Following the mayhem outside the South Hills Development on August 22, the Project Steering Committee (PSC) send through the following comment:
Background
The Ward 57 Integrated Residential Development Programme (IRDP) was started by the City of Johannesburg (CoJ) Department of Human Settlement for people currently residing in the affected area including surrounding areas, those who have applied in 1996/7 and are on the demand database of the department.
The initial Project Steering Committee (PSC) was subsequently established in 2016 as per the imperatives of the CoJ by-laws and policies, national and provincial legislation and policies in order to advise the support organisation and/or the project manager for the implementation of the project. The PSC is composed of the various stakeholders as the bonafide representatives of the local community beneficiary. This PSC was disbanded in 2016 due to operational inactivity and ineffectiveness. This culminated in a lengthy participation lull by the community whereas the department and the service provider continued to implement the project willy-nilly.
The current PSC was appointed at a public community meeting held on July 21 and accordingly or dully approved by the CoJ Department of Human Settlement, thus ownership rests with the mayor.
Read: WATCH: Chaos at key handover ceremony at South Hills development
Housing units allocation
The new PSC held a total of three meetings since its inception pre-occupied with dealing with the operational and technical anomalies caused by a lengthy community non-participation.
The PSC was informed of the imminent launch of the housing units allocation and the mysterious list of qualifying beneficiaries at a meeting held on August 15 by the ward councillor and official from the department. The launch was scheduled to take place on August 22 by the mayor of CoJ, Clr Herman Mashaba.
Read: WATCH: Chaos in Nephin Road, South Hills
The PSC advised the ward councillor, together with the official from the department, to defer or postpone the launch due to the following un-resolved consequential anomalies:
• Non-involvement of the PSC community representatives in the collation of applications and/or compilation of the beneficiary list (non-transparency).
• Mystery and ambiguity around the beneficiaries therein contained.
• Indistinctness of the criteria applied.
The department disregarded the afore-mentioned PSC advice and went ahead to convene a public community meeting held on August 20 in South Hill with a purpose of informing the ward residents of the housing development progress to date and the imminent launch by the CoJ mayor scheduled to take place on August 22 on the site.
Read: Wembley residents unhappy about unit allocations
The community raised their sharp objection and rejection of the intended launch and subsequently disrupted the meeting. This was clearly the meeting convened by the ward councillor and the department and the PSC community representatives dis-owned it, based on the afore-stipulated advise. The officials of the department indicated to the community that they will revert to the mayor to communicate the community disapproval and advise that the launch is deferred or postponed. To everybody’s dismay, the launch went ahead with the allocation of units. Local residents were the minority and the rest of other people bussed in from outside areas such as Joburg inner-city, Soweto, Tshwane, Roodepoort etc. Local residents were barred from entering the launching site and the department had mobilised the notorious Red Ants and unleashed them violently against the legitimate protesters.
Concluding facts
Whereas we, the legitimate and bonafide community representative members of the Ward 57 PSC, resolve to place the following facts on record to the entire residents of the Joburg South and the South African citizens:
• Distance ourselves from the housing ‘allocations’ conducted by the department in South Hills on August 22.
• PSC community representatives used for window-dressing for tokenism by the department.
• Disrespect of the PSC community representatives by the mayor and the department – thus violating own by-laws and policies, provincial and national legislation and policies.
• CoJ mayor went ahead with the illegal, illegitimate and repulsive launch in order to mark and celebrate his second anniversary at the helm of Joburg as a mayor – political game at the expenses of the toiling, landless, indigent and underprivileged residents of ward 57.
• The CoJ mayor and the department are squarely responsible for the resultant violent protests by legitimate residents currently taking place in Ward 57, South Hills in the south of Johannesburg.
• It is a déjà vu (City Deep scenario).
Compiled by: Faried Davids, bonafide Ward 57 PSC Secretary
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