Sizwe Mathabula (not his real name) lives in a high-rise building in Hillbrow. He works as a nightwatchman, guarding an inner-city office block three nights a week. He supplements this income by selling vegetables on the city’s pavements. In a typical month, he clears about R800, which he uses to support his wife and their two young children.
Mathabula considers himself fortunate to have found employment at all, even though every night he is in danger of being attacked by criminals, and each day he risks being fined R300 for infringing municipal by-laws by trading within 5m of an intersection.
Despite spending half his earnings on rent, the building he lives in has no water or electricity. Following non-payment by a group of tenants, the landlord had supply to the entire building disconnected, even though Mathabula has been paying for these services.
First Mathabula tries to call Jo’burg Water to assert his right to water access, as set out in Section 27 (1)(b) of the Constitution, and his six kilo-litres of free basic water a month. After five unanswered phone calls from a payphone (there is no toll-free number), he turns to City Power to alert them that his landlord has disconnected his electricity supply in contravention of his right to just administrative action (Section 33). He gets through to City Power, but is informed he should speak to customer relations manager Donald Greyling. He leaves him four messages, but none of his calls are returned.
Having failed with Jo’burg Water and City Power, he reports the disconnections at the Hillbrow police station, where he is told the police “don’t deal with water or electricity matters”. As a last resort, Mathabula forgoes a day’s trading to go the Braamfontein Metro Centre. Here he is told the City does not involve itself in disputes between landlords and tenants, even where this involves landlords failing to pass on free basic water and electricity entitlements. Exasperated, he asks if he can bypass his unethical landlord and pay the City directly. He is told that this is not possible as the City only contracts with owners and/or body corporates.
Desperate, Mathabula makes enquiries about alternative accommodation in the context of his right to access to adequate housing, as guaranteed in Section 26 (1). He quickly realises he is unable to afford private rentals, but his hopes are raised when a friend tells him about two new social housing initiatives for poor people in Hillbrow: Europa Hotel and recently renovated Rondebosch. But on inspection, no accommodation is available at Europa Hotel. In any event, even the “transitional rooms” — where each of the four beds costs R150 a month — are out of his reach. It would cost Mathabula R600 a month for his family of four. Rondebosch proves no better. The cheapest (communal) room costs R520 a month, excluding water and electricity. Even so, none is available. The only available unit, a bache-lor flat, costs R1 200 a month.
Mathabula is left wondering whether there is any room for the poor in Johannesburg’s inner city. He isn’t sure if he will vote in the March 1 local government elections.
Jackie Dugard is a senior researcher at the Centre for Applied Legal Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand