PICS: ‘Our people live in squalor’
Durban — For 16 years, scores of flood victims have been stuck in several transit camps in eThekwini, and their hopes of getting proper houses remain a pipe dream.
This is despite the ANC-led provincial government promising to fully eradicate transit camps in the province, as early as 2022.
Destitute residents who have been living in a transit camp in Lamontville near Mega City Mall since 2008, said they are now fed up and have resorted to blocking political parties from campaigning there.
A resident, Nomusa Ngcobo, pulled no punches, labelling the government as “useless”.
“We have been here for 16 years and no one cares about our plight until it’s election season. Our government is useless in showing us that they don’t care about the poor,” Ngcobo said.
She is among the residents who were forced to relocate after the 2008 flash floods that left a trail of destruction in eThekwini. Since then, she has been living there with her daughters, Silindelo and Thando.
“We fear every day that we may be raped here as you can see how we live in this place. We are all crammed into this camp. Women, children, and men are all here,” she said.
When the Daily News visited the transit camp on Tuesday, there was a pile of uncollected trash at the entrance. The makeshift toilets did not work, leading to a terrible stench filling the air.
Oblivious to their plight, children in tattered clothes played around the camp while elderly people went on with their business.
The transit camp – consisting of corrugated iron single rooms – houses thousands of people.
A local community leader Musa Cele, said all pleas for better housing had fallen on deaf ears.
“That is why some residents decided to chase away ANC volunteers on Sunday because people are fed up. The living conditions here are difficult to bear, and people are tired of empty promises,” said Cele.
ANC volunteers were at the transit camp to woo the residents ahead of the highly-anticipated national elections on May 29.
Cele said the living conditions at the camp have deteriorated and led to a surge in crime rates.
“Crime is the order of the day here. It is not safe here. People are killed almost every day because of the setup of the living conditions.”
Other political parties, including the IFP and the DA, have visited the camp and promised better housing if the residents voted for them into power.
A resident Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi said: “Life here is a horrible mess. The government has neglected us. We are not asking for a lot. We want proper houses.”
Residents in the Mayville transit camp are equally unhappy at the government’s slow pace in moving them to better houses.
“The government dumped us here and left. No one seems to care about it. Whether we have water or electricity, they don’t care. But they do want our vote when it’s election time,” said a resident, Sibongile Mkhize.
Mkhize said she was hopeful that her plight would change when the then MEC for Human Settlements, Dr Ntuthuko Mahlaba, announced during his budget speech in April last year that the programme of “decommissioning transit camps is progressing well.”
Since then there had been little progress in moving the residents out of transit camps, and Ngcobo said all her hopes had been dashed.
Mahlaba had said at the time, “Transit Camps and our multi-pronged approach to accommodate victims of the April 2022 floods, we remain committed to fulfilling the Premier’s pronouncement to decommission all 15 transit camps in the eThekwini Municipality.”
He added: “Working closely with eThekwini, we have targeted to provide permanent housing solutions to residents of 14 of the remaining 40 transit camps in 2023.”
The Daily News approached Premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube’s office for comment, however, the spokesperson Bongi Gwala directed the newspaper to the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta).
KZN Cogta spokesperson Nonala Ndlovu said: “This is a matter for the Department of Human Settlements.”
A request for comment was sent to the Department of Human Settlements and Public Works on Monday morning. A reminder was sent on Tuesday but they had not responded by publication time.
The eThekwini Municipality also did not respond to a request for comment.
IFP president Velenkosini Hlabisa bemoaned the lack of proper housing during his election campaign in Maphumulo, in the Ilembe District, on Sunday.
“The IFP will provide proper houses with sanitation if you elect us into power. The transit camps our people are forced to live in are dehumanising and uncalled for,” said Hlabisa.
During an event dubbed “UnFreedom Day” last month, Abahlali baseMjondolo president Sbu Zikode said: “Transit camps must be rejected as an insult to the dignity of the people. The housing list must be transparent, and neither renters nor any other particular group of residents should be excluded from the list.”
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