Former squatter-camp residents are trying to rebuild their lives after being relocated three months ago.
Then the Johannesburg council removed residents of the Mandelaville informal settlement, Diepkloof, earlier this year to a deserted mine compound in Durban Deep on the West Rand, the council argued that the relocation would be in the residents’ best interests. Mandelaville lacked running water and sanitation; it was overcrowded and lacked street lights, making it unsafe and an ideal hideout for criminals.
But three months later life for the former Mandelaville residents does not seem to have changed much. The allocated mine compound houses they are living in are in a derelict state, walls are dirty and ceilings are caving in. Some houses still do not have doors, bathrooms or toilets.
Four to five families share a single-compound house, partitioned into a kitchen, dinning room and bedrooms, with no electricity — the smell of paraffin used for cooking hangs in the air. Men, women and children share ablution facilities. The less fortunate who couldn’t find space in the compound houses have erected shacks in the area.
The tall grass outside the houses gives the place a wild appearance. One tuck shop caters for a community of about 3 000 people.
Nimrod Ntsepe remembers vividly the day they were moved. As a community leader, he tried to intervene when their shacks were being dismantled. He was arrested, together with his colleagues, and is facing charges of ”interfering with the sheriff of the court”.
He says the reason people tried to stop the removal was that there had not been sufficient consultation with residents. ”Hence people resisted having their belongings loaded in the trucks. In fact, the majority of the people had their belongings either wilfully damaged or lost,” says Ntsepe. He says, in certain instances, people were not even allowed to take their meagre building materials along.
”In principle, we were not against the removal; we resisted because we were in the dark. We didn’t know where we were going and there was a great deal of uncertainty.” He agrees that Mandelaville was not ideal because it lacked basic services, streets were not clearly demarcated and rubbish was not collected regularly, but at least people could get transport to work, children could go to school and the residents were close to shops and clinics. ”We thought the council would consult with us so that we could examine the place first and see if these facilities would be available. Instead the council chose to undermine us and proceeded with the action.”
However, basic services appear to be in the pipeline. By the middle of last month a plumbing company had begun laying out bulk sewerage pipes and installing doors on some houses, and toilets. But what Ntsepe and other residents are more concerned about is access to amenities such as a clinic, recreational facilities, shops and, above all, a school. ”Currently there are many children of school-going age who are idling around here. Their parents cannot afford R150 that local private car owners charge.” A few who managed to get schooling have to walk long kilometres.
Amid the gloom, Dudu Dube and Noxolo Siyaya, who share a compound house, have come up with a project — using their dining room as a day-care facility for children between the ages of two and six. ”This is our small contribution to the community, and we hope with time some good Samaritan will come forward to help us take this a step further. Some of these kids’ parents have gone to work and they want to leave them with someone they trust will take care of them,” says Siyaya. So far they ”are taking care of 35 kids and the number is increasing daily”, says Siyaya. And for this ”we don’t get anything in return; we do it for free. Their parents just have to give them provisions [lunch packs] and the rest they leave to us.” Not every parent can afford this, though, as about 80% are unemployed and this means Siyaya and Dube have to devise means to ensure that each child gets something to eat.
Dube says the number of children grows every day and they need a bigger space. ”This is a serious challenge, as virtually every house is congested,” she says. She shares her small room with her husband, a daughter (25), two sons aged 15 and 19, and two young twins.
Asked what steps have been taken to address the plight of this community, ward councillor Paulus Mahlabe claims he was not aware that the Mandelaville residents were being relocated to his ward. When it happened, he was ”unfortunately on leave and there was nothing I could have done”. He says he only came back in early January and has since tried in vain to get the relevant parties together.
Chairperson of the South African Human Rights Commission Shirley Mabusela says the commission visited Durban Deep recently at the invitation of the Johannesburg West District of Education. She says what concerns her most is the ”lack of school facilities that impacts on the right to basic education”. She says the district assured the commission it is addressing the problem. For instance the district office has already held talks with principals in nearby areas like Dobsonville and Meadowlands to enrol children from Durban Deep.
Margaret Sandlana, director of the Johannesburg West education district, said its head office is engaging Putco buses to provide transport for children at lower-than-normal rates. She says the district has ordered 10 mobile classrooms that should be ready when schools reopen after the Easter holidays. ”We are targeting [children in] lower grades, that is from grade one to five”, whom it feels are more vulnerable and need urgent attention.
Sandlana says the district was shocked to learn that Braam- fischerville alone has about 9 000 households and this translates into a learner population of 18 000. ”And this coupled with Tshepisong — another sprawling township on the West Rand — and with Durban Deep, the demand on schooling becomes even more acute”.
She says the problem started when the Department of Housing started building houses in the area — phase I in 1998 and phase II this year — without involving the Department of Education. Consequently no schools were built. The arrival of the Mandelaville squatters aggravated the situation. Sandlana says if her district had been consulted, it would not have been faced with such a huge backlog.
Education isn’t the only problem. ”There are socio-economic issues as well,” says Mabusela. ”There is a problem of social security where pensioners and the disabled battle to get to Diepkloof to fetch their grants. There are people who have not been allocated sites.” Mabusela says the commission is also concerned about the level of environmental- and hygiene-related problems, such as uncollected rubbish, where more than two families share one tap, and the lack of basins in toilets.