Housing not free for all - MEC

Cape Town - Western Cape Human Settlement MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela had tempers flaring in the provincial legislature on Thursday when he said the government was not obligated to give free houses to everyone.

Tabling his department’s annual report, Madikizela said only the most deserving, those who had been on the waiting list the longest, would be prioritised.

There is a housing backlog of more than 500 000 and only 12 681 houses were built during the past financial year.

EFF MPL Nazier Paulsen questioned why such a low targets were set as a goal for the past financial year.

Madikizela explained that the constitution did not state that government must give people houses for free but instead stipulated that the state must provide within its “available resources”.

“That’s what the constitution says, it does not give us a blank cheque,” he said.

But Paulsen interjected saying “only sell-outs agree with it”.

Madikizela also criticised the notion that giving unemployed people houses was a solution.

“If people have houses and they are not working they end up selling them, so this notion that because people are not working they must be given houses and we think that is a solution, it is not,” Madikizela said.

He stressed that the days of giving 20 year olds houses were also over.

“We need to encourage young people to demonstrate for jobs instead of demonstrating for houses… As a country collectively we have to deal with the challenges of unemployment but you can’t then compensate by giving someone a house.”

The MEC said apart from exceptional cases like child-headed households and people with special needs or disabilities, would also be prioritised.

Conceding that the state must do everything possible to deal with the legacy of the past and apartheid the MEC cautioned against “overcompensating for the past at the expense of the future”.

“It is a reality that we cannot give this impression that government will provide everything for people and people must fold their arms. And that is the impression that some of the honourable people are giving here. We are misleading our people if we say that,” he stressed.

But ANC MPL Khaya Magaxa said that free housing was a very important issue for people who had been historically marginalised for many decades.

“It is not a mistake that every poor household has to have a free house; it’s an acknowledgment of our past. And I think 20 years after democracy that is still far from being resolved.”

And he lashed out at Madikizela saying “I think to reduce it to just a mere (issue of being) dependent on the state, is irresponsible even for an African to say that,” he said as he urged for sensitivity.

Magaxa questioned Madikizela about his department’s engagement with communities to avoid situations like the sanitation issue which saw resistance in some communities.

But the MEC said they were required by law to embark on a consultation process prior to starting any projects.

He said the people who were at the forefront of demonstrations were the same people who were at the forefront of consul- tations, agreeing with government. “We’ve learnt valuable lessons, that there are people who are gatekeepers in communities who claim to represent communities while they represent their own interests,” he said.

warda.meyer@inl.co.za

- Political Bureau

Draft report ‘absolves Zuma on Nkandla’

Cape Town - A draft report by the parliamentary committee on the Nkandla controversy has absolved President Jacob Zuma and concluded that Public Protector Thuli Madonsela's findings against him on misspending on his private home were not binding.

“The remedial action of the public protector is not binding,” states the document, discussed by the ANC-only committee on Thursday.

The report also states that contrary to arguments by the political opposition, it was not necessary to call Zuma to answer questions on the so-called security upgrade at his home that spiralled to a cost of R246-million and has haunted him since he took office.

“There was not a need to call persons mentioned as the investigations extensively and exhaustively extracted information from political office-bearers,” it continued.

The draft report accepts damning findings by Madonsela, the Special Investigating Unit and an inter-ministerial team that the project flouted regulations, but lays no blame on Zuma.

It states firmly that “the president did not request the upgrade” at his Nkandla homestead and that the minister of safety and security approved neither the cost nor the design of the project.

This meant, it adds, “that the project was initiated and implemented without the necessary authority and the expenditure could be deemed unauthorised as per the Public Finance Management Act”.

ANC MPs suggested additions to the document - compiled by parliamentary content advisors - that would unambiguously exonerate Zuma and recommend steps against officials who flouted the law.

Mmamaloko Kubayi suggested that the report should include a clear pronouncement that Zuma did not contravene the Executive Ethics Code, since neither the SIU nor the inter-ministerial committee found that he had.

Madonsela, in her report released in March, found that Zuma had in fact contravened the code and had unduly benefited from improvements to his homestead.

Veteran ANC MP Mathole Motshekga contradicted this directly, saying he believed it would be “premature to come to a conclusion that there was undue benefit”.

He went on to ask that the point be made in the report that Zuma had not acted improperly by introducing his personal architect Minenhle Makanya to state officials, and that they had elected to appoint the project leader and failed to follow proper procedure to do so.

“I find that there was gross negligence on the part of the officials,” he added.

Kubayi added that the report should oblige government report back to Parliament on the steps it had taken against officials to prevent future abuses and a perception that the state wasted taxpayers' money.

