Archive for the ‘The Stories’ Category

Nompiliso Yekela. Picture: FILE

Buffalo City Municipality has finally moved to start dismantling the empire of a notorious slum queen in just under a year after the Dispatch exposed her activities.

Nompiliso Yekela gained notoriety last November when an undercover investigation revealed how she was buying up homes in King William’s Town and filling them with mostly poor and desperate tenants.

After the Dispatch infiltrated the lucrative side-business of Yekela, who works in the human resources department of the Office of the Premier, there was little reaction from the municipality.

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TOP RATE: Christa Botha, left, from Research in Motion presents Daily Dispatch graphic designer Rudi Louw – representing DispatchOnline – with the CNN African Journalist of the Year Award in the Digital Category. Picture: SUPPLIED

The Daily Dispatch online team beat more than 2000 of South Africa’s top media teams to win the CNN African Journalist of the Year Award in the Digital Category.
Entries poured in from 40 nations across the African continent. Only eight journalists were honoured.

Assistant news editor Thanduxolo Jika came second in the category for Best News Story for his investigation into the 2009 Somali killings in Buffalo City.

Dispatch graphic designer Rudi Louw accepted the award on behalf of DispatchOnline on Saturday evening at a ceremony held in Kampala, Uganda.

The prestigious title and the highest accolade for online journalism in Africa was awarded for DispatchOnline’s work on an investigation of BCM slumlords. Read the rest of this entry »

Michael Keyter. Picture: Theo Jeptha

A prominent East London businessman has been exposed as the owner of nine boarding homes in Southernwood.

Kenneth Keyter, who owns 10 other properties in West Bank, has been caught in the forefront of a three- month investigation by the Daily Dispatch into Buffalo City’s slumlords.

Two weeks ago the Dispatch exposed a government official from the Premier’s Office who owns seven slum homes in King William’s Town.

In the case of Keyter’s property the nine homes in Southernwood are being used as hostels and a licensed tavern, and subdivided into small rooms occupied by people desperate for a roof over their heads. Read the rest of this entry »

Shacks at the back of houses in Valley Road are fairly common these days as they are rented out to tenants. Picture: Theo Jeptha

For people like Thembeka Velezweni, who is in her late 30s and unemployed, paying R900 a month for a single room in a boarding house she shares with her husband and daughter at Valley Road is taxing.

She and her family moved to Southernwood from Nxarhuni near Mdantsane in 2001 to look for a better life in the city – but those dreams have since been shattered.

Velezweni survives by doing part- time jobs. “My husband is the only one who works and we moved here to be closer to his work in the city,” she said.

Her case is not isolated; there are many in Southernwood like her and some have resorted to crime to survive. Ask NGO Youth for Christ, which has been burgled on four occasions. Read the rest of this entry »

Nursing student Ayandiswa Zeyo, holding the pillow, with roommates Nwabisa Makhamba, left, and Vuyokazi Pati in the single room they share at 21 De Villiers Street. Picture: Sino Majangaza

Four student nurses living cheek by jowl in a Southernwood slum pay R600 each for a room barely big enough for two people.The three-bedroom house on De Villiers Street in Southernwood is used to accommodate 11 people, who all share one bathroom and toilet.

Even the lounge has been converted into a bedroom, complete with a bed and sleeper couch.

“Including us, there are 11 people and we all use the bathroom and toilet. It is quite difficult to live like this because you have to wake up very early to use the bathroom,” said Ayandiswa Zeyo from Uitenhage.

She is a student nurse at Lungile Nursing School in East London. Read the rest of this entry »

De Villiers Street, Southernwood. Picture: Theo Jeptha

De Villiers Street in Southernwood has a grand total of eight illegal boarding houses.

With up to four people living in a single room, these slumhomes are bursting at the seams with tenants who are willing to pay anything for a roof over their heads.

Longtime resident Barbara Till, who has lived in Southernwood for 20 years, said three of the properties had business rights, but the rest didn’t.

With no enforcement of bylaws or town planning regulations, owners run the establishments with regard for neither the surrounding residents nor their own tenants. Read the rest of this entry »

A tenant looks at another shack being built off Nahoon View Road in Southernwood. Picture: Theo Jeptha

Tertia Kirton lives close to Nahoon View Road and believes it should be renamed “Shebeen Road” – appropriate as it has become notorious for its taverns and watering holes.

Kirton, who lives in nearby De Villiers Street, said the pubs attract people who drink openly in public.

“Driving to work one morning, I saw a very young girl stumbling out of one of the shebeens at seven in the morning,” she said.

The Dispatch saw three taverns within 100m – two in Nahoon View Road, numbers 24 and 26, and another in St Georges Road. Read the rest of this entry »

Kholiswa Sofece, who works as a daycare nanny, with her daughter Vathiswa holding one of the babies she takes care of. Picture: Theo Jeptha

Southernwood is one tough neighbourhood these days. Just ask Kholiswa Sofece, who is single-handedly raising a 14-year-old girl alongside drug dens and shebeens.

Sofece said there were far too many taverns, drug lords and addicts in the suburb.

The single mom said young lives were being destroyed, with many youths choosing a life of crime to maintain their destructive habits.

“After they (the thugs) rob or stab people on the street they run into our yard and hide in the dark because there is no electricity,” said Sofece, who works as a daycare nanny. Read the rest of this entry »

The existence of makeshift homes like these built on the back of the houses in Nahoon View Road in Southernwood has surprised BCM officials – although they work only minutes away from the area. Picture: Theo Jeptha

Tin shacks and wooden hovels are taking over the fine old homes of Southernwood, once an upmarket suburb of East London but now an urban squatter camp.

All over the suburb the signs of decay are evident – none more shocking than the proliferation of shanties in backyards and open spaces.

Dispatch staff spent months immersed in the shabby neighbourhoods in and around Southernwood and found the most outrageous neglect of Buffalo City Municipality’s town planning regulations.

And like last week’s slumlords exposé in King William’s Town, there is evidence that city officials ignore pleas from residents to enforce municipal by-laws. Read the rest of this entry »

Dispatch reporter Gcina Ntsaluba, far right, shares a joke with tenants from 6 Pottinger Street, from left to right, Bongani Qwele, Sanele Solwandle and Sithabile Ncwaba. Picture: Theo Jeptha

After running a series of  articles this week in the  print  and online versions  of the Daily Dispatch  about a  government official who was exposed for  running a  property empire  of illegal slums around  King William’s  Town, the  Dispatch can now reveal  how the  investigation was  put together.

Nompiliso Yekela, a clerk  in the Premier’s Office,  emerged as a slum queen.
We discovered that she  pretends to be a street  hawker  as a front for her  empire – seven houses, six  of which  have been converted into boarding slums  that are  crammed full of  people paying high rent  for small  rooms.
She makes over R80 000 a  month packing dozens of   people into her suburban  properties, breaking local  by-laws – and in the process destroying the fabric  of entire  neighbourhoods. Read the rest of this entry »