{"id":170110,"date":"2020-10-26T19:30:42","date_gmt":"2020-10-26T17:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/railway-line-shack-dwellers-trash-ward-councillor\/"},"modified":"2020-10-26T19:30:42","modified_gmt":"2020-10-26T17:30:42","slug":"railway-line-shack-dwellers-trash-ward-councillor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/railway-line-shack-dwellers-trash-ward-councillor\/","title":{"rendered":"Railway line shack dwellers trash ward councillor"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"article_body\">\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/photographers\/Vincent%20Lali\/eyadini_protest.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Photo of protesters\" class=\"warn_big\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/railway-line-shack-dwellers-trash-ward-councillor.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Shack dwellers from Eyadini informal settlement confronted Councillor Sithembiso Mzobe (in yellow on the left) at his offices in Samora Machel on Monday. Photo: Vincent Lali<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Residents of shacks built on railway lines marched to a Cape Town ward councillor\u2019s office.<\/li>\n<li>They strew rubbish outside his office and told him he was incompetent and a dismal failure.<\/li>\n<li>They are demanding water, toilets, electricity and basic services.<\/li>\n<li>The councillor said he would meet with the communtity leaders by the end of the week even though the settlement is outside his ward.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr>\n<p>Dozens of shack dwellers from Eyadini informal settlement, many <a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/railways-occupied-rapid-expansion-philippi-informal-settlement\/\">located on railway lines<\/a> at Philippi station, marched to see ward 33 Councillor Sithembiso Mzobe (ANC) at Weltevreden Valley Hall in Samora Machel on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>The demonstrators scattered rubbish outside his office as they sang struggle songs and waved placards with one main message: \u201cWe want water, toilets and electricity\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Community leader Siyamcela Lali said, \u201cWhereas the ward councillor relieves himself in a flush toilet inside his brick house, we shit in plastic bags inside our shacks at night and live with the smell of our own faeces until the next morning.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShack dwellers have to walk for more than two kilometres to look for a place to relieve themselves,\u201d said community leader Sinesipho Ben.<\/p>\n<p>She said Eyadini has been without basic services for three years. They want Eyadini to be recognised, by including it in the Samora Machel ward forum and community policing forum. \u201cWe demand to be placed on the database of informal settlements that are under Samora Machel,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>They want the City to install toilets, more water taps and \u201cat least one street light\u201d, she said. \u201cWe don\u2019t mean chemical toilets, but flush toilets that will give us dignity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have kids who struggle to do their homework at night because it\u2019s dark inside our shacks,\u201d she said. \u201cWe demand that electricity be installed in Eyadini even if it doesn\u2019t belong to the City of Cape Town.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The railway line shacks are on Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) land.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe want the City to give us a shipping container to put our rubbish in and to hire regular cleaners for us,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>They also want the shack dwellers to get \u201cfirst preference\u201d when the ward councillor hires labour for local projects. \u201cYou hire your friends for local projects while we battle with poverty in our areas,\u201d she told Mzobe.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAn incompetent leader who has failed dismally to govern his ward,\u201d she said. \u201cHe never even invited us to a community meeting to explain how he uses his ward budget.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mzobe said he would not entertain such allegations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have given them water taps and now plan to give them 400 chemical toilets,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Mzobe said he would meet the Eyadini community leaders and discuss their demands before the end of the week.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey don\u2019t belong to my ward, but I assist them because they stay in a neighbouring ward,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"article-copyright\">\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\/10\/railway-line-shack-dwellers-trash-ward-councillor.jpg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/\">Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shack dwellers from Eyadini informal settlement confronted Councillor Sithembiso Mzobe (in yellow on the left) at his offices in Samora Machel on Monday. Photo: Vincent Lali Residents of shacks built on railway lines marched to a Cape Town ward councillor\u2019s office. They strew rubbish outside his office and told him he was incompetent and a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":170111,"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-170110","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\/10\/railway-line-shack-dwellers-trash-ward-councillor.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170110","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=170110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}