The drafters are due to next present a final report to the committee from which opposition parties withdrew in protest last month over the ANC's attitude towards Madonsela's report on Nkandla.

They argued that her directive that Zuma repay a portion of the funds spent on his home could only be reviewed by a court of law, and that therefore the ANC and the president's rejection of it was unconstitutional.

But on Thursday, ANC MPs said the ruling party's view had been vindicated by the Western Cape High Court's ruling in the Hlaudi Motsoeneng case last week.

The court correctly held that reports by the public protector were not binding, and therefore put paid to the opposition's campaign calling on Zuma to “pay back the money” - in the catch phrase of the Economic Freedom Fighters, said Motshekga.

“That court has actively come to our assistance by finding that the remedial action of the public protector is not binding and enforceable,” he said.

Motshekga added that this meant that Madonsela's letters to Zuma in recent months, imploring him to respond adequately to her findings, had been misguided.

“The letters of the public protector to the president demanding compliance were informed by her wrong interpretation of the Constitution and the (Public Protector's) Act.”

He said since interpretation had informed the opposition's demands that Zuma reimburse the state, the “pay-back campaign has therefore collapsed”.

Pre-empting claims that the committee lacked legitimacy because it consisted only of ruling party members, Motshekga said these would be “outrageous” and called on the opposition to return to it.

“I hope they will come back and help us understand the basis on which they withdrew.”

The Democratic Alliance, the party that went to court in a bid to enforce Madonsela's findings against the SABC on Motsoeneng's appointment as chief operating officer, has claimed that the same court ruling in fact vindicated its views on the status of her reports.

The DA pointed to the court's qualifying remark that state bodies could only deviate from the remedial action implemented by the public protector if they declared rational grounds, that would stand up in a court, for not doing so.

On Thursday, Kubayi said the committee's thorough reflection on the findings of all three investigations into the Nkandla allegations meant it had rationally applied its mind to the matter. 

- Sapa

State to decide who can hear Nkandla inquiry

Durban - Media companies face being barred from the government inquiry on the conduct of Department of Public Works officials involved in the upgrading of security at President Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla residence.

The media were allowed to report on all the preliminary hearings, but were told on Wednesday to submit a formal application before November 5 to be allowed any further access.

A “media hearing” will be held next week, where attorneys representing the media will have to present their arguments before the three chairmen, the state’s attorneys, the accused and their representative, the Public Servants Association.

The media application must include details of how the stories will be used, including whether articles will be shared with sister publications, plans for publishing online and on social media platforms.

Murray Hunter, a spokesman for the media freedom organisation Right2Know, said: “In the battle to get the Nkandla procurement documents released, top Public Works officials lied under oath about the contents of the documents. They claimed that the contents were so critical to national security that not even one page could be released, which turned out not to be true. So the department’s conduct has eroded public trust.

“Making this process open would be the best way to ensure that the civil servants get a fair hearing – it would also be crucial to ensuring that the public finally got to know the truth.” The inquiry is taking place in Durban, where 12 officials have to answer to charges of failing to comply with the statutory and regulatory measures that governed the procurement of goods and services by the department for the R246 million project.

Earlier this month, one of the chairmen, Thulani Khuzwayo, announced that the media would have to make a formal application to report on the hearings. This is believed to be on the instruction of the department.

Advocate Joseph Nxusana initially permitted the media to report on the inquiry when he presided over the first sitting on September 30. This was in spite of argument by the department’s attorney, Lynette Naidoo, that the identities of the state’s witnesses would be compromised by the media’s presence. She also said the inquiry was by the department, that it concerned the conduct of its own employees, and media should not be present at internal hearings.

The Public Servants Association’s labour relations officer, Roshan Lil-Ruthan, has on many occasions stated that the association’s members have no objections to the media covering the hearings.

In September, he said if the hearings were like that of any other internal inquiry, the State would not have hired external attorneys as prosecutors and the proceedings would have been chaired by senior employees of the department instead of advocates from the KZN Society of Advocates, as was the case.’

- The Mercury

Minister defends housing age limit

Parliament - Apartheid did not steal the youth of South Africans under 40, Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu said on Tuesday as she defended her department's age criteria for qualifying for free public housing.

“What apartheid could never take from anybody is their age. They are young, they are energetic, they are able to do,” Sisulu said on the sidelines of a briefing to Parliament's human settlements portfolio committee on her first 100 days in her portfolio.

The minister was accused by the Economic Freedom Fighters last week of misleading voters and creating a generation of “hobos” after she told journalists in Durban nobody under 40 would get a free house from the state.

