Several shack owners in Kosovo informal settlement, along Laduma Street, have been forced to vacate their homes due to ongoing sewage problems in the area.
According to residents, they have had the problem for many years with no end in sight. Instead, homeowners have to seek alternative accommodation.
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Sibusiso Minyi, one of the residents who left his shack, has been cohabiting with his girlfriend at the C section. He said the sewage emanates underground.
“I decided to leave my shack because it is not safe. My life is at risk there. I wanted to remove my shack there, but I can’t find another plot,” he said, adding that he has been staying in the area for nine years.
Minyi said their ward councillor knew their living conditions but did nothing.
Community leader Thembinkosi Tokota said their lives are in God’s hands. He said people, especially children, got sick because of the dirty water and sewage on the streets.
“The problem is in the manhole that needs to be fixed. It has collapsed. The City employees have fixed it several times, but it leaks again. We don’t know why the City doesn’t change the underground infrastructure. It’s almost a decade or even beyond that we are living like this,” he said.
Tokota claimed that the majority of people in the area are sick. He cited asthma and tuberculosis (TB) as some of the conditions prevalent in the area, with ringworms, diarrhea and rash common among children.
Ward 88 councillor Zukisani Sophazi blamed the old infrastructure for the mess. He cited that the whole underground infrastructure in the area had collapsed.
“It is not only there in that section. Almost the whole of Kosovo has a sewage problem. The infrastructure needs to be changed. Last year, that manhole, in the B section, was fixed twice, but it leaks again,” said Sophazi.
Commenting on the housing development in the neighbourhood, he said some people were relocated to new houses in Mitchell’s Plain last year.
“There is a New Woodlands Housing Project that is in Mitchell’s Plain. At least 217 people from Kosovo are expected to benefit from that project. We relocated people in phases last year. We are done with Phases 1 and 2. Now we are waiting to continue with the next phases,” said Sophazi.