Residents at an Inanda transit camp have been without water, proper toilets and electricity for more than five years.
|||Durban - Contrary to assurances by a top eThekwini housing official that an Inanda transit camp, home to about 2 000 people, is adequately serviced, a DA inspection yesterday found residents have been without water, proper toilets and electricity for more than five years.
The Daily News visited the camp with DA councillors and found that electricity had been connected illegally and toilets were locked.
Residents spoke of a child having to have her fingers amputated after being shocked by an illegal connection and of unhygienic living conditions.
At Tuesday’s full council meeting, ANC councillors, including the municipality’s human settlements committee chairman, ANC councillor Nigel Gumede, insisted the camp had electricity, proper toilets and water. They branded the DA “liars”.
DA councillor Jethro Lefevre said at the transit camp: “How can the ANC tell us they represent human dignity when things are like this here? Yet they (the ANC) continue to give contracts to Shauwn Mpisane who builds houses for people that are falling apart.”
Residents took the councillors on a tour of the rundown camp, showing them a pipe they had connected to a tap across the road from the camp to have better access to water.
Khethiwe Ngema, a resident, said: “Our children and older people constantly have runny stomachs, but what else can we do, because we need water. And the electricity that is connected illegally is also not safe, but it’s out of desperation that we do all this.”
She said the toilets that had been there when they moved to the camp had since been locked and the taps outside these toilets were dry.
“The toilets we use don’t flush and we can’t let our children use these because they might get sick. I lay newspaper on the floor for my child and dispose of the stool thereafter,” she said.
While the Daily News was there, a resident, Lucas Sibiya, said a child had to have her fingers amputated after being shocked by a wire from an illegal connection.
“The child has recently come back from hospital,” he said.
The DA caucus leader in eThekwini, Zwakele Mncwango, said at Tuesday’s full council meeting that the municipality’s human settlements committee chairman, Nigel Gumede, had told them it was a lie that the transit camp had no essential services.
“We wanted to come out here and see ourselves,” he said.
Mncwango said residents had told the DA of their plight and their unhappiness with the city’s failure to provide services.
Mncwango also said the renovation of old government township houses was not happening in KwaMashu .
In KwaMashu’s B Section, the Daily News found a pensioner Mhlabase Mathenjwa, 90, living alone in one such house, which was deteriorating.
Mathenjwa, who has difficulty hearing, said she was one of the first people to live in KwaMashu.
Gumede yesterday accused the DA of using cheap politicking tactics, but admitted the transit camp did not have electricity.
“It is highly impossible that a site with a transit camp would have no water… The place is a work in progress. A lot of camps and informal settlements are being electrified, and this will also happen at this camp.”
He said the city had been allocated R611 million to renovate old government houses. The process was now in its second phase, and by the end of the month, contractors would be ready to begin work.
Daily News