She said she had referred to the age of 40 on that occasion because everybody present was younger, but it was established state policy that the minimum qualifying age was 60.

Asked when the policy was introduced, her office referred to a recent press release issued by Sisulu in which she stated that the decision to make 60 the qualifying age dated to 2009 Ä towards the end of her first term as housing minister.

The minister and all provincial human settlements MECs “resolved in 2009 that priority must be given to the elderly”, the statement said, and to that end the criteria were changed to prioritise those above 60, military veterans and people with disabilities.

“The housing database or waiting list is also being audited and adjusted to prioritise possible beneficiaries by age, starting with the elderly and those with special needs,” the minister's statement added.

Sisulu told Sapa there was a basic, universal understanding that the poor and elderly would be first in line for state benefits.

“If I should ever be able to say there is no 80-year-old without a house, I would have achieved something.

“If I can say there is nobody above 60 without a house, I will celebrate, I might even get to the 40-year-olds but right now our indigency policy does not accommodate any of you.

“Our policy speaks to 60, because that is the qualifying criteria worked out in our policy. Anything that is free ... there must be a cut-off point otherwise it will be a free for all. So in human settlements that is the criteria we use.”

She said the group of journalists in Durban's protests that they too were disadvantaged by apartheid, because for example they were taken out of school, were not persuasive because they were better able to fend for themselves than the aged. They were also eligible for other forms of state support, such as subsidised low-cost rental.

“What apartheid did do to the elderly is it has taken their lives away. There is nothing an elderly person can do,” she said.

“So it had nothing to do with schooling or advantages, it had to do with the fact that there are other programmes that we have in housing that caters for a whole variety of people who are able to do that.

“What people under the age of 40 have is an enormous ability to do things themselves. That which the older people can't do.

“They have sweat equity, which is one of the programmes that we have. They can go into rental if they can get a job. We are creating a youth brigade so they will get a job.”

She added the government did not want to create a young generation dependent on state benefits.

“We want our young to grow up and be self-sufficient, we don't want them to be dependent on the state. The state has only so much that it can cater for.”

- Sapa

Wife to get RDP house in divorce: Sisulu

Parliament - A law amendment is in the pipeline to ensure that if a couple in a free government house get divorced the house goes to the wife, Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu said on Tuesday.

“That is how our policy should read,” Sisulu told Parliament's portfolio committee on human settlements after a briefing on the first 100 days of her second stint in the portfolio.

“In 2006, we were involved in a women's build in Gauteng and after that we had an imbizo, and we came up with an idea that I had hoped in my second coming would have crystallised into policy, where we agreed that the house belongs to the man and the wife for as long they're married.

“When they get divorced the house belongs to the woman. That is our policy. So the man picks up his jacket and gets out,” she added.

The minister said her thinking was informed by the fact that mothers were the primary caregivers for their children.

“The wife stays because the wife is indeed responsible for the children.”

Sisulu suggested the policy had not yet found its way into law because the department had been “presided by men”.

She said if a wife died the house would go to the husband, on condition the children were also considered beneficiaries and that the house accrued to them if he remarried.

“If he finds somebody else, he gives the house to the children and goes to the other woman.”

Sisulu served as housing minister from 2004 to 2009. The portfolio was then given to Tokyo Sexwale before she returned to it earlier this year.

She told Sapa the provision on divorce would be enshrined in upcoming amendments to the Housing Act. She hoped in a year it would be on its way into law books.

In the meanwhile, her department would implement it as policy, she said.

- Sapa

Lindiwe Sisulu and the New Denialism

In 2005, early in her in her first term as Minister of Housing, Lindiwe Sisulu announced that the state had resolved to 'eradicate slums' by 2014. This was a time when the technocratic ideal had more credibility than it did now and officials and politicians often spoke, with genuine conviction, as if it were an established fact that this aspiration would translate into reality.

It was not unusual for people trying to engage the state around questions of urban land and housing to be rebuffed as troublemakers, either ignorant or malicious, on the grounds that it was an established fact that there would be no more shacks by 2014.

As we head towards the end of 2014 there are considerably more people living in shacks than there were in 2005, in 1994 or at any point in our history. The gulf between the state's aspirations to shape society and what actually happens in society have also been starkly illustrated at the more local level. Sisulu's flagship housing project, the N2 Gateway project in Cape Town, resulted in acute conflict and remains in various kinds of crisis to this day.

One of the lessons to be learnt from the denialism around the nature and scale of the urban crisis that characterised Thabo Mbeki's Presidency is that although the state is certainly a powerful actor, it has often been profoundly wrong about its capacity to understand and to shape social reality.

