WATCH: Dann Road squatters give metro 7 days to respond to demands
'We want to promise the people of Glen Marais that we are going to breathe the same air and the eviction will not happen,' - EFF
Basic services and the disciplining of the ward councillor were among the demands handed over to the City of Ekurhuleni by the Dann Road squatters on Friday after their peaceful march to Kempton Park Civic Centre.
The informal settlement community, who named themselves Glen Marikana, gave the metro seven days to respond to the demands.
Also read:
• UPDATE: Dann Road squatter march ends peacefully at civic centre
• Dann Road closed as eviction notices are served on squatters
The metro police and police escorted the singing residents on their three-hour march. The march followed hot on the heels of the squatters receiving notices, on April 3, of intention to evict them.
EFF members joined and supported the marchers who handed over their memorandum to Viva Mokoena, strategic advisor to the city manager, who received it on behalf of the city manager.
Mokoena told EXPRESS after receiving the memorandum: “It is people exercising their rights and as the metro we must listen and check the validity and provide a solution. In instances where we can’t help we have to tell them that it is not doable but in the case of any other submissions, the matter will be considered.
“They won’t be prejudiced. We will treat it like any complaint we receive subjected to a process, check the validity and provide a response.”
According to Fikile Mafuyeka, acting treasurer for the EFF Ekurhuleni region, the march went well.
“However, we are not satisfied with the city manager not being available to accept the memorandum. It is not that we have anything against the councillor himself, but he refused to work with the community.
“I think he forgot his mandate because his mandate is to work with the community. He refused to receive the memorandum from inception and we followed the legal steps until we were granted this day to march and we are happy.”
“We want all our demands to be resolved within seven days and the person that came to accept the memorandum on behalf of the city manager has agreed that the demands will be addressed within those seven days.
“The demands include sanitation. That is not even a day-to-day but a minute-to-minute request. You need a toilet, so even the seven days we are giving them, are lenient,” she explained.
“Basic services need to be given to the people. If you are a councillor you are not supposed to take sides, you are supposed to service your people.
“We spoke of the eviction as well, but we want to promise the people of Glen Marais that we are going to breathe the same air and the eviction will not happen.”
Mampuru Mampuru, leader of the EFF Ekurhuleni region, said: “We consider this a very successful march. I need to commend the community of Glen Marais, in particular at Dann Road plot 27, for having made this march a success.”
The date for the march was chosen for a specific reason.
“On April 6, 1652, Jan van Riebeeck arrived in South Africa, so we had to organise this march on this day to remind all that it is the day colonialism started,” Mampuru told EXPRESS.
“As the chairperson of the region and also as the leader in council, we are going to action this memorandum in council.
“I am glad that the City of Ekurhuleni has also come on board and said they were going to provide our people with skip bins, additional ablution and proper sanitation. We are not racist and will not be racist; we are going to fight racism.”
The memorandum, read at the civic centre by Isaac Mampana, chairperson of the EFF in ward 16, stated:
“The City of Ekurhuleni’s failure to make inner-city accommodation affordable has resulted in many people living informally in dilapidated structures. While this is a historic effort of the apartheid regime’s spatial development that ensured that black people were outlawed from living in the City, The City of Ekurhuleni is not doing enough to make life bearable for the poor and marginalised.
“We, the community of Ward 16, Kempton Park, Dann Road Settlement, also known as Glen Marikana, live in squalor with no health care facilities or sanitation. This petition seeks to draw to the attention of the City our condition and the violation of our rights as protected in the Constitution of the Republic to primary health care and sanitation.
“We therefore demand the following;
- The city disciplines the councillor of ward 16, Jacobus Hendricks Terblanche, for stopping and blocking the department of health from rendering a two-time weekly health service to the community, and resume with the service ASAP.
- Temporary sanitation (toilets), as a temporary measure to the inhumane conditions under which the people relieve themselves that will accommodate the 250 houses.
“We demand that our concerns be addressed no later than 7 days from the handing of this petition.”
Both Mokoena and Mampana signed the memorandum and the residents were escorted back to Dann Road, still singing in high spirits along the route.
