Lockdown diaries: Govt exposes Kokotela residents to virus

Three weeks into South Africa’s lockdown, tempers are beginning to flare as people make this “new normal” part of their lives.

But no one was prepared for the anger of the residents of Kokotela informal settlement south of Johannesburg when their lives were turned upside down.

Lawley residents were adhering to the rules by staying indoors – cramped, but indoors. But what brought them out in droves was when the cops and Red Ant Security Relocation & Eviction Services moved in and broke down their shacks – and even brick houses.

On Thursday morning the Red Ants moved in; on Sunday, Kokotela barricaded the streets as they were told Gauteng MEC Lebogang Maile and mayor of Joburg Geoff Makhubo were to address them.

I’m part of the crowd waiting – and wait we did. “It’s all lies, everything,” says resident Nkosana Mshibe. “We were told the MEC will talk at 9am. It’s now 2pm. That’s why we are barricading the streets. We are trying to provoke him to come and speak to us.

“This is the man who says he moved from Soweto because government doesn’t give the township RDP houses and he has been staying at this mother in a back room. It is time for him to find a place for his family,” Mshibe says.

Sindiswa Zwane, who is petrified of losing her shack, said she was tired of paying rent to landlords. That’s why she came here to build a home from the little money she made from selling plastic.

Social distancing and isolation flew out of the window when the Red Ants moved in. Instead of protecting them, they have been sent to evict residents in Lawley extension two.

Now, the residents are being exposed to the virus as they sing freedom songs – definitely more than 50 were waiting for the no-show MEC.

I am wondering about housing. Yes, RDPs in Soweto are nonexistent. That’s why people who for years live in small back rooms in the hope of getting a RDP house resort to land invasion. It’s a cry for government to up the ante on housing.

But why is land an issue in this “new normal”? Surely, that shouldn’t be government’s focus? Surely, we are fighting the coronavirus – a killer of hundreds of thousands?

Government failed Kokotela: they didn’t protect residents from the virus, they exposed them to it.

Duduzile Gumede.

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