Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape Address: QQ 305 ~ Site B ~ Khayelitsha, 7784 E-mail:
[email protected],
[email protected] Website: http//www.abahlali.org ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Langa housing projects a mess of corruption and mismanagement An open letter to N2 Gateway boss Bosco Khoza, MEC Madikizela and Mayor de Lille 12 August 2012 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 This letter has been written by the provincial executive of Abahlali baseMjondolo Movement, South Africa. As poor people living in informal settlements throughout Cape Town, we have many severe grievances regarding our living conditions, lack of consultation in service delivery and corruption taking place in our poor communities. We are grateful that the Mayor responded to our previous letter. As requested by the Mayor, we are directing this letter to the Housing Development Agency and to the provincial Department of Human Settlements. However, the Mayor's presence is, nonetheless, still required as many of the issues are in the Mayor's hands to resolve. This will be explained below. As leaders of Abahlali baseMjondolo Western Cape, a social movement representing shackdwellers, we have followed all the required government channels trying to have these grievances resolved - from sanitation, to toilets, to housing allocation, to lack of electricity, to evictions. However, we have never had our issues adequately engaged with and very rarely have even received even a response from government officials. Hence, our movement has decided to take the initiative to write to the head of the N2 Gateway housing project, Mr Bosco Khoza of the HDA, the MEC for Human Settlements, Mr Bonginkosi Madikizela, and the the Mayor of the City of Cape Town, Patricia de Lille.