But Sisulu's first term as the Minister of Housing is not only remembered for her failure to grasp either the scale of the demand for urban land and housing or the limits of the state's response. There was also a marked authoritarianism to her approach. She did not oppose the escalating and consistently unlawful violence with which municipalities across the country were attempting to contain the physical manifestation of the urban crisis via land occupations.

Sisulu also offered her full support to the failed attempt, first proposed in the Polokwane Resolutions, and then taken forward in the KwaZulu-Natal parliament in the form of the Slums Act in 2007, to roll back some of the limited rights that had been conceded in the early years of democracy to people occupying land without the consent of the state or private land owners.

At the same time she also earned some notoriety for her unilateral, and clearly unlawful, declaration in 2007 that residents of the Joe Slovo settlement in Cape Town would be permanently removed from the (entirely mythical) 'housing list' for opposing forced removal. She was also silent in the face of the violence marshalled through party structures against shack dwellers who had had the temerity to organise around issues of urban land and housing independently of the ANC in both Durban and on the East Rand in 2009 and 2010.

Her second term as Minister, in a portfolio now termed Human Settlements, has been marked by a similar silence in response to the even more brazen forms of repression, including assassination, now visited on people organised outside of the ANC in shack settlements in Durban. But there have been some important shifts in her position.

One is that like her predecessor Tokyo Sexwale, she no longer speaks as if the 'eradication of slums' is imminent. In this regard the state has developed a more realistic understanding of the situation it confronts. Another shift is Sisulu's opposition to unlawful evictions in Cape Town. This is, given her on-going silence in response to violent and unlawful evictions elsewhere in the country, clearly an expedient rather than a principled position. But in a context where land occupations are routinely misrepresented through the lens of criminality or political conspiracy her framing of her opposition to eviction in Cape Town in the language of justice may open some space in elite publics to politicise the contestation over urban land, something that is relentlessly expelled from the terrain of the political by a variety of elite actors.

But it is Sisulu's recent declaration that the state intends to do away with the provision of free housing and that people under forty will no longer be eligible for public housing that has been particularly controversial. Both aspects of this comment position her in direct contradiction to the law and the policies to which the government is, at least in principle, committed.

This is nothing new. When it comes to its response to the urban land occupation the state routinely speaks and acts in direct contradiction to both law and policy. What is significant here is the indication that the state, increasingly short of cash, intends to step back from some of its commitments to sustain some forms of public welfare.

Sisulu is presenting the state's public housing programme as if it were a temporary state response to apartheid, which now that things have been normalised, can be abandoned. Both parts of this equation are seriously problematic.

The ANC, in a posture that these days is simply farcical given that it is Putin rather than Lenin that restores the sparkle to Zuma's eyes in tough times, likes to pretend to itself that it is a revolutionary organisation. But public housing, far from being some kind of unique and temporary South African exception to the general status quo, is a standard part of even basic social democratic programmes.

Countries in the South like Bolivia, Brazil and Venezuela all have public housing programmes of various kinds. These programmes all have serious flaws, but the fact that they exist and that other states are committed to public housing as a principle, should not be denied. In Venezuela the public housing programme includes housing that is entirely free for entirely impoverished people. There are also governments in the South that have actively sought to legalise land occupations and support the improvement of conditions in shack settlements.

Sisulu's assertion that people under forty "have lost nothing [to apartheid]" is one of the most extraordinary statements to have escaped from the mouth of a cabinet minister since 1994. The pretence that apartheid's consequences came to an end in 1994 is the sort of denialism that is so out of touch with reality - and in a way that works to naturalise inequalities inherited from a long history of brutal oppression that turned race into class - that it's almost obscene to even engage it as if it were a serious proposition.

In a situation in which millions of people cannot access housing through the market the state should recognise the social value of land occupations, offer all the support that it can to improve conditions in shack settlements and develop the best and most extensive public housing programme possible.

But if the state continues to see most land occupations as criminal and to curtail its own public housing programme, it will place millions of people in a situation that is just not viable. The inevitable consequence of the state committing itself to an urban agenda that simply has no place for millions of people will be a radical escalation of the already intense conflict in our cities. To put it plainly guns will become even more central to how our cities are governed. Sisulu's comments amount to a declaration of war.

Dr. Pithouse teaches politics at Rhodes University.

