Tenants of N2 Gateway, Langa, to march on Tuesday 17 July

Sunday 15th July 2007
12 noon

LANGA, CAPE TOWN - About 500 tenants from N2 Gateway Tenants Committee in the new N2 Gateway flats in Langa are marching on Parliament on Tuesday 17th July, over high rents for their defective, new flats.

The march begins at Kaisergracht at 12noon.

The tenants will march on Parliament (Lindiwe Sisulu) supported by the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign. Residents from Hanover Park, Khayelitsha and Zille Rain Heights are expected to join the march to show their solidarity.

The residents have faced the same problems as other poor, Black residents who move into low cost housing in Cape Town, namely that within months or even weeks, major defects show up in their flats or houses. These defects include huge cracks in walls, leaking roofs to the extent that parents with children have had to send their children to live with extended family members in other suburbs. There was also a problem in September 2006 that anybody's keys could open anyone else's flats. They still did not change the locks to this day!!!

"On top of this, the flats are tiny and the rent is extremely high for a rotten potato" said Luthando Ndabambi, Chairperson of the Tenants Committee.

The committee has submitted CDs of photos to the Rental Housing Tribunal and the MEC for Housing showing the major defects but to no avail.

About 100 homes have filed grievances at the Rental Housing Tribunal but they have not assisted the residents, despite numerous requests - the Rental Housing Tribunal has not once visited the area. Instead they sent threatening letters to the co-ordinator of the residents committee telling him he is restricted from dealing with housing problems in his community. Apparently there is a high turnover of staff in the Rental Housing Tribunal office, which worsens matters. The Tribunal has also refused to send letters to residents in their home language, isiXhosa.

The flats have since been dubbed "Gateway to Hell".

Communities have also vowed to support the remaining six thousand residents of Joe Slovo informal settlement in Langa, who face forced removal next month. About 1000 other Joe Slovo residents were forcibly removed to make way for the now defective N2 Gateway flats. They were dumped in Delft against their wishes where they faced a hostile community and a desperate life since most residents are unemployed and Delft is in the middle of nowhere, without a train station.

The remaining six thousand Joe Slove residents have also been informed that they will be forcibly moved to Delft next month. They have not been given any information about how their children will be transported to and from their schools in Langa. They have only been told that they are going to be put in temporary asbestos houses.

It is clear that the ANC-DA partnership simply intends to move shackdwellers away from tourists view on the N2 highway and dump them in remote places where they will be out of the public eye. The fact that there is much infrastructure in Langa that people rely on (schools, clinics, buses, trains, employment projects) and the fact that many women in Langa work in domestic work in town (which is very nearby) is of no concern to the DA-ANC Gateway partnership. It costs R20 per day to travel from Delft to town and back whereas it costs only R90 per month for a monthly train ticket from Langa to town and back.

.../ends

For comment call Luthando Ndabambi, Chairperson of N2 Gateway Committee on 083 3318839 or Gary Hartzenberg from Anti-Eviction Campaign on 072 3925859