Update: Click here to see some pictures and to read Bongo Dlamini’s story.

Bongo Dlamini, 19 year old struggle artist elected as the chairperson of the Abahlali baseMjondolo youth league on 16 June 2008, has just lost his shack in a fire in the Motala Heights settlement in Pinetown. Neighbours were able to put the fire out quickly and it did not spread to other homes. But Bongo has lost everything he owned. He was going to design the new Durban Abahlali banner after the old one, designed by Mbongeni Msomi from Mpola, was given to the comrades in QQ Section in Cape Town to celebrate the launch of their AbM branch.

Shack dwellers are paying the price for the notorious 2001 decision of the eThekwini Municipality to cease the electrification of shacks on the grounds that it is ‘too expensive’. The price that is being paid is death, injury and destitution. How can keeping the poor safe from fire (and providing light in people’s homes so that children don’t have to do homework under the street lights) be ‘too expensive’ when there is money for casinos, 5 star hotels, shopping malls, uShaka Marine World and a new stadium right next door to the old one?

Shack fires are no accident – they are a direct result of the eThekwini Municipality’s denial of electricity to shack dwellers.
Shack dwellers do not need education on fire prevention – they need electricity.

Bongo can be contacted at 0748756234.

For background to the struggle in Motala Heights visit: http://www.abahlali.org/node/2377

For a history of the main fires in Abahlali settlements since 2005 visit: http://abahlali.org//////node/3626

For a statement on armed police de-electrification visit: http://abahlali.org//////node/3342

For Bishop Rubin Phillip’s UnFreedom Day speach calling on the Municipality to electrify the shacks visit: http://abahlali.org//////node/3489

To read Carla Mike’s research on the plague of fire and the denial electricity and in eThekwini visit: http://abahlali.org//////node/3204