‘eThekwini must evict MK veterans’

24/03/2015 Durban Noxolo Mabusela of Isipingo transit camp is fed up with empty promises by municipal officails that they would be moved to housing project in Ilovu. PICTURE: SIBUSISO NDLOVU

24/03/2015 Durban Noxolo Mabusela of Isipingo transit camp is fed up with empty promises by municipal officails that they would be moved to housing project in Ilovu. PICTURE: SIBUSISO NDLOVU

Published Mar 26, 2015

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Durban - Land grabs and housing invasions by MK military veterans are causing a tug-of-war and heartache for those who have been patiently waiting for a place to call home for years.

The eThekwini Municipality has confirmed that 42 housing units in the Cornubia development north of Durban, and 24 units in the Kingsburgh West housing development, were invaded by Mkhonto weSizwe veterans at the beginning of the month.

A legal process was in place to address the matter, spokeswoman Tozi Mthethwa said.

But this was not happening fast enough for residents of the Isipingo transit camp, who said they had lived with disease, rodents and amid crime-infested squalor for almost six years.

“We watch them (eThekwini Municipality) evict people from housing all the time.

“We see them on TV (news) with police forcing people from houses, leaving them on the street with their belongings. Why can’t they do that with the MK?” asked Philisiwe Shange.

The 40-year-old was among those waiting for a unit in Kingsburgh. “When we were told in December that we were moving, I thought dignity would finally be returned to my family and we could all live together again.”

Shange was among those moved from uMlazi’s D section to make way for the King Zwelithini Stadium parking and other World Cup soccer infrastructure in 2009.

“We were told we would be here for 18 months. I sent my children home to Ixopo because we could not all live in this place with a kitchen, bedroom and lounge for the whole family all in one room.”

Shange’s disabled 9-year-old son remained and lived with her and her husband, who works at Durban Harbour.

Shange and 39 other transit camp families were given allocation documents and house numbers, and told they would be moved in January.

When there was no progress, residents took to the streets earlier this month, blockading the M35 with rubble and burning tyres.

“The municipality does not seem to hear us unless we close the street and stop normal people from using the road; we don’t matter to them - we are dogs to them,” Shange said.

Another resident, Noxolo Mabusela, 38, said she was so happy to learn she and her eight children were among those allocated housing in Kingsburgh that she cried.

She said she had been told not to enrol her younger children in school as they would be moving by the end of January.

“Now… schools are full. It seems like we are just doomed to a life of poverty here.”

The chairman of the MK Veterans Association in KwaZulu-Natal, Themba Mavundla, said although invasions were wrong, not being allocated housing was also wrong.

“The municipality has to deal with tensions with them (transit camp residents) because veterans are also direct-ly affected.

“The veterans did this to call attention to their plight after being ignored 20 years into the democracy they fought for,” he said.

Mthethwa said provision for military veterans, drawn from the Department of Military Veterans database, had been made in the forthcoming phase 1B of Cornubia, as well as in Kingsburgh West.

The latter project would ultimately have 1 300 units.

But those MK veterans already occupying units seemed too young to have fought against apartheid, Shange said.

“I went there to see for myself and found children, young boys who could not have even been alive during apartheid.

“Even if they really are MK, why take our houses? Did they fight so they could stamp on us?”

Mavundla said they would be conducting a verification of housing invaders to weed out “impostors invading housing in the name of the MK”.

He believes these “freeloaders” were part of a “dependent community” bred by the promises of the government to expect handouts.

Mabusela said the perception that they had “sat on their hands” waiting for government handouts was unfair.

Her family was moved from an informal settlement in Malvern, which was closer to the homes where she did domestic work.

“I built that home with my own hands, with money I worked for. I was satisfied and happy,” Mabusela said.

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