- allAfrica

Dear Lindiwe Sisulu

Dear Lindiwe Sisulu

by Biko Monyatsi @bikomfident on twitter

Daughter of the struggle, flower of the relentless revolution of Azania, when the rainbow masses drafted the Freedom Charter in Kliptown, they weren't in some shebeen under the influence of opium. When the Likes of Tambo and Tata Sisulu declared that ‘there shall be houses, security and comfort’, they didn’t leave out an age-restriction clause by some mistake. This was done with sheer sobriety understanding the socio-economics of this country.  They understood that challenges the old were confronted were the same the youth were faced with. The struggle in general was not age specific. In fact, the youth were affected the most.

I must admit, I was not only taken aback by your utterances, being appalled is an understatement. I was disappointed beyond words, not exactly by your testament but by the fact that these painful words were spewed by you mama. I could simply not believe that such immeasurable and inexplicable ignorance coupled with arrogance is coming from you, you mama,a liberation fighter who had a first-hand experience of apartheid. 

You, who understands what, being black, desperate, oppressed and destitute means. Could this selective amnesia be so culminated that you can forget where you left us before you ascended ranks of government? Could you be so well-cushioned in your expensive suburban house that you've forgotten that our young people are still (like in the past) squashed in shacks with hopes of one day occupying 50 square meter RDPs?

Have you forgotten that Langa, Dieplsloot and other informal settlements aren’t old age homes but places were young people are squeezed in perpetual suffering hoping for a better tomorrow?

Lest you forget mama, a 39 year old South African was born in 1975. Lest you forget 11 million children getting child grants aren't getting them as freebies or gifts but because their parents are unemployed and cannot afford basic needs. Parents of these children happen to be these under 40s you are referring to. 8 million young people (under 40s you are referring to) are unemployed, not because they are lazy but because some could not finish school, some could afford to go to varsities and some cannot (even after studying) find jobs, all because of the socio-economic conditions of this country , all as a result of apartheid.

To then turn a blind eye of our plight with such confidence is worrying. The apparent conscience sclerosis you have is very concerning. 

Your statement is not only glaringly preposterous but seeks to inform us (as young people) that you are not there in our interest, which is self-defeating since we form more that 70% of the population in this country. If we can’t afford education or get jobs, how are we supposed to afford shelter? RDPs aren’t for the old aged but for the disadvantaged and indigents, a category we happen to be part of.

Mama, it is in your own interest to retract what you said and apologise to us young people.

- Opinion24

The twin scourge of promise and legacy

Minister of Human Settlements Lindiwe Sisulu thinks that if you’re under 40 years of age, you’re not affected by apartheid’s consequences. Don’t be lazy, then, and expect a free house. Housing from the state is strictly intended to “right the wrongs of the past”, and therefore under forties should be excluded.

This is a shocking argument, and although it has generated discussion, the minister deserves further engagement on the multiple ways in which her viewpoint is ahistorical, and even unconstitutional.

Minister Sisulu went on to say (addressing anyone under 40): “None of you are ever going to get a house free from me while I live.” What incredible arrogance, based on a poor understanding of history’s reach into our democracy, and a poor understanding of the government’s constitutional duties.

First, let’s engage the most compelling defence of the minister that some have offered on her clumsy behalf. Some argue that, actually, the minister has a point when you take into account the fact that the state necessarily has limited resources to provide housing, and so must prioritise older people, and only young people with special needs like those from child-headed households.

This is justified, so the argument goes, because young people are too entitled, and at any rate have a lifetime of opportunity ahead of them still, if only they used their energy to get ahead in life rather than waiting for the state to give them everything they need.

Is this defence of Sisulu fair, and convincing?

Not really, for the simple reason that the various ANC governments of the past 20 years are mostly responsible for any culture of entitlement that South Africans have become addicted to. So the state doesn’t have the moral authority to lecture any lazy or demotivated or entitled citizens. Instead, the state should take the biggest slice of the blame for engendering this culture of expectation.

This, of course, doesn’t mean it is false to say many under forties are wrongly waiting for the government to do everything for them. But who makes that argument matters. If you are responsible, in large part, for my entitlement attitude, then it’s not clear to me that you should be the first to tell me, in the name of newly discovered tough love, that I should now pull myself together.

This message would be far less controversial, divisive and worthy of scorn had the minister – or even better the president – delivered a major speech first in which they apologised for the state consistently raising false expectations among citizens over the past 20 years that they would deliver a better life for all.

The very use of phrases like “service delivery” and the size of our welfare budget engendered a culture of expectation. A confession that it was wrong, unrealistic and not sustainable would be a good start from the state.

If the state were to take responsibility for this culture, and took citizens into its confidence about what, realistically, it can do to help citizens, and what it can’t do, then the tough-love message would resonate with many more than was the case when Sisulu shouted from the rooftops recently.

