{"id":166598,"date":"2020-09-24T00:41:47","date_gmt":"2020-09-23T22:41:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/we-want-our-human-rights-says-land-occupier\/"},"modified":"2020-09-24T00:41:47","modified_gmt":"2020-09-23T22:41:47","slug":"khayelitsha-land-occupiers-call-for-water-toilets-and-rubbish-collection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/khayelitsha-land-occupiers-call-for-water-toilets-and-rubbish-collection\/","title":{"rendered":"Khayelitsha land occupiers call for water, toilets and rubbish collection"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"article_body\" readability=\"109.71139308855\">\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Vincent%20Lali\/kuyasa-vl-20200921.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Photo of protesters\" class=\"warn_big\" data-pagespeed-url-hash=\"3729894863\" onload=\"pagespeed.CriticalImages.checkImageForCriticality(this);\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/khayelitsha-land-occupiers-call-for-water-toilets-and-rubbish-collection.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Scores of shack dwellers marched to the sub-council offices in Kuyasa, Khayelitsha, on Monday to demand that the City of Cape Town provide basic services. Photo: Vincent Lali<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>About 1,200 informal settlement households in Khayelitsha formed during the Covid-19 lockdown are demanding services.<\/li>\n<li>They urgently need water, more communal toilets and rubbish collection.<\/li>\n<li>Empolweni, Ethembeni and Riverside want the City to recognise their legitimacy.<\/li>\n<li>The City says those who illegally occupy land knowing there are no services do so at their own risk.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr>\n<p>Scores of shack dwellers marched to the sub-council offices in Kuyasa, Khayelitsha, on Monday to demand that the City of Cape Town provide basic services.<\/p>\n<p>There are about 1,200 households in Empolweni, Ethembeni and Riverside informal settlement along Baden Powell Drive in Khayelitsha without basic services. These settlements formed in April during level 5 of the lockdown.<\/p>\n<p>The protesters sang struggle songs and demanded that sub-council manager Lulamile Rorwana accept their memorandum. Rorwana met them outside his offices and promised to hand the memo to senior City officials.<\/p>\n<p>Ward councillor Xolisa Ngwekazi was present and said, \u201cWe demand service delivery in our informal settlements, where we live in squalor.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ethembeni community leader Nomazotsho Nobebe said, \u201cResidents dump rubbish all over the place because we don\u2019t have a facility to dump our rubbish in \u2026 We walk to Empolweni to relieve ourselves in about five smelly chemical toilets, which are always brimming with excrement.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe City is trampling on our right to dignity and living in a healthy environment. We want our human rights,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Empolweni leader Ntembeko Moyeni said they want the City to recognize Empolweni, Ethembeni and Riverside. \u201cWe are here to introduce our informal settlements to the sub-council so that the City doesn\u2019t say it doesn\u2019t know us \u2026 I don\u2019t see why the City says we are not recognised informal settlements even though the Western Cape High Court said we could continue to stay on the land.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He was referring to a Western Cape High Court ruling in April that the City <a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/khayelitsha-shack-dwellers-win-court-victory-against-city-cape-town\/\">allow 49 evicted former backyarders to stay<\/a> in Empolweni.<\/p>\n<p>Moyeni said Empolweni shack dwellers scraped the money together to buy water pipes and installed one water tap connected to pipes in neighbouring Zweledinga informal settlement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt produces water slowly in the mornings when Zweledinga residents are also busy using their taps,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Moyeni said the shortage of toilets caused long queues and the toilets were filthy. He said rats bred on rubbish and came into their shacks and ate their food.<\/p>\n<p>Resident Nosicelo Shongoza said, \u201cCurrently, we depend on one water tank. We need more.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She said residents had put their rubbish where the City cleaners could easily collect it, but it had piled up and now blocked the road.<\/p>\n<p>Mayco Member For Human Settlements Councillor Malusi Booi said, \u201cThe City has tried to prevent the illegal occupation of this particular piece of land to prevent this sort of situation from happening.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs it pertains to Empolweni, the court has allowed 49 households to temporarily stay on a piece of the land in question until the court sits again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThose who succeed in occupying illegally and knowing there are no services on the land unfortunately do so at own risk as there is a reason why the City has not designated some areas for housing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEthembeni formed after a stormwater retention pond was unlawfully occupied,\u201d Booi said. This pond was dry when it was occupied before the winter rains. \u201cDetention ponds flood every winter, and therefore they are not suitable for habitation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"article-copyright\" readability=\"47.7\">\n<p>\u00a9 2020 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/\" rel=\"license\">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/khayelitsha-land-occupiers-call-for-water-toilets-and-rubbish-collection.jpg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/\">Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scores of shack dwellers marched to the sub-council offices in Kuyasa, Khayelitsha, on Monday to demand that the City of Cape Town provide basic services. Photo: Vincent Lali About 1,200 informal settlement households in Khayelitsha formed during the Covid-19 lockdown are demanding services. They urgently need water, more communal toilets and rubbish collection. Empolweni, Ethembeni [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":166599,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9928],"tags":[28001],"class_list":{"0":"post-166598","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-groundup","8":"tag-groundup","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/khayelitsha-land-occupiers-call-for-water-toilets-and-rubbish-collection.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}