[imc-sa] Mandela Park AEC to march to Parliament today

[Mandela Park AEC]

Mandela Park AEC to march to Parliament today
CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA, 7 MARCH 2005 - Members of the Mandela Park
Anti-Eviction Campaign will march to Parliament today to protest the
ongoing housing crisis in Mandela Park. The march will leave Mandela
Park at about 12pm and is expected to be at Parliament around
1pm.

For years, the Mandela Park AEC has called for those living in bank
houses to be given a housing subsidy so that they can pay for their
houses. The majority of houses in Mandela Park, Khayelitsha, are 
bank houses built at the end of Apartheid. Today, after years of
paying for their houses, many residents (especially pensioners,
single parents and the disabled and unemployed) find themselbves unable
to keep up with payments and face eviction.

This is why the Mandela Park AEC has, since 2001, called for the scrapping
of arrears and for the 'RDP housing subsidy' to be given to residents of
Mandela Park so that they can own their houses. The MP AEC also calls
for land, which the Apartheid government sold to the banks, to be 
bought back and used to build more houses, and community facilities such
as a clinic.

Recently the building of a new housing development in Mandela Park has
caused tensions because, though bought on land in Mandela Park that
the government has purchased, it is destined for people from Site C.
The MP AEC has called on 50% of these houses to be allocated to people
from Mandela Park. Thus far these calls have falled on deaf ears. It
seems that when the MP AEC calls for subsidies and land buybacks, they
are ignored, but when ANC councillors (who are heading the development
for Site C dwellers) ask for the same they are given what they want.

The MP AEC will thus march to Parliament today to hand over their demands
to Western Cape Housing MEC Marius Fransman.

ENDS

For more info: Max 083 403 6615