Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign Press Statement
Friday June 28th 2002
6am

Mandela Park Anti-Eviction Committee to be interdicted by Servcon and five
banks!

In a highly draconian clampdown against poor communities and their right to
exercise rights promised to them under the constitution, the Mandela Park
Anti-Eviction Committee was summonsed yesterday to appear in the Cape High
Court today.

The Mandela Park Anti-Eviction Committee is supposed to respond to an
application for an interdict brought by the banks and Servcon, a company
owned jointly by the banks and the government.

This comes just one day after 44 members of the Western Cape Anti-Eviction
Campaign, including the leadership, were picked out from a crowd of over 300
peaceful protestors in Wale Street, Cape Town, teargassed, assaulted by
police and private security and taken to holding cells where they were
charged with trespassing. The protestors had been seeking to get a date for
a meeting from ANC MEC for Housing, Nomatyala Hangana, who failed to appear.

The application for the interdict was brought by ABSA, Bank of England, FNB,
Nedcor, and Standard Bank - together with Servcon. The interdict seeks to
prevent the Mandela Park Anti-Eviction Committee, as well as four of its
leaders, from taking any steps to prevent the eviction of people in Mandela
Park.

MEC Hangana seems to be colluding with the banks, as their interdict
application claims that she has attempted to meet the campaign, even though
she has failed to attend several meetings that she was invited to.

The banks are arguing that they should be allowed to rightsize approximately
2000 housing bond defaulters living in Khayelitsha into tiny dog kennel
style RDP houses.

It is a dire day indeed for the "new South Africa" when a poor community who
voted ANC, are not only threatened with eviction from their homes, but are
not allowed to peacefully protest against the pending eviction. The Western
Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign calls on the ANC to immediately put a stop to
evictions across the country. It is bad enough that 1 million mainly poor
workers have lost their jobs since the implementation of the GEAR economic
policy, but for the ANC to participate in setting up a company like Servcon
to rightsize and evict these unemployed workers, is really reprehensible.

The banks have submitted as evidence press clippings from various newspapers
who have covered the activities of the Committee. Clearly the poor are not
even allowed to be well organised and publicise their causes any longer. We
are supposed to be willing to be evicted without raising a peep.

The Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign calls on the banks to immediately
withdraw their interdict. This is a case of David facing up to Goliath. The
Mandela Park houses are full of structural defects and are not worth
anywhere near the high prices that the owners have already paid for them.

Morally too, the poor community of Mandela Park, which includes many
pensioners, has a right to decent housing and to not be evicted in
mid-winter. The legal action of the banks amounts to an 18th century style
attack on the poor.

The following points raised in the interdict are extremely worrying:

1. Homeowners who are in arrears for only three months face losing their
homes. This does not take into account the rising rate of unemployment, and
restructuring of all sectors which leads to retrenchment.

2. The houses of homeowners who default will be repossessed and the
homeowner can then elect to buy the home back. This is blatant extortion on
the part of the banks. Why should a person who has been paying off a bond
for 18 years lose all that money and have to start the bond again? This is
pure profiteering by the banks.

3. The banks and Servcon say that government and the banking sector have
made a 'constructive attempt' to address housing problems, yet they have all
failed several times in the past months alone to show up at any meetings
with the community.

4. The interdict application seeks to deny that poor quality, structurally
defective homes were sold to residents even though this was admitted in
writing by them. [The defects were one of the main reasons why residents
started defaulting on their bonds - because they were putting their own
money into repairing faulty wiring, cracks etc].

5. The banks have started evicting people and immediately moving others in.
This is deliberately intended to cause problems in the community and is a
devious practice which allows residents no opportunity to get back into
their houses post-eviction, even through legal means.

The Committee has secured three legal opinions from advocates and others who
are willing to take on the banks. There will be an emergency legal meeting
on Sunday in Mandela Park where the community will give a mandate on how to
proceed.

..../ends

For comment call:
Max 073 1546555
Peter 083 2560457
Faizel 021 6851565
www.samwu.org.za/antieviction.htm