Johannesburg - “We were robbed off our subsidies by the ANC government,” Gogo Thoko Xaba said as they were taking the grievances at the ANC headquarters on Monday morning.
Residents from Siphamandla informal settlement in Moleleki extension two, Ekurhuleni took their dissatisfaction over housing among other issues to Luthuli House in a well attended demonstration.
During the demonstration, resident held placards calling for the removal of theCity of Ekurhuleni Executive Mayor, Mzwanele Masina.
“We demand our title deeds now,” some of the placards read.
According to Xaba, she arrived at the settlement in October 1994 and in 1995 they applied for government subsidies, which were approved.
“After approving us, no one from the government came to us until they wrote to us in 2013 demanding that we come to their offices,” Xaba said.
“When we got to the offices we were presented with a pile of documents and we were instructed to go to the police station and get a sworn affidavit stating that we agree with the content of the documents,” she added.
She further added that while reading the contents of the papers, she discovered that the documents were a subsidy cancelation.
She said after asking the official on the way forward after the subsidies are cancelled, she was told that they will be assisted to reapply.
“Since then no one came to us and in 2015 I went to the Ekurhuleni Department of Human Settlements with another resident from the squatter camp and a lady who was assisting us told me that her senior will not address our issues and advised us to go back and gather other documents,” she added.
Xaba said they are now unable to apply for housing as the system show that they have been allocated houses.
“We were robbed of our subsidies by the ANC government, and now we cannot apply for any subsidy because we are told we have been allocated houses, but we are still staying in shacks,” she added.
The former councillor for Ward 60 in Ekurhuleni, Nkosinathi Shabalala was part of the demonstration and called on the ANC to remove the City Mayor as he have failed the people of Ekurhuleni.
Shabalala read out a memorandum which touched on issues including poor service delivery in Siphamandla, housing and corruption within the City.
The memorandum also called for the suspension of Masina for the wrongful suspension and unlawful hearing of the City’s Chief Operating Officer Joe Mojapelo.
It is alleged that suspension and hearings were based on lies 'orchestrated’ by Masina in the Council as a way to further his personal vendetta against Mojapelo.
The residents also demanded the Granting Aid beneficiaries to be investigated for corruption as some of the municipal officials are illegally benefiting.
After handing their memorandum, the residents served the Manager in the office of the Secretary General, Justice Pitso with their ‘approved’ subsidies and proof that they were declined houses due to the cancelled subsidies which are still in the database of those who were allocated houses.
“Comrades, I have received your memorandum and I promise that we will get back to you within the stipulated time frame,” Pitso said.