LIFE in Dorchester Heights squatter camp is the same despite residents voting for change 20 years ago.
If you live there, home is made of plastic sheeting, the nearby bushes are your toilet and drinking water is from a stream nearby. When it rains this water is contaminated by whatever washes in.
Community leader Tayi Mberane said the people of this, one of East London’s oldest informal settlements, were a forgotten community, just used as voters.
“We drink faeces-infested water. This is not right for a person who has been voting for 20 years,” he said.
There are about 30 shacks in the camp, inhabited by those working in Dorchester Heights and other suburbs nearby.
“Some here do not have money to travel home every day as they don’t have jobs … This situation needs urgent attention,” he said, adding that their councillor, Makaya Bopi, in charge of Ward 29, promised them “heaven and earth”.
“If you look at the homes these people have, neither a mayor nor a councillor would spent a night here. We are a forgotten community.”
Bopi said he was doing his best but he wasn’t even really their councillor. “I’ve visited them a number of times trying to help. The land is privately owned and we are doing our best to assist, there is no way we can leave these people.”
Asked by the Daily Dispatch why people still had to drink from a murky stream, Bopi shifted blame, saying the settlement fell in Ward 15.
“There is nothing much I can do in terms of building houses. As a human being I’ve gone the distance to try and help as they think they are in my ward.”
But Ward 15 councillor Dinesh Vallabh said: “That community is definitely not in my ward. It belongs to Ward 29.”
Gabriel Ngalonkulu, who has lived there since the late 1990s, said there were families in some shacks.
“All we are calling for is temporary structures if this land doesn’t belong to the council. Can’t anyone help people like us in need?”
Ntsodayi Dlova said while some residents had decided to vote, they would vote for a party that would work for them.
“We feel it is time to vote for a person who will give life. We don’t have electricity and water and we still use bushes to relieve ourselves.
“Are we animals?”
Bopi said the municipality was working on plans to assist. “For instance after these recent heavy rains, we have ensured they will get something from the disaster unit. All they have to do is go and vote.” — bonganif@dispatch.co.za
Forgotten people wait for change
If you live there, home is made of plastic sheeting, the nearby bushes are your toilet and drinking water is from a stream nearby. When it rains this water is contaminated by whatever washes in.
Community leader Tayi Mberane said the people of this, one of East London’s oldest informal settlements, were a forgotten community, just used as voters.
“We drink faeces-infested water. This is not right for a person who has been voting for 20 years,” he said.
There are about 30 shacks in the camp, inhabited by those working in Dorchester Heights and other suburbs nearby.
“Some here do not have money to travel home every day as they don’t have jobs … This situation needs urgent attention,” he said, adding that their councillor, Makaya Bopi, in charge of Ward 29, promised them “heaven and earth”.
“If you look at the homes these people have, neither a mayor nor a councillor would spent a night here. We are a forgotten community.”
Bopi said he was doing his best but he wasn’t even really their councillor. “I’ve visited them a number of times trying to help. The land is privately owned and we are doing our best to assist, there is no way we can leave these people.”
Asked by the Daily Dispatch why people still had to drink from a murky stream, Bopi shifted blame, saying the settlement fell in Ward 15.
“There is nothing much I can do in terms of building houses. As a human being I’ve gone the distance to try and help as they think they are in my ward.”
But Ward 15 councillor Dinesh Vallabh said: “That community is definitely not in my ward. It belongs to Ward 29.”
Gabriel Ngalonkulu, who has lived there since the late 1990s, said there were families in some shacks.
“All we are calling for is temporary structures if this land doesn’t belong to the council. Can’t anyone help people like us in need?”
Ntsodayi Dlova said while some residents had decided to vote, they would vote for a party that would work for them.
“We feel it is time to vote for a person who will give life. We don’t have electricity and water and we still use bushes to relieve ourselves.
“Are we animals?”
Bopi said the municipality was working on plans to assist. “For instance after these recent heavy rains, we have ensured they will get something from the disaster unit. All they have to do is go and vote.” — bonganif@dispatch.co.za
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