However, even if the minister did have the moral authority to tell young people where to get off, the tough-love viewpoint isn’t entirely convincing. It is premised on the false belief that the past does not affect someone under the age of 40. That is ahistorical and based on patently false beliefs about the nature of apartheid

It is a viewpoint I’d expect from AfriForum, determined to pretend that in 1994 we all started on an equal footing and with a blank slate.

That is not historical reality. Apartheid didn’t just affect my grandparents and my parents. It has affected me too, and materially so, although I am only 35, as a result of being born into a family that was affected by the evil of apartheid.

If, in 1979, I was born into a white family, for example, the statistical and empirical truth is that I would have a much better chance of being a professional, educated and employed 35-year-old in 2014 than if I had been born in a shack.

That is because the intergenerational consequences of poverty, and state-sponsored anti-black racism, have far-reaching structural consequences that cannot be wiped out in one or two generations. Some of us born in 1979 did, of course, escape our cycle of poverty in poor black townships. But we were lucky, beating the odds, and know the face of structural poverty when we go home. It still exists.

Sisulu ought to know better, and yes particularly so as a black South African coming from a family that was deeply steeped in the fight against the structural impact of apartheid.

Perhaps what her comments highlight are two uncomfortable truths about democratic South Africa: politicians who have always been, or have become, privileged (regardless of skin colour) suffer from convenient amnesia about the structural nature of apartheid and exclusion; second, if the state runs out of excuses for poor delivery, it could try to shift the conversation away from its track record towards citizen attitudes. Yet, if we are honest, very few South Africans under 40 would demand houses from the state if they had been given adequate opportunities from the state to excel and become self-sufficient.

So unless the state wants to also argue it never had a political and constitutional duty to progressively realise the rights of citizens to education, healthcare and housing, then it must be embarrassed that many citizens who are under 40 actually don’t desire to be dependent on the state. They simply don’t have opportunities to become educated, and many who are don’t have opportunities to find work as a result of the low economic growth we’re experiencing, and barriers to becoming entrepreneurs such as a risk-averse banking sector not about to give a loan to asset-less Eusebius.

How can Sisulu be so oblivious to her government’s role over the past 20 years in not generating enough opportunities for young people to escape the consequences of the past? It is baffling. But maybe not, if you take into account that acknowledging this narrative is the equivalent of admitting that you’ve been less awesome in the driving seat of state power than you often proclaim.

Sadly for the minister, while she can choose to be politically arrogant, she cannot ignore the constitution. The constitution doesn’t say every citizen must get a house. But it does say the state has a duty, within its available resources, to realise the right to housing, progressively. As with Aids drugs, it would have to show that the state has rational grounds for not providing housing, within its budgetary constraints, for all citizens that need it, and not just over forties.

The constitution doesn’t distinguish between under forties and over forties. I would love to see the minister try to convert that viewpoint into a successful constitutional argument for discriminating against citizens younger than 40.

Must we stop being reliant on the state as young South Africans? Absolutely. But then the state, in turn, must stop making empty promises that worsen a sense of entitlement among young people.

Better still, jack up the education system, reduce barriers to entrepreneurship and make the economic climate exciting enough for local business to invest more in the local economy, while also attracting further foreign investment. I bet my left kidney that fewer under forties would demand housing if the state performed better than it currently does.

* Eusebius McKaiser is the best-selling author of A Bantu In My Bathroom and Could I Vote DA? A Voter’s Dilemma. He is currently working on his third book, Searching For Sello Duiker.

** The views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of Independent Media.

- The Star

VICE V - 'MR PRESIDENT'

Hippo Government Foo-Foo Heads

Zuma’s SARS Gratitude Shout Out – ZANEWS

Zuma’s SARS Gratitude Shout Out – ZANEWS

Minister Sisulu, politicking doesn't improve living conditions

Note to Editors: This is an extract of a speech delivered by the DA Shadow Minister of Human Settlements, Makashule Gana MP, during a sitting of the National Assembly in Parliament today. 

Honourable Speaker,

Honourable Members,

Now more than ever, we need a constructive debate on how to make our cities welcoming for all people moving there. We cannot deny that urbanisation is placing enormous pressure on our local governments. We must work together to make our cities work for everyone. 

Honourable Speaker, 

The City of Cape Town tried to engage with Sanral as early as 2010 to install services to the shacks on their land, resulting in several warnings from the City about the untenable living conditions. Sanral's inaction formed part of its plans to bring e-tolls to the Western Cape.

After the evictions took place the City of Cape Town made available community facilities to assist those affected by Sanral's legal action. 

