Abandoned and forgotten: PE’s new forced removals

Thousands of Nelson Mandela Bay residents are being uprooted from the communities they grew up in, moved across town and dumped in areas with no schools, clinics, sanitation or public transport.

Enticed by the lure of a government home, more than 2000 shack dwellers have been relocated to Motherwell’s NU29 area during the past 11 years.

Yet despite promises of a better life, not one of them has moved into a proper house yet.

Instead, they have been abandoned and forgotten by the authorities who promised them a better life.

Some of the children have dropped out of school because they cannot afford taxi fare to and from their old schools. Others have to walk 2.4km to the nearest school.

The nearest clinic is a 2.8km walk and the taxi rank is 1.3km away. There are only a few communal taps which serve the whole community of NU29, and some of these inexplicably only provide water between 11pm and 4am.

One of the most recently relocated people is Cecilia Bota, whose initial excitement at the promise of a proper home for her and her two children has turned to bitter disappointment. Bota was moved last week from her shack in New Brighton, where she has lived for most of her life, almost 10km away to NU29.

The municipality promised her a home, access to healthcare and education for her children, but when the removal truck left her with her pile of zinc and furniture, she found herself without any shelter or assistance.

And then the rain fell, soaking her bed, mattress, couch, clothes and blankets.

“The municipality only provided us with transport. After off-loading my belongings, the truck left us,” she said, hours after arriving at the site of her new home.

This is despite the fact that relocated families are supposed to move directly into a temporary home while they wait for their new government houses to be built.

“I do not know what I’ll do tonight. I will probably sleep under the sky and prepare a fire from wood collected in the nearby bush.

“I cannot ask neighbours for assistance because I do not know anybody here and we cannot leave our furniture outside, so we have no option but to sleep outside,” she said.

Sindiswa Tyelebane, who moved to the area in April, said that before coming to phase two of NU29, the municipality had promised her free transport for her children, who attend school in New Brighton.

“Before we came here, my children could walk to school and it was easy for me to shop at the nearby shopping mall in New Brighton, as well as go to the clinic without thinking about transport costs.

“My two children were forced to drop out of school because I couldn’t afford to pay transport fees of R580 a month for them.

“The only income is the children’s support grant, which is R440 for both of them.”

Basic services like water and electricity are also not easily accessible to the community. “There are only a few communal taps and we have to walk about a kilometre in the dark to get to these taps. It is quite dangerous and you have to make sure you get there very early as the queue is often long.

“Many people have been robbed while going to fetch water for their families,” said resident Nosithembiso Mbongo.

Plans for a R3.5-million clinic in the impoverished area were scrapped by the municipality earlier this month due to budget constraints.

In the meantime, residents have to wake up as early as 2am and walk about 3km to the nearest clinic in NU11, so they can get there before the queue gets too long.

Some residents are forced to collect their medicine at the clinics in the areas they were moved from, which means taking two taxis at a cost of R23.

The mobile clinic that visits the area only treats children under the age of five. Some residents suffering from TB, HIV/Aids and diabetes have defaulted on their treatment, as they have no money to get to their clinic. NU29 resident Nosiseko Toyise said she had defaulted many times on her arthritis and diabetes medication as she was unable to walk the long distance to the NU11 clinic. She said NU29 residents were also often chased away from the clinic in NU11 by staff.

“A child of a neighbour died on her way to the NU11 clinic because she had no money for taxi fare. She had to walk there because the nurses from the mobile clinic said they couldn’t help her,” Toyise said.

The councillor for the area, Sobantu Madlavu, said phases one and two of NU29 were occupied by people from Chris Hani, Ramaphosa, Edongweni and Daku.

People were relocated there as far back as 1999, yet to date no houses have been completed.

“We are targeting to complete 1100 houses by the end of March in phase one. We are busy with the infrastructure for the second phase and will start the building process once that is done.”

Madlavu said a budget for a clinic and two schools in NU29 had been approved by the municipality, but he had been surprised to hear from municipal officials that the clinic would no longer be built by the municipality, but rather by the province. He said he had also been unaware that the mobile clinic in NU29 only treated children under five and vowed to discuss the issue with the municipality.

Madlavu said two schools had been scheduled to be built in January this year, but the education department had not started building yet and had given no explanation as to the delay.

After promising to respond to questions, national Human Settlements Department spokesman Mandulo Maphumulo failed to do so. Her colleague, Chris Vick, could also not be reached for comment.

(This story is courtesy of The Herald. Used with permission.)