Ngwako Modjaji
Henrietta Mqokomiso, who was evicted from her house in Alexandra township in June when bulldozers demolished her home of 12 years, is being given a new house by the Gauteng Department of Housing.
The Mail & Guardian reported last month that the Legal Resources Centre was preparing a legal battle on behalf of Mqokomiso, who was relocated to a piece of land in Diepsloot after her brick house was destroyed.
Mqokomiso’s lawyers brought a case to the Johannesburg High Court on the grounds that her relocation to Diepsloot was unconstitutional. They say, however, that the settlement is not final because they still want to establish what services and compensation she will be offered.
Veteran politician Helen Suzman, who helped Mqokomiso get legal representation, says the lawyers are still negotiating with the government because Mqokomiso wants to be compensated for the suffering she went through as a result of the relocation to Diepsloot.
On March 8 the city of Johannesburg went to the high court with an urgent application for the eviction and relocation of people living on the banks of the Jukskei river in Alexandra. The council told the court that the homes had to be demolished because they were at risk of flooding from the Jukskei river and because there was a threat of a cholera outbreak.
Mqokomiso’s house, however, was not on the banks of the Jukskei river.
A city representative, Nthatisu Modingoane, said this week that
the eviction order was not used in Mqokomiso’s case because Alexandra residents were relocated to Diepsloot township in an “amicable manner”.
Mqokomiso, who now lives in a cottage on her employer’s premises, says she is not pleased with the house she has been offered in Extension Five in Alexandra, because it is too small.
“I have three children to look after so the house cannot accommodate us all. They [the government] must also pay me for what I have lost,” she says.
She says her old house was better than the one the government is giving her.