Residents Demand Fixing of Decaying Flats, Municipality Insists on Rent Payment

In the Eastern Cape town of Butterworth, a standoff has emerged between residents of three municipal flats and the Mnquma Local Municipality. The residents, who are living in overcrowded and decaying apartheid-era flats, are refusing to pay rent until the municipality fixes the buildings. The municipality, however, is insisting that the residents must first agree to pay rent before any repairs can be made.

The three blocks of flats, built between 1976 and 1987, are in a state of disrepair, with broken windows, leaky pipes, and non-functional toilets. Many residents, who are mostly unemployed, say they cannot afford to pay the current rent of R713 a month for a four-roomed flat and R967 for a five-roomed flat.

Resident Babalwa Daweti, who has lived in the flats since 2008, said that the municipality agreed in 2015 to charge a lower rent of R120 a month, with the understanding that the flats would be repaired. However, when the municipality failed to fix the windows after a storm damaged them, Daweti’s mother stopped paying rent. Daweti, who is now unemployed and living with her two children in the flat, says she cannot afford the current rent.

Phathekile Kopolo, a 77-year-old pensioner, has also been affected by the situation. He has paid for repairs to his flat but cannot afford to fix his granddaughter’s. Kopolo said that before the elections, residents had a meeting with officials from Mnquma, where they asked to continue paying the lower rent of R120 a month and for the municipality to fix the windows. However, there was no resolution, and the officials promised to come back, but have yet to do so.

Mnquma Local Municipality spokesperson Loyiso Mpalantshane said that the municipality has been trying to get residents to pay rent since 2015, but has been met with hostility and violence. He emphasized that the municipality needs the rent money to refurbish the buildings, which are currently a “ticking time bomb” due to overcrowding and dilapidation.

The municipality has written off the historic debt owed by flat tenants, but this has had little effect, with only 44 out of 528 tenants paying their rent last month. The standoff between the residents and the municipality remains unresolved, with no clear solution in sight.