Abahlali kwaLanga TRA Press Statement
19 January 2013

Residents in Joe Slovo and Langa TRA continue to be sidelined by corruption

We as Abahlali baseMjondolo (ABM) are not satisfied by the way the government treats our communities. The worst part is that those who are richer do not feel ashamed to steal from the poor. We have been crying to our government, but we have been ignored.

The only thing we are fed by these people we are looking up to is lies. In the Langa TRA’s, ever since the Housing Development Agency (HDA) took over, corruption has increased. People have been robbed of their houses. They have been told to sign in order to get their housing but nothing came up. Later they were told the houses they had signed for were not theirs. These families now are stranded. They are being kept by their extended families.

31 August 2012
Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape Press Statement

Housing Development Agency trying to illegally evict resident in Langa TRA - today

For months, the local residents committee in Langa Temporary Relocation Area has been illegally selling government built shacks. Many of the people buying the shacks already have alternative accomodation and are doing it in the hopes that they will 'cut the line' and be allocated a RDP house. They don't need a TRA structure. This corruption has been supported by the Housing Development Agency and we now have evidence that at least one member is directly involved in the corruption taking place. On top of that, HDA apparently has decided to demolish some of the TRA structures – we don’t know why because they refuse to communicate this to us.

'Langa housing projects a mess of corruption and mismanagement'

To MEC for Human Settlements, Bonginkosi Madikiza
To Operations Manager of the N2 Gateway project for HDA, Bosco Khoza
To Cape Town Mayor, Patricia de Lille

Attached you will find a letter from the provincial executive of Abahlali baseMjondolo detailing some of our concerns and grievances. The situation in Langa is a ticking time-bomb. We hope that you will come meet with us as soon as possible to address them rather than pass the buck to someone else.

Forward with the struggle of the poor, forward!

Thembelani Maqwazima (AbM General Secretary) @ 0712604119

16 July 2012
Abahlali baseKwaLanga

Thandeka, who suffers from epileptic seizures, illegally evicted from her home in Langa TRA by our corrupt committee

This is the story of Thandeka Ngcelwane who, last week, was allocated No.59, a government built shack in Langa Temporary Relocation Area. However, while she was away from her new home for a few hours to visit her brother, the TRA committee headed by Zukisani Sibunzi broke the lock on her door and put someone else in the home. When she returned she found a lady in her home and her belongings removed – Thandeka had been illegally evicted from her home and, since her old shack in Joe Slovo was now demolished, she was left with nowhere else to go.

Abahlali baseLanga TRA - 5 July 2012
Abahlali baseMjondolo Western Cape Press Statement

Abahlali rises up to stop corruption and forced removals in Langa TRA

Yesterday, Abahlali baseMjondolo youth took physical action to block the Housing Development Agency from moving residents of Joe Slovo Informal Settlement into Langa Temporary Relocation Area calling the process corrupt and at the expense of current residents of the TRA.

The SANCO aligned TRA committee is selling TRA structures and houses with the tacit support of the HDA. Many of the current residents of the TRA have also been pushed off the housing lists and large-extended families are being counted as single families and therefore slated for eviction from the TRA once their relatives are allocated homes.

9 December 2011
Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape Press Statement

AGM and Campaign Against TRAs

Tomorrow Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape will hold our third annual general meeting and, at the same time, we will launch a campaign against the TRAs. The meeting will run from 11 till 2 at the Langa TRAs in Zone 27, Langa.

TRAs, known as transit camps in Durban and decant areas in Johannesburg, are unfit for human habitation. Our movement has always rejected them as inhuman and tomorrow residents of TRAs from around Cape Town will meet to speak out about their living conditions and against the TRAs. The corruption in the Langa TRAs will be noted and it will also be noted that people are always told that these places are 'temporary' but some people have been living in them for seven years now.