The residents of the transit camp near Umbhayi have made their displeasure known during a protest in Flamingo Heights, Tongaat, on Friday, 16 February, where they brought traffic to a standstill.
The aggrieved residents brought up a number of concerns including damaged ablution facilities, roofing and roads, no collection of refuse and a lack of attention from their ward councillor, Dolly Munien. Brandishing signs and chanting slogans, the residents marched to the Sizakala Centre with a memorandum of their concerns.
The residents alleged that they have been living in the transit camp for longer than they were led to believe by the municipality. According to the residents, they were expected to remain at the camp for no-longer than a maximum of three years but have been living at the camp for five years.
Cllr Munien said that in 2019, the municipality decided to build proper housing for the residents in the informal squatter camp who were living illegally on municipal land. She said the decision was made by the Housing Department, where upon they formed a database of around 230 people who would be beneficiaries of these low-cost homes.
“To initiate the building project, they had to then move some of the illegal residents to a transit camp nearby in order to begin development. After much deliberation, they agreed to move into the new transit camp where they were told that the project will take minimal time and that by the year 2020 they would have the keys to their new homes,” said the Ward 61 councillor.
She said this, however, did not take place as the whole country and the entire world was placed on lockdown due to Covid-19.
“This put a hold on the project for a while and the next year, the April floods devastated Tongaat followed by the riots. During that time, emphasis was placed on disaster management, and the recovery of the damaged water systems. That being said, at that time the residents of the transit camp were not forgotten, they were given clothing, food, grocery hampers and blankets and drinking water, by NGO’s of the community as well as the Democratic Alliance who took care of the residents that were so badly affected,” said Cllr Munien.
Philani Biyela, who lead the protest, said the conditions in the Umbhayi transit camp are not acceptable. He said residents are dealing with a number of problems in receiving basic services.
“The refuse here goes uncollected for months at a time and the roads are in disrepair. When it rains, homes are damaged and the bridge is washed away. The roofs of many houses are leaking and when we try to repair them, we are told we are not allowed to. We have no electricity and for the last six months, we do not even have functioning toilets,” said Biyela.
Cllr Munien said that Biyela was not a legal resident of the transit camp but rather an illegal tenant. She also said that a lot of the damage was due to the illegal residents that had now leased their transit camp homes and rebuilt squatter homes near the river which is a flood plain and declared a disaster area.
Speaking on the issue of the removal of refuse and the block ablution facilities, Cllr Munien said: “These issues are mentioned time and again but there are contractors and workers that are paid by the municipality to do this. If the problems were so bad then the workers should have complained and logged calls with their supervisors and managers. There are also ward committee members who are in charge of this but there is no formal emails or communications in regard to any of the issues. I do acknowledge that the draining system is very bad and during rainy weather, the homes are flooded and the roads are damaged. I have correspondence by emails where I have asked for the roads to be graded and restored for the residents. The bridge which is also one of their concerns is not a valid one as the municipality has built a steel bridge for the use of the transit camp residents. The other bridge is an informal one that keeps getting washed away and damaged but is not the designated path for the residents.”
Cllr Munien disputes the allegations by the community that ward councillors have not helped them in their struggles. “I have many times requested the housing officials to come and address residents as to when the project will resume and also the other issues that the residents have. The officials had agreed to a meeting but on 7 September 2023, they did not appear and at that meeting I was assaulted and my phone was damaged. I opened a case at the Tongaat SAPS for this matter.
“The assault on me in September of last year has deterred me from further interacting with any residents, however, I still sort out queries regarding the transit camp regularly. This last rain that flooded the area is a prime example. I called the residents in January to the hall and over 150 of them responded. Then on the 15 February, they were provided with mattresses and blankets,” she said.
Biyela alleges that after the march, the memorandum was delivered to the office of the mayor. “With no aid being received through councillors or the Sizakala Centre we have had our concerns delivered to the office of the eThekwini mayor himself,” he said. The eThekwini Municipality had yet to comment at the time of print.
