Service Delivery Memorandum

From the Communities

of

Lwandle- Nomzamo- Asanda Village

TO                   : Sub Council 8 Manager, Municipal Manager (City of Cape Town) AND MAYOR

Subject            : Modern day, but same old living in in feces’

TO OUR SUB COUNCIL AND CITY MANAGER,MUNICIPAL MANAGER AND MAYOR

It’s is with great disappointment that we have to write this memorandum to you as we cannot bear the living condition of our communities that are flooding with feaces. We have a community that has in access over 90,000 citizens whom are all living a day to day living in undignified circumstances where for more than 24 months drains are constantly spilling feaces into our streets to no stop.

Our demand is to understand why there city (municipality) cannot have measures in place to deal with sewage spillages and drain blockages timeously on a daily basis? Our communities have been allocated small land for tens of thousands of us to live. The city continues to fail to deliver new township built that would avoid over population and further stress on the municipal services. We have had squatter camp such as Pholile since the early nineties and yet the city has not been able to address such shortage in delivery new communities for them.

It is of no secret that every modern city in South Africa is experiencing serious influx of foreign nationals due to historic political unrest and economic distress in their neighboring countries. They are our fellow African men and women we cannot turn away as many of them welcomed us in their countries during apartheid. The city has till this day failed to introduce policies that would manage the growth of our communities in a way that would curb over population and stress on our municipal services.

OUR CHILDRENS RIGHT TO PLAY

Section10 of the Children’s Act 2005 states: “Any child that is of such of age, maturity or stage of development such that is able to participate in any matter concerning that child has a right  to participate in an appropriate way and views expressed by that child must be given due consideration.”

As parent, sisters and brother our hearts are sore to witness how our children’s bright futures are covered with feaces as they are held hostage by the streets flooded with sewage. As a municipality who is pro people once ought to put children first and to allow our streets to continue for years to be filled with feaces is just that- feaces. We must ask ourselves whose children must grow up with a memory of having played in streets filled with feaces? As a province the Western Cape finds itself to be lucky as it does not have children whom have to cross rivers to go to school. Perhaps we must tell the world that the WC is even worse as children in our townships have to swim in feaces to go to school. I guess our children would opt to swim across a river of water rather than a river of sewage, feaces. In isiXhosa one call only call what it is- ‘Yikaka lento.’

AN APARTHEID LEGACY CONTINUES

The biased and discriminative spatial planning of Apartheid continues till this day. Our history is one where our people were moved from the Waterkloof community they had establish more than 20 years ago to settle in what is called Nomzamo today. The same land our people were forcefully evicted from, Apartheid style, is now today being occupied by thousands of white people whom have built all sorts of lifestyle and retirement estates, schools, retail centres.

We are of the opinion that the thousands of new homes and people in Waterkloof and the surrounding new built white communities are part of the cause of our municipal services, such as the sewage system, that has collapsed in our township. We demand to establish if the Waterkloof and their surrounding communities are not in fact having their sewage flowing smoothly downhill through our townships sewage systems and the city would need to prove this is not the case.

OUR COLLECTIVE COMMUNITY REQUIREMENT

A)

1.      A 24/7 sewage response team dedicated to the townships of Lwandle, Nomzamo and Asanda Village

2.      All round support form Sanitech for suction of sewage and streets flooded by rain

B)

3.      Detailed budget and plan to deal with sewage spills and blocked drains

4.      Detailed budget and plan for infrastructure upgrades to alleviate current infrastructure

C)

5.      Detailed policy framework to address over population

6.      Detailed diagram that details Waterkloof sewage system not connected with that of the townships of Lwandle, Nomzamo and Asanda Village.

Signed By

………………………………………….                 ………………………………………               ……………………………………….

Xolani Diniso                                       

Activist and Community Leader