SAHRC to assess government’s intervention to correct human rights violations in Alex

The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) will on Monday conduct a joint inspection with government in Alexandra, north of Johannesburg.

The commission will assess progress in implementing directives following its joint report with the Public Protector in July last year, which recommended that government urgently intervene to correct human rights violations in the township.

The report, which followed the 2019 service delivery protests, revealed among others, that the City of Johannesburg and the Gauteng government failed to provide human rights such as housing and sanitation and municipal services such as refuse collection.

It was also recommended that Gauteng Premier David Makhura ask President Cyril Ramaphosa to launch an investigation through the Special Investigating Units  (SIU) into corruption, fraud and the possibility of recovering public funds in the failed R1 billion Alexandra Renewal Project.

 In August last year, the Public Protector and the Human Rights Commission briefed the Gauteng Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Portfolio Committee on their findings into the Alexandra township’s inhumane living conditions.

These include the lack of residents’ right to dignity for years, but there have been questions on the implementation of the recommendations by the two Chapter 9 institutions.

Deputy Public Protector, Kholeka Xaleka says the City of Johannesburg has appointed a private forensic firm to investigate.

“The conditions under which the people of Alexandra were living are really not the conditions which are humane. We have asked them to give us a report once the investigations have been completed and also to give us timelines to ensure that this is indeed being completed. Therefore, it is not a total loss. There is work that is taking place in that respect. We didn’t want to duplicate the process because the documents that are there are voluminous.”

VIDEO: Report into the 2019 Alex Total Shutdown protests released:

Public protector’s report: