The DA welcomes the news that the uMngeni Municipality will be appointing a contractor to remove hazardous waste from the eStendeni informal settlement in Nottingham Road. The announcement comes after the DA sent a letter to the Municipal Manager threatening to report her to the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC).
A delegation led by Mayor Sizwe Sokhela delivered the news to the community of eStendeni on Saturday, 5 March 2021. Mayor Sokhela’s visit came soon after the DA’s ultimatum that the Municipal Manager, Thembeka Cibane, be given seven days to appoint a contractor failing which the DA intended to report the matter to the SAHRC.
Sokhela went on to promise that the long-awaited Hillside Housing Development would house eStendeni residents. These remarks are empty promises as the Hillside Housing project has a list of beneficiaries that predates Mayor Sokhela and his administration. Furthermore, Sokhela’s utterances are an insult to residents of eStendeni who were deliberately misled and a slap in the face of the original beneficiaries that the housing development was initially intended for.
The original beneficiaries have quietly been waiting for over ten years to receive their homes. Promises to speed up the Hillside Housing Development are not new and seem to be in sync with the local government election cycle. Every five years, a delegation from uMngeni Municipality arrives to make the same promises that the previous administration made five years before. Questions posed to the former MEC for housing (view here) are also in stark contrast to what the municipality is now saying about housing. The mayor and local ward Councillor seem to be caught with their pants down in this regard.
Whilst we are not opposed to finding alternative housing for the people of eStendeni, the DA believes that beneficiaries from the existing list should be catered for ahead of anyone else. Accordingly, the DA will be writing to KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Human Settlements, Jomo Sibiya, to inquire whether or not a survey was undertaken to ascertain how many beneficiaries on the original list reside in eStendeni informal settlement and the general status of beneficiaries on the list.