POLOKO TAU
HOPES for a better life for those Soweto residents living in the township’s more squalid areas have again faded now that the elections are over and the politicians have disappeared.
For many, it is back to their crowded informal settlements of cold, back-to-back shacks built in a filthy environment in the absence of proper toilets, water and electricity.
In those areas, basic service delivery is between nonexistent and very limited.
One of them is Kliptown, part of which lies under the shadow of the towering four-star Soweto Hotel on Freedom Square and the Walter Sisulu Square of Remembrance.
Situated between a railway line and the reed-infested Klip River, Kliptown is home to mostly unemployed and underprivileged people.
Among them is 65-year-old Emma Rajwele, who shares a tiny, rickety and rusty two-room shack with 10 other family members.
Rajwele, who is diabetic, unemployed and claims she can’t qualify for a pension grant due to an incorrect birth date on her identity document, has described living conditions in Kliptown as inhumane.
“We’re very poor here and it seems like no one cares about us. We see electricity, proper toilets and water supply all from a distance in formal houses in Soweto and have lost hope of ever benefiting from that,” she said.
“These shacks are very cold in winter and extremely hot in summer, and not good for sickly people. We live like pigs in a filthy environment among constantly running rivulets of filthy water and heaps of uncollected rubbish strewn all over the place.”
Rajwele was among those who applied for an RDP house more than 10 years ago and who were still waiting with little hope.
Kliptown residents still use communal taps, about 50 people share a single toilet and most depend on illegally connected electricity.
On the other side of Soweto, in Slovoville, almost 2 000 live in old infrastructure known as Bottom Time House, an old mine office, and an abandoned mining residential compound called Bottom Mining Village.
Bottom Time House is a depressing picture of vandalised premises with a caved-in wooden floor.
The building is partitioned into a number of rooms shared by about 200 people.
More people have invaded the rundown mining village with the hope of getting RDP houses, but years later they are still waiting.
Like in Kliptown, they depend on communal taps and chemical toilets, and also have no electricity.
Bawinile Xaba, 42, shares her dim room with a family of four. “The rainy season brings us misery; winds mean more dust blowing in through the holes in the roof; and winter is unbearable here,” she said.
“Many politicians came here before the elections and promised us houses and basic service delivery. We decided to vote and gave them another chance, but now they’re all gone and we don’t really expect to see them before the next elections.”
The City of Joburg’s former mayor, Amos Masondo, visited the area known as Old Vista – also referred to as Ghetto – last year when he did his rounds.
Like those at the old mine compound and Kliptown, Old Vista residents were also waiting for the day they were given RDP houses, but remained uncertain about seeing this happen.
City of Joburg spokeswoman Gaynor Mashamaite-Noyce told The Star after Masondo’s visit to the informal settlement last year that a special task team had been established to “tackle the problems”.
Six months later, the city was asked for an update on the same plans and had not responded to The Star three weeks after they were asked to do that – despite a number of e-mails and phone calls seeking their comment.
Meanwhile, residents in Kliptown, Old Vista and Bottom Mine continue to live in squalid conditions with no clue as to whether they will ever see an improvement.