The Sebata-Kgomo civil movement in conjunction with the Mamelodi West hostel residents committee marched to the Mamelodi West Police station on Sunday to demand service delivery from the Gauteng Provincial government.
According to Secretary General of the movement Apsen Makaung, the aim of the march was to demand the conversion of hostel units into family units.
“Before 1994 we have been marching and demonstrating regarding this very issue and I must point out that in 2009 a hostel block called W was demolished and its residents relocated to Temporary Residential Units (TRU) where residents are being subjected to the asbestosis disease,” lamented Makaung.
He called on the Gauteng Provincial Government to relocate the said residents to safer places and remove the asbestos roofing that is there.
“Asbestosis is very harmful to the lives of human beings and once a person inhales asbestos it affects the lungs and we are still surprised that a project which used to remove asbestos roofs from the hostel could not be completed and another issue is that the water pipes infrastructure is very old and must be replaced,” fumed Makaung.
“In 2024 we were promised electrification of the hostel and even today we are still waiting,” he said.
“It is now apparent that residents don’t have a certificate of occupation in the hostel flats, which means that funeral parlours won’t be able to remove a corpse,” he said.
Makaung also revealed that a project to give decent housing to hostel dwellers in 2013 was eventually abandoned after only a foundation was built in this regard.
He decried the fact that since the year 2000 the hostel residents have been without electricity.
Responding to the memorandum handed in by the hostel residents to him, Special advisor to Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi, Eric Xayiya promised that all the demands of the hostel dwellers shall be responded to “programmatically.”
He said the Premier will respond in action to the demands of the hostel residents.
He said the issues being raised by the hostel dwellers are not only hurting them as hostel residents but that the issues were also hurting the Tshwane Metro Municipality.
He confessed that asbestiosis is one of the most dangerous diseases in the country.
“I will coordinate with the City of Tshwane Municipality and all our Gauteng Provincial government departments and we will soon announce a clear plan regarding how we will deliver on the demands stated in your memorandum of demands today, with immediacy,” he said.
He admitted that it is absurd that the living conditions of people living in the asbestos-roofed TRUs have not been improved.
“I can with certainty say the Gauteng Provincial Government housing department is responsive now with the new MEC that has been appointed to the position,” he said.
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