Rail parastatal denies it will sell sidings to neighbouring farmers
Mike Loewe
Transnet has renounced plans to sell off many of its Eastern Cape railway sidings after the Mail & Guardian last week exposed how the sale could leave homeless hundreds of evicted farm workers living on the sidings.
After several calls and a meeting between Transnet and the NGO protesting against the plan, Transnet gave extensive assurances that the evicted farm workers would not be forced to move without their consent.
In a further concession, Transnet invited the Grahamstown-based East Cape Agricultural Research Project (Ecarp) to submit proposals which could see the railway towns being being turned into viable villages in which elderly farm workers and other marginalised workers would own the houses and land.
The transport parastatal is looking for ways to clear from its books 147 Eastern Cape railway sidings and properties, which have become home to at least 1E500 marginalised people.
Transnet’s Eastern Cape housing manager Hansie Human – who drove from Port Elizabeth to Grahamstown to meet with the NGO and the head of the Albany branch of the African National Congress – emphatically denied that local farmers were poised to get the land at bargain prices.
Such suspicions had been raised by tenants of Transnet homes at Kinkelbos siding at a meeting this month at which Transnet officials and consultants mooted the sale of the siding to neighbouring farmers. Some of the farmers had been responsible for evicting the residents from their farms.
At Tuesday’s meeting Human faced up to Ecarp director Lali Naidoo, Albany ANC representative Brian Maloni and researchers from Ecarp. But by the end of the meeting, Human’s heartfelt explanation of how Transnet was going to lengths to protect the rights of marginalised people living in its abandoned homes appeared to receive a warm response.
Human told the meeting: “Nothing will happen tomorrow or in a few months’ time. This is a regional and national strategy.”
He said steering committees at regional and then national level would only make final decisions once “strategic charters” had been drawn up. Even then, the final decision would be made by his national head office.
Naidoo said Ecarp was interested in assisting former farm workers to obtain Transnet land and housing, to which Human responded: “You have my 101% OK on that!”
Naidoo said there was a possibility that housing subsidies would soon be available through the departments of land affairs, agriculture and housing and that this could be used to buy Transnet properties.
Human said: “That is an option to us. Maybe we can have a status quo option in which you and an institution can provide the services to sustain a community. As long as we can get the expenses off our books.
“If you identify stations to me which you think you can do something with, I will get out the plans and we will assist you in putting a proposal together which I will put to my head office. I am sure they will consider it.
“We are not animals. We are trying to help people,” Human added.
He said the properties ranged in character from one house per siding, to many. Some of the homes were being used as churches and schools.
While Transnet would happily consider donating the homes to projects run by organisations such as Ecarp, it wanted to be certain the projects could ensure that water was supplied and refuse removed.
He said Transnet had approached 11 railway home communities in the Eastern Cape and would be approaching many more nationally as part of a drive to get rid of unprofitable assets.