Commission berates Baleni for no-show at Alex inquiry

The South African Human Rights Commission (HRC) has threatened that the Gauteng office of the premier’s director-general, Phindile Baleni, could be subpoenaed to testify at the Alexandra inquiry.

The inquiry, which started on Monday, was set up to address issues brought to light by the Alexandra protests in April ahead of the 2019 elections.

Baleni was expected to testify on the second day of the inquiry yesterday, but she was not present.

HRC Gauteng provincial manager, Buang Jones, explained that it was the second time she had failed to attend the inquiry, the first time being on April 18.

“She was also invited to appear before the commission and she’s still not here. This is despite the commitment made by the premier that they will cooperate with the commission. This explicitly stated, the inquiry panel will recommend that the director-general is subpoenaed as her conduct clearly demonstrated she is not willing to cooperate,” said Jones.

On the other hand, available to appear before the inquiry was the city manager of The City of Johannesburg, Ndivhoniswani Lukhwareni, who prepared a presentation with images to outline the work the city was doing in Alexandra township.

Among the things mentioned, he said informal areas in Alexandra were provided with basic water and sanitation services on a regular basis.

“In Alexandra there are 1,175 chemical toilets that are serviced on average twice a week. The current ratio is one toilet to 11 households. In the 2018-19 financial year [to date], a total of 1,286 sewer blockages were reported and attended to in Alexandra.

“Johannesburg Water attended to 96.5% of these blockages within 24 hours against a target of 96%. During the same period, 220 water pipe bursts were reported and attended to.

“Of these bursts, 90.18% were attended to within 48 hours against a target of 95%.”

He also said that the municipality had a number of interventions in the township to deal with environmental waste.

He said the removal of illegal dumping happened every working day while daily household dumping and street cleaning and sweeping happened seven times a week.

However, Alexandra resident Phumzile Sithole, also present at the hearing, was not impressed by the words of the manager and said she felt disappointed and dehumanised since “they are being dishonest about a lot of things”.

She said the municipality was not as consistent as they said they were with cleaning up the township. She said residents were always left with disappointing WhatsApp notifications that a truck meant to pick up their waste had broken down.

“It was funny when they said they supplied plastic bags. That hasn’t happened in so many years. We do not get those things. If you have money you will go and buy your own,” said Sithole.

“Instead, other people are buying from employees of Pikitup branded plastic bags that belong to the municipality, because they are no longer being given to people.

“There isn’t anything new they have done as a municipality so it is quite disappointing, because it doesn’t even show that they have any intention to do anything different in Alex.”

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