Families who were moved for the 2010 World Cup are still living in their 'transit camp'
Resident Thabile Nguse said the families had written several times to the municipality to no avail.
Hundreds of families have been living in the KwaDabeka “transit camp” since 2009, when they were moved to make way for a 2010 World Cup training ground. Picture: Tsoanelo Sefoloko/GroundUp
Desperate families who have been living in the KwaDabeka “transit camp” since they were moved there to make way for the 2010 World Cup have implored the eThekwini municipality to hear their pleas to provide better housing.
Resident Thabile Nguse said the families had written several times to the municipality to no avail.
“The sad part about us is that we live next to the important Dumisani Makhaye Highway. Officials drive past here every day. I really don’t know what comes to their mind when they see the houses that we are living in,” said Nguse.
She said residents had sent another memorandum to the municipality last week.
In 2009, more than 600 families were moved nine kilometres to a transit camp to make way for a training ground for international clubs near Sugar Ray Xulu Stadium in Clermont, in preparation for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
They were told the move would only be for six months.
GroundUp wrote about their conditions in November 2023. At the time there were just two flush toilets for 609 families. All the others were broken. Most of the homes had broken windows. People have used sandbags to prevent flooding and erosion under their homes.
Earlier this month the municipality finally provided mobile toilets, which are cleaned twice a week.
But the houses are still overcrowded, cracked and leaking. Some have been repaired by residents, although they say they have been told not to fix the houses themselves or to extend their homes.
Residents told GroundUp they felt they had been dumped.
Nguse said earlier this year a construction company had come to fix some of the houses but had left without completing the work.
EThekwini Municipality spokesperson Gugu Sisilana said the City had spent R11.6-million rehabilitating the Kwadabeka transit camp. Asked about the quality of the work, she said the materials used had been specified, engineers had been appointed to oversee the project and to make sure that all the materials used met quality control standards. Sisilana did not provide details of how the money was spent.
This article first appeared on GroundUp. Read the original article here.