The Smart Pole was put up in Slovo Park, Soweto, by the Metropolitan Tech Company in collaboration with the City of Johannesburg. It will provide Wi-Fi and help improve safety in the area. (Photo: Bheki Simelane) City of Johannesburg officials visited the Slovo Park informal settlement in Soweto on Saturday, 7 March for what should have been a good-news story. The City was launching its Smart Pole Project – a streetlight that features free public Wi-Fi, CCTV cameras and an emergency panic button.
Furious residents, however, gathered at the site where mayoral committee member (MMC) for transport Kenny Kunene and human settlements MMC Mlungisi Mabaso were launching the project, saying they had been waiting decades for RDP houses, while the City offered them a streetlight with Wi-Fi.
“We want houses, not Wi-Fi,” said resident Pat Ngwenya. “I am tired of empty promises.”
“They can deal with the Wi-Fi issue once we have houses.
“Last year, they said [that] by December toilets will be built here. Look around, there are no toilets.”
/file/attachments/orphans/IMG_20260307_121039_878_359506.jpg "Slovo Park resident Pat Ngwenya left a few minutes after he arrived at the presentation of a Wi-Fi and security Smart Pole in Slovo Park, Soweto, on Saturday. Ngwenya said he could no longer bear empty promises. (Photo: Bheki Simelane)")
The elderly residents who gathered at the event to complain said they had been in Slovo Park since its establishment and had registered for houses in 1996.
Resident Busisiwe Grace Sibisi (81) said, “I don’t need a pole, I want a house.”
“If the Mabaso boy is here, I will confront him and demand my house. I am very old to be lied to,” Sibisi said of the MMC.
“I want a house… I don’t want to die in a shack. I don’t want my life to be horrible even in death.”
/file/attachments/orphans/IMG_20260307_104206_233_855288.jpg "Slovo Park residents Margaret Mkhatshwa (left) and Busisiwe Grace Sibisi were not impressed with the City’s Smart Pole initiative. (Photo: Bheki Simelane)")
Residents pointed to what they said were a number of failed attempts to develop the area.
“Look at the tar that they have been building for three months,” 35-year-old Katlego Kgolocheu said, pointing to a tarred road.
“This is not even tar. What they actually did was coat the road that leads to the pole that they knew they would use and also the path to the tent. These people take us for fools,” said Kgolocheu, who explained he was more concerned about service delivery than houses.
“Slovo Park is far older than both Freedom Park and Lehae, but both areas have been developed,” Kgolocheu said. “I will not lie to you, as young people, we don’t care about the houses anymore. We just want a functional sewer system and tarred roads.”
Slovo Park resident Margaret Mkhatshwa (63) told Daily Maverick that she registered for a house in 1996.
“I want a house, not Wi-Fi,” she said.
“When I go to housing for an update on my house, I am told that it’s still in the system,” Mkhatshwa said. “This was supposed to be a replacement house after I was told that my first house was allocated to someone else.
“My first house was allocated in Braamfischer, and the replacement was allocated in Lufhereng, but I don’t have either house.”
Mkhatshwa said the last time she went to check for an update on her house was in 2024. She has been living with her family in the area since its establishment.
Officials acknowledge problems
The Joburg officials defended the Smart Pole Project while noting residents’ complaints. Mabaso also called on Johannesburg property and housing entities to assist.
About toilets not being completed by December, he said: “We should all be embarrassed by this as the City.”
Kunene told the gathering that the Smart Pole comes with cameras that operate 24 hours.
“So, it’s important that when you are a victim of crime you don’t only open a case but also tell the police that there are cameras and there is footage,” he said, adding that the Wi-Fi would help residents to access government services and educational tools.
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/P4-ferial-Jozi-5.jpg "Joburg transport MMC Kenny Kunene. (Photo: Sharon Seretlo / Gallo Images)")
He also addressed the work supposedly done by the Johannesburg Roads Agency to tar the roads in the area.
“They put tar which I don’t know where they got that from,” he said.
“We make our own asphalt and the asphalt that we make isn’t what they put there. I will engage them and find out where they got this tar.”
Soweto residents have grown increasingly impatient with the sluggish allocation of RDP houses. Many elderly people claim they have been told by housing officials that their houses have been allocated, but they have not been allocated to the rightful owners.
Weeks ago, anger boiled over in Doornkop, Soweto, when residents accused the government of failing to deliver houses since 1996. The anger led to confrontations and Mabaso was targeted before security stepped in to restore calm.
Fraudulent allocations
In a parliamentary response last year, the Human Settlements Minister Thembi Simelane-Nkadimeng said measures had been implemented to curb fraudulent RDP housing allocations: the National Housing Needs Register is linked to Home Affairs and South African Social Security Agency databases to prevent duplication and ineligible applications.
She further said that digitisation of the systems reduces manipulation and human error. In Gauteng, a number of fraud cases were under trial, along with ongoing disciplinary actions, she added.
More than 1.2 million people are on the housing waiting list in Gauteng, with more than 400,000 of those reported to be in Johannesburg. DM