�Yellow monster� threatens Monarch woman

Patricia Edwin | Friday March 21, 2014 14:47

 

Mosadisadi Didimalang, living with one child after being deserted by her live-in lover, related  her sad tale to Mmegi on Thursday.

In an interview, she says she fears that her home will be bulldozed and she and her ailing daughter will be left homeless.

She says that she started living at plot number 3690 in Area 9 in Monarch in 1999 with her late boyfriend Patrick Chaenda who was the father of her child.

Chaenda allegedly left her to live elsewhere in the city until he died.  Didimalang could not furnish Mmegi with dates of the boyfriend’s death.

Weeping inconsolably throughout the interview, she recalls how the man just vanished without telling her.

She says it was after he had collected money as compensation at the time of the Monarch Infrastructural Development and moved to the new plot without telling her.

She says that she did not know that the boyfriend had taken the money and had been given another plot in Block 9.

Didimalang further says that their problems started in 2005 when he was staying with another woman.

She says that the council did not consult her at the time and that the owner of the plot, her boyfriend, left her.  He also left arrears on the service levy.

“It was more than P1,000 and I worked hard and paid it all,” she says.

She says that when she informed the FCC that she had been left in the home, she was told at the time to just wait as the council would see what to do for her.

She says that other people who were in the same situation as she had been helped and allocated plots and left to stay but she is surprised that she is being evicted.

Didimalang says that she has been all over the place trying to have the plot allocated to her as the council had promised.

The house was demolished in 2007 but the sickly woman rebuilt it and is now staying with her equally sick teenage daughter.

“I even tried to seek help at SOS where I was volunteering.  They did try, and now I am being threatened with an eviction,” she says, adding that theirs is a bitter struggle for survival.

She says that she sought help from all over the place including social workers and court presidents.

When the council was silent, she thought that they would come, approve and allocate her the land.

Instead, she received a letter last year October, which notified her that she had only 21 days to leave her home or else they would remove her forcefully.

She says that when Chaenda left they had been together for 12 years and had one child.

She says what raised her hopes is that the Department of Surveys had said the place where she was staying was approved as a plot. 

 This is despite council saying that it is not on their map.  She says after receiving the good news from Surveys, and also being helped by social workers to acquire the plot, another letter arrived from the council that she should have moved out of the place within 21 days.

“On Monday a lawyer came from the council and told me that I was supposed to move out of the plot.

“He said that councillors were fighting him about the plot and wanted me removed,” she says.

She says she started to go to the council on Tuesday with the help of the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) Francistown West parliamentary candidate, Ignatius Moswaane.  Up to now she has not been able to get help.

She says they had an appointment with the city clerk Leboile Israel who was in a meeting until they left.

“We could not see him. We saw him only on the first day when we went there and he said that he did not want a situation such as that of Gerald Estates and Old Naledi,” she says.

Efforts to reach Israel were fruitless, but correspondence from the council clearly showed communication between Didimalang, city council and sympathetic organisations.

Didimalang has been receiving the most support from an association in Monarch called Botswana Homeless and Poor Peoples Federation.

They have been writing to the council to try and induce sympathy on her behalf.

Sefalana Maluza of the federation says that they have tried everything and they were also shocked to see the letter of eviction from the city council after all their efforts.

She says that they have also been supporting her because she is a destitute.

On August 1, 2012 the council wrote to Didimalang about the plot that it was wholly affected during the Monarch infrastructure project.

The letter also said that Chaenda had to pave way for the intended developments and he was subsequently allocated another plot at Phase Four in Block 9.

“This then means that plot 3690 Monarch Area 9 then reverts to the City of Francistown and it remains the council property,” states the memo.

Another memo written by a Principal Physical Planner on September 27, 2012 states that plot 3690 is a residential plot, which measures at 348 square metres.

The letter said the plot is an acceptable plot size, which is habitable. On October 10, 2013 the city council again wrote to Didimalang a notice for intention to evict.

The letter, signed by council attorney, Careb Mbenda, notifies Didimalang that she is staying on the plot unlawfully.

“We therefore intend to advise and notify you to vacate the property within 21 days upon receipt of this letter. Failure of which we shall be forced to take legal action to evict you,” he says. 

In the meantime, Didimalang lives in fear that she is going to be forcefully evicted from her home at any time.