cekisani, who is considered a community leader, showed reporters pictures and described how he lived in a corrugated structure which he also used to do work in.
“The mayor is doing great work in the city, I want to talk to him first that I don’t have a house. I fought in the struggle, Steve Biko died next to me. I am discriminated against because I don’t hold an ANC card because I belong to PAC [Pan Africanist Congress), so this is why I don’t have a home or a special grant,” he said.
Cekisani was detained alongside Steve Biko, Peter Jones and Barney Pityana and was tortured while in custody at the Security Branch headquarters in Port Elizabeth’s Sanlam Building. The torture led him to partially losing his hearing and having to wear a hearing aid in his left ear. He was arguably one of the last people to have seen Biko alive.
Speaking at the event, Nelson Mandela Bay Executive Mayor Danny Jordaan said that the title deeds formed part of 2 000 homes which were previously built in Walmer Township. He said it was about bringing stability and certainty back to the people in the metro.
“If you have a title deed, you have collateral you can say this is your property.If you die, you decide who inherits your home and your children wont get kicked out,”
“The handing over of title deeds is about restoring ownership and restoring the dignity of our people. It is making you equal to other residents in this country,” said Jordaan.
He said that with the metro’s new budget being passed, it made provision for 7,000 houses to be built across the metro for the next financial year.
Jordaan indicated that there was an audit process underway to deal with the problem around people who were living in the houses and were not rightfully meant to do so.
“We said to people they must not engage in illegal activities to get houses, the audit process is continuing,” he said.
Sixty eight-year-old Jane Koesder said that she had been living in her house for more than 10 years, and could not put an number to it. Wednesday was the first time she had received a title deed in all her life.
Responding to a question about the timing of the title deed handover ahead of the local government elections in August, Jordaan said it was not about the “length” of time in which this was done but the fact that it was the “right thing to do now”.
African News Agency