Determined Ward 80 Salavakop residents in Tshwane delivered a memorandum of grievances to the Department of Public Works on Friday.
They said government department is in charge of the project whereby the Salavakop residents will be removed from the hill that they are staying on at the moment and be relocated to windowless corrugated iron shacks that have been erected for them by the government.
The residents will be relocated so as to make way for the construction of a road project that leads to Kgoshi Mampuru Correctional Centre in Tshwane.
The embattled residents have made it clear that they are not opposed to being relocated but want to be relocated to proper RDP houses where they will live in dignity because the corrugated iron shacks that the government wants to relocate them to are substandard and not fit for human habitation.
“We want to be treated with dignity by the Department of Public Works and this department does not belong to you and your cronies, it belongs to all of us,” fumed EFF PR Councillor Benjamin Mathebula as he read the memorandum before handing it to Department of Public Works acting chief director of the Salvakop project Thabane Rachidi.
“Mr Rachidi, you want us to live inside shacks which don’t have windows, and the doors are also made of corrugated iron, you want to take us to hell before we can actually get there,” said Mathebula as he addressed Rachidi.
He made it clear that until their demands are met, the Department of Public Works must stop all services that it wants to provide for residents at the place where they will be relocated.
The Department of Public Works has been given two weeks to respond to the demands of the residents.
Salvakop Ward 80 EFF activist Nare Lemao said should anyone die due to the construction activities that are taking place at Salvakop then the Department of Public Works will have to take responsibility.
“We urgently request that you stop the construction activities in and around our area because the carter pillars that are being used there may cause serious injury to the residents living in the area,” said Lemao.
He said Rachidi does not care about the well-being of residents because they are black, but that they as community care about black lives because black lives matter and the residents of Salvakop deserve dignified houses and not the corrugated iron shacks that the government has built for them.
Rachidi received the memorandum and announced that he is now aware of the residents’ demands and that the Department of Public Works will respond in two weeks’ time as requested and promised that between now and the proposed date of response his department will keep in touch with the leadership of the residents.
The following attachment a copy of memorandum