By Libuseng Nyaka
BLOEMFONTEIN – Families evicted from the disused Ramkraal Prison premises some five months ago to make way for construction of a new legislature are crammed in a bitterly cold public hall in Hostel One while government ponders its next move.
Although government moved swiftly to enforce a high court eviction order ostensibly to expedite construction work on the proposed legislature to begin, debris from the demolished buildings at the site in Batho Location still lies where it fell.
While officials insist that preparatory work is underway behind the scenes, speaker of the Free State provincial legislature Khotso Sesele told the house during his budget vote that more capital was needed before work could start in earnest on the R560 million project.
Sesele’s budget speech statement contradicted Public Works Department spokesperson Mlungisi Maqubela’s insistence in an interview with Public Eye on Tuesday, August 7 that everything was on course for workmen to move on site.
“Mme you must understand that things are done step by step; the eviction and demolition of the buildings was the first step. There are many other processes to follow.
“However, we cannot afford to keep on informing the media about every step we take although we believe our people need to know what is going on. There are many steps such as land surveys by engineers to follow,” he said. But these statements are cold comfort to 50 of the evicted former Ramkraal residents who have to queue in adverse weather conditions to use outdoor ablution facilities; and have had to partition the hall into private living quarters with curtains.
The residents’ plight has been worsened by the sharp drop in temperatures to freezing levels since the current cold front hit the country last weekend.
Forecasters said temperatures in Free State had on some days plummeted to below minus five degrees.
Rights activist Stephen Tswala said government was hasty in carrying out the evictions and demolitions, especially of former prison officers’ houses which the families had occupied, some for more than five years.
“Demolishing buildings which had been occupied by people could have come last after everything regarding the construction of the legislature had been arranged,” Tswala said.
On March 7, this year, bulldozers and workmen backed by armed police, poured into the grounds of the former prison for political detainees and forcibly removed 200 people from the houses before flattening them.
Some of the evicted families spent nights in the open before they were eventually moved to Hostel One.
Most of the former Ramkraal residents are of modest means and operated cottage industries from abandoned prison buildings during the day, turning their workplaces into sleeping quarters at night.
During a visit to Hostel One on Wednesday, August 8 Public Eye found men, women and children evicted from Ramkraal housed under one roof, making women and children open to abuse.
In an interview Lerato Lempe, a mother of two young children – aged two and ten – said living conditions in the hall during winter were dreary and unhealthy.
“We do not have privacy here. We cannot bath in a hall full of men and children. We have divided the hall with our clothes to have some privacy. “It is difficult to go out to look for a job because our door has no key and is left unlocked day and night. Besides these challenges residents here hate us and treat us like foreigners in our own country,” said Lempe who originally comes from Botshabelo.
Her sentiments were shared by Likeleli Seleteng, a mother of four.
“It so uncomfortable here; at least at Ramkraal we had privacy and we used to live in houses not halls. We were also able to generate income. It is so sad because we were evicted yet construction has not started. It is so sad to think that they hurriedly evicted us as if they were about to start using the place immediately. But it is now five months and nothing has been done since,” she said.
In a statement soon after the demolition, the MEC for Public Works Sisi Mabe said proper consultation had been done, adding the evictions could have been avoided had the residents been cooperative and left when asked to do so.
White Mohapi, a former political prisoner at Ramkraal concurred with the MEC that proper consultations were done.
“We had several meetings with Premier Ace Magashule about plans to demolish some of the buildings at Ramkraal to make way for the new legislature,” he said.
Mohapi said that the parties reached consensus on preserving the building which used to house political prisoners for historical purposes.
He said former political prisoners regarded the plan to build the legislature at the old prison as an honour to those who were incarcerated there.
“Discussion of laws and decisions that affect the future of this province will be made at Ramkraal,” he said. “That is an honour to all political prisoners who were held there.”