The matter is currently handled by the Housing Development Agency (HDA) which coordinated the move of the residents back to Lwandle and assisted in the set-up of temporary structures. The City of Cape Town has provided all the material.

The City is prohibited by law from providing services on land owned by another sphere of government or private land owner. The City is awaiting permission from SANRAL to provide toilets. Eskom wants to install electricity but they too are waiting on SANRAL to approve.

But let us be clear, this is not a Cape Town issue, this is a nationwide issue, affecting many municipalities, especially metropolitan municipalities. 

Honourable Speaker, 

I am happy to hear that the Minister agrees with the DA that any illegal occupation of land should be discouraged. 

I am sure that she is also in agreement that we cannot incentivise illegal land invasion by providing alternative accommodation to the detriment of others who have been waiting on housing lists for almost 20 years. 

Perhaps one of the most disturbing elements of this whole situation is that fact that Ses'Khona - the network includes several ANC councillors and aspirant councillors - scored R330 000 from Lwandle plot-selling. Evidence suggests that a total of 660 sites were pegged out on SANRAL land for shacks to be built at a minimum price of R500 each. 

Taking advantage of vulnerable people is deplorable and should be condemned. I would call on the Minister to condemn Ses'Khona for these illegal activities. 

Honourable Speaker, 

Instead of confining the investigation to one DA-run province, the Minister should have launched a nationwide investigation into evictions, which occur all too often.

The Minister's spokesperson tried to justify to journalists why the Department did not investigate other evictions in the country: "When a Mayor and a Premier, on a cold winter day, abandon its citizens, the national department must intervene. In other provinces the mayors and premiers never abandon their people." 

This is an insult to South Africans.

The true story is that on a very cold winter's day in June this year more than 200 Zandspruit residents in Johannesburg were forcefully removed and on day two SAPS fired rubber bullets at protesting residents.

In the same month in the eThekwini Municipality, 100 shacks in Cato Crest's Marikana Land Occupation and Lamontville's Madlala Village were destroyed and left about 300 people homeless. 

What about the Uitenhage Demolitions in the Eastern Cape, Mogale City, Alexandra and Belgravia evictions in Gauteng and the Umzimkulu municipality demolitions in Kwa-Zulu Natal?

There is much work to be done to deliver adequate land and housing to our people. The Report tabled today should be scrutinised by the committee to see how we can move forward on the issue of evictions. 

In the meantime I would encourage the Minister to work harder to solve the underperformance of provincial departments and municipalities - including actually spending the Rural Infrastructure Grant Funding, upgrading informal settlements and providing recreational facilities in informal settlements so people can build communities. 

Honourable Speaker, 

Section 26 of the Bill of Rights states that "Everyone has the right to adequate housing" and further that the State must make the necessary arrangements to provide for citizens who cannot provide adequate housing for themselves.

Instead of focusing on preventing illegal evictions, land must be made available closer to urban centres - especially land owned by state entities that is sitting idle - for the development of human settlements. 

Minister let us not forget that Human Settlements plays an important role in redressing some of the imbalances of apartheid spatial development, and providing dignity and land ownership to many South African citizens must be a task we all take up without playing petting politics. 

Let's make our cities welcoming to all people.

- Ndza khensa. DA

- Politicsweb

Poverty in Western Cape growing

Cape Town - Local government MEC Anton Bredell has stressed that the biggest challenge facing municipalities in the province was the fact that “poverty is catching up” with them.

Tabling his department’s annual report before the provincial government’s standing committee for local government on Wednesday, Bredell said his department has received a clean audit opinion from the auditor-general.

“Our financial management is under control,” Bredell said.

Over the past year, the department has provided support and capacity building programmes to all 30 municipalities in the province, with the aim of delivering the best necessary services to communities.

Bredell said this year the department had exceeded almost all of its performance targets.

Responding to questions from ANC MPL Richard Dyantyi, about the impact of service delivery protests on the department and its oversight role in the province’s municipalities, Bredell highlighted the fact that the province had had a 37 percent population growth over the last 14 years.

Dyantyi said for the year 2013/2014 there were 644 protests in the province, and he wanted Bredell’s take on the issue.

Bredell pointed out that there were different reasons for the protest action, saying that not all were service related.

The EFF’s Nazier Paulsen wanted to know what the department was doing to resolve the problem in municipalities like Oudtshoorn where politicians and not officials were causing problems.

Bredell said that in Oudtshoorn it was not just the politicians but also the officials who were causing problems.

“Sometimes unfortunately you will need to follow the legal route,” Bredell said.

