Residents of 11 informal settlements held a public meeting in Sikhweyiya community hall, Komani, last week.
There are 11 informal settlements in Mlungisi township in Komani, Eastern Cape. None have electricity. The oldest, Kwanca, was formed in the 1990s. The newest, eMabhangalweni, has about 500 households, while Marikana informal settlement has about 1,000 shacks, only three taps, and no toilets.
After protests last month, about 200 residents from all 11 settlements held a public meeting at the Sikhweyiya community hall last week. They expected a written response from the municipality to their memorandum of demands, which included a clear plan and timeline for electrification. They also want serviced stands with water and toilets while they wait for RDP houses.
But officials from the Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality did not arrive. Residents sang and waited. Around 11:30am, they went to look for municipal human settlements head Ongama Adonisi.
Community leader Baxolele Bango said it was disappointing that the officials residents most wanted to see had not come. He said Mayor Madoda Papiyana should apologise for the municipality’s failure to provide basic services.
Lelethu Faku lost her home in the 2023 floods. She said that after the municipality placed flood victims in emergency accommodation, no officials had came to check on them. “Houses are leaking, walls are broken, including the floors,” she said.
Monica Fula, now in her 50s, said she had been living without services for 24 years. “I left Joe Slovo due to a lack of services, but in Marikana things are worse. There’s nothing. What we want now is serviced sites. We no longer care about bricks because we know they will take forever.”
Ward committee member Silvia Mabhuvu, from Cemetery informal settlement, said: “At home we are ten people sharing a three-room shack. Old people are dying while they wait for houses.”
She said that when she takes the ward committee’s list of people awaiting houses to the municipality for verification, “we are always told there are network issues”.
“We don’t even know if we appear on a database or not,” she said.
Adonisi said the New Rathwick housing project, which will build 3,000 houses, will start in March. Priority would be given to “child-headed households, military veterans and backyard dwellers”.
He advised residents to work with their ward councillors, but he was shouted down by people saying their councillors had failed them.
Municipal spokesperson Lonwabo Kowa has not yet responded to our questions.
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Knuckles
The early bird catches the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese
Fearless
Van is getting married, but he and his fiancee have never done the deed – in fact he\’s never been with any woman before. He\’s getting more and more nervous as the big day approaches, so he confides in his friend. His friend says \’No worries man. I\’ll come by the honeymoon suite before you guys get there, and I\’ll hide behind the curtain, and I\’ll whisper instructions to you.\’
\’You\’d do that for me?\’
\’Sure thing man!\’
So the wedding day arrives, it was a lovely service (so I was told, I wasn\’t there myself) and Van\’s friend sneaks into the honeymoon suite as promised and hides behind the curtain.
Van and his new wife arrive in the room, get settled on the bed, and things are getting steamy.
But Van is still super nervous and his tummy is bubbling, so he murmers to his wife, \’Listen babe, I\’m just gonna go to the bathroom quick. I think it\’s that wors roll from earlier.\’
\’Sure thing babe.\’
So Van goes into the bathroom, and he\’s taking quite a long time. And his wife is starting to feel the nerves herself. And it\’s getting worse. She can\’t hold it in. But she doesn\’t want to go after he\’s gone and totally ruin the mood. So she looks around and finally finds a shoebox. Quickly, she does her business in the shoebox, and she shoves it under the bed just as Van comes back from the loo.
Van gets back on the bed and they go at it again. But after a minute or so Van smells something not so lekker.
\’What\’s that smell?\’
\’Nothing babe,\’ he wife tries to assure him.
\’No man there\’s definitely something not so lekker in this room!\’VSo Van starts looking around the room, in the corners, in the cupboard, and finally he looks under the bed, and sees the shoebox.
He pull it out, and opens it up, and in horror he shouts \’Sies! Daar\’s kak in hierdie doos!\’
And from behind the curtain his friend yells, \’NEE MAN, DRAAI HAAR OM!\”