DRC: Goma Mayor Under Fire for Home Demolitions

Thousands of homes in Goma, in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, are being demolished by the authorities, forcing their occupants onto the streets with no compensation. 

Residents say the evictions are unlawful, although the city mayor denies this.

Homes along the shores of Lake Kivu and in the city centre are being pulled down to make way for wider roads as part of a highway renovation programme.

Goma’s mayor Roger Rachidy has compared the transformation that Goma is undergoing to the efforts French engineer George Haussmann made to redesign Paris in the 19th century.

But he maintains that none of the houses being destroyed have a legal right to be there.

“If people think they have been wronged, the courts and tribunals are open to them,” he said.

The actual number of houses destroyed and due for demolition remains unclear. Radio Okapi, a United Nations radio station in the country, reported that more than 100,000 households are affected by the plan.

Rachidy said that this figure was exaggerated and that he believed between 5,000 and 6,000 houses would be demolished.

Goma, the capital of North Kivu, is a large and sprawling city of around one million residents. The centre was destroyed by a volcanic eruption in 2002 and was rebuilt haphazardly, with no real urban planning.

Many of the city’s inhabitants live in shantytowns, often without any legal paperwork to show ownership. Buildings have been put up on roads, underneath transmission cables and in other places where housing is normally not allowed.

In other cases, people were given permits to build on plots of land but moved outside the designated boundaries. This is particularly apparent by Lake Kivu, where the limit for construction is ten metres from the shoreline but is often flouted.

“We had a dictatorial system for 32 years and it was believed that if a military officer put up his house on the lakeside, no one could hold him accountable,” Rachidy said, saying that his demolition orders covered “the houses of those officers and of governors, as well as of ordinary people”.

According to Congolese law, before a residential property is destroyed, the occupants must be given a chance to prove that the land is theirs. If they cannot do this, a month’s notice must be given before the house is taken down.

But residents claim that in many cases, the city authorities have ignored these rules, making no distinction between legal and illegal structures.

“It was a surprise for us that we did not receive documents or notice,” said Pascal Kasérica, whose house in the central neighbourhood of Les Volcans was one of those recently demolished.

He claimed that because proper procedures were not followed, an administrative mix-up meant that the wrong house was knocked down.

“It was the plot in front of ours that was supposed to be demolished,” said Kasérica. “When they came to demolish the other plot, he [the official in charge] put us in the same group. He said he was in a hurry and had other things to do. We were amazed as we’d thought we would be spared.”

Kasérica says that he and his family are now forced to sleep rough on the streets, and have not received any form of support or assistance.

Muzangi Boutondo, a member of North Kivu’s provincial assembly, is also critical of the way the urban renewal programme is being handled.

“If the state is looking to expand the width of roads, and finds people living in the way who are in possession of [valid] documents, it must resort to [proper] expropriation proceedings,” he said. “This means that everyone affected must be compensated.”

He claims that what is happening in Goma amounts to an arbitrary assault on people’s homes.

“There is no direction, no preliminary plan. Even the houses of people who have legal land ownership documents are being destroyed without compensation,” Boutondo said, promising to raise the issue during the next meeting of the provincial assembly.

Staff at Goma’s land registry office say they have not been consulted by the city authorities about the demolition campaign.

“In principle, an inventory should be made to establish who is in the wrong,” a senior staff member said. “But this is not happening, because the practice [of demolition] is widespread and affecting many people.”

Other residents accept that in many cases, demolitions may be justified as houses have been built unlawfully and dangerously. But they argue that the process is putting many people on the street with no way of supporting themselves.

“Our city must be neat, but one must also offer compensation,” said Gaston, a Goma resident. “[The authorities] only demolish; they aren’t making any plans for the consequences.”

Rachidy denied that officials were responsible for the welfare of people evicted from their homes.

"City hall does not need to provide compensation or help people whose homes were demolished, as these people built them illegally,” he said. “Anyway, most of them are huts, and people will be able to go and put up new ones elsewhere.”

Some have also suggested that it is unfair to blame people for building on land that should have been left empty. Many of them have been displaced by war, or by the 2002 volcanic eruption, and have been given little resources and no direction from the authorities.

While the city’s rebuilding programme may be a positive sign that life is starting to improve after the devastation of war, local NGOs say that more thought should be given to the humanitarian consequences of the work.

“We condemn this action,” said Dufina Tabu, who works for the Association of Volunteers, ASVOCO, a Goma-based NGO. “Life is already very difficult here. People don’t have jobs, they don’t have anything – and now this. It’s terrible.”

ASVOCO has been able to halt the demolition of some houses built under a transmission cable in the Katindo neighbourhood of the city, which began on August 2. However, despite this small success, the NGO has not been able to stem the tide of evictions.

Tabu added that, under pressure, the mayor has asked ASVOCO to carry out an awareness campaign to encourage people move out of condemned areas voluntarily.

“The mayor asked us to tell people to move out – but go where?” Tabu asked. “The city hall should give them new building plots and find temporary shelters for them, but they haven’t put anything in place. Demolishing houses... is really only putting people on the street. How are these people going to live?”

Melanie Gouby is an IWPR reporter. Nicole Tambite and Passy Mubalama are IWPR trainees in the Democratic Republic of Congo.