Article by Gillian Schutte.

When the mass strike action hit the Rustenberg Platinum belt in August 2012 mainstream South African public was quick to write off the striking miners as an unruly bunch who were ungrateful for their employment and unworthy of the social development that the mining companies were investing into their communities.

“Good Morning

In response to your e-mail below, please find our response as follows:-

The overall cost of the project is as follows:

1. Initial costs incurred for professional fees = R 3 143 341.00
2. Construction costs = R 41 821 145.00
3. New professional costs = R 1 561 800.00
4. Socail facilitation costs = R 100 000.00
5. Contingencies [  demolition and sectional title costs] = R 1 491 006.00

TOTAL COST = R 48 117 292.00

We write to the housing department to find out why the Barracks tenants were forcibly removed from their houses and why their previous dwellings were destroyed and not upgraded as they had requested.

Yunus Sacoor, Deputy Head of Housing, eThekwini Municipality, responds that; the Housing Department assisted all tenants in the relocation process to ensure that the movement process took place in an orderly fashion.  They were moved because the Tara Road complex was located within the Major Hazardous Industrial (MHI) zone, and therefore alternative accommodation was made available for the tenants.  According to him all tenants agreed in writing to the relocation to the new complex.

A film that investigates the case of the Grootboom community living around the sports field awaiting their promised housing.A gritty look at the squalor and poverty in an area in which 20 000 people crowd into a 2km radius with a broken down ablution block and very little service delivery.