A stable political environment and a good administration were needed to get a town’s council in a proper running state.

“I am not the boss of politicians, we work with councils. I am the MEC for local government in the province, I’m not the MEC for the DA members in a council,” he said.

Using stats from the municipal IQ survey, Bredell said seven of the top 10 best performing municipalities in the country were in the Western Cape.

“Twenty-nine out of the 30 municipalities in the province also managed to attain unqualified audits in their latest financial year, with 11 of the 29 getting a further accolade, that of getting clean audits in the year under review,” he added.

Another highlight was that the province spent more than 98 percent of its Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) expenditure. But Bredell stressed that despite the progress, much still needed to be done to improve the living conditions of many communities.

warda.meyer@inl.co.za

- Cape Argus

DA Calls On Minister Sisulu to Come Clean On Tongaat Mall Funding

The DA will today write to the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Human Settlements, Nocawe Mafu, requesting that she summon the Minister of Human Settlements, Lindiwe Sisulu, to Parliament to account for the department's involvement in partially funding the Tongaat Mall in Durban.

Reports revealed yesterday that Minister Sisulu confirmed that her department had been involved in the funding of this mall and thus we implore the Minister to come clean on the extent of her department's involvement.

Minister Sisulu said: "The tragedy about that building is that it was partly funded by myself [... ] Part of the funding did come from human settlements."

The DA will submit parliamentary questions to ascertain how funds from the Department of Human Settlements were channelled and approved by the Minister to fund the construction of the mall.

Housing money should not be spent on building malls.

After the investigation is complete, the full might of the law must be enforced to hold those accountable for abusing tax payer's money.

Sadly, two people were killed and 29 workers were injured in the collapse of the mall on 19 November last year.

We cannot stand by and watch money that is meant to assist the poor to be used on building malls.

Taking money meant to build houses for the poor to build malls is criminal and as such all involved must face the full might of the law. It does not matter if they are developers, politicians or Human Settlements officials

Makashule Gana

Deputy Federal Chairperson of the Democratic Alliance | Shadow Minister of Human Settlements

- allAfrica

Cape Town's Joe Slovo residents “too young” for houses

Residents of Joe Slovo informal settlement, Langa, have been left homeless after they started demolishing their shacks under the impression that keys to new housing units would be handed over to them. The MEC for Human Settlements, Bonginkosi Madikizela, has said that the shack demolitions were premature and that many of the beneficiaries are “too young” to be prioritised for housing. By Daneel Knoetze for GROUND UP.

On Wednesday, when community leaders told Ntombi Mpozolo, 26, and dozens of her neighbours to move out of their shacks in anticipation of receiving new houses, they were happy to oblige. Mpozolo’s section of Langa’s Joe Slovo informal settlement borders the newly completed Phase 3 of the N2 Gateway Housing Development. She and 55 neighbouring households claim that they have been registered as beneficiaries in line for new houses at the development since 2010. Title deeds for the units have already been signed, she says.

“We have been waiting for those houses a long time. Our ID numbers are all on the list and we were not expecting to be so disappointed. Instead of sleeping in our new houses, we were left outside to sleep among our possessions.”

Mpozolo showed GroundUp to the hearth around which some of the families slept the night before. The coals were still smouldering, which would make it easier to light the fire later, she said. Couches, fridges, kitchen cabinets, luggage, clothing and remnants of shacks lay scattered about.

Nearby, Mzwanele Zulu, of the Joe Slovo Task Team, had convened an impromptu community meeting. He used a loud hailer to address some 200 people who had gathered.

The Task Team is the community’s liaison to government and the N2 Gateway project managers - the Housing Development Agency.

“There is a lot of sudden confusion on our side and, more so, from the community,” he told GroundUp after the meeting.

“We are just here to show that we are in solidarity with them. Last night I was here until 2am, sitting with people who had no option but to sleep outside - mothers and infant children.”

Zulu said the Task Team, on instruction from the HDA, told 56 families to move out and to start demolishing their shacks.

“We had a fruitful meeting with the HDA last week and it was agreed that the beneficiaries would move in on Tuesday and Wednesday. Now, suddenly, we are told that these beneficiaries are too young and that they will not receive houses at all. That has come completely out of the blue. The community feels that they have been stabbed in the back. It may seem peaceful now, but this is a recipe for violence.”

The issue of age and housing allocation was addressed by national Minister of Human Settlements, Lindiwe Sisulu, at the 6th Planning Africa Conference in Durban on Tuesday. According to Sapa, Sisulu told reporters that people below the age of 40 are not “a priority” for government housing allocation.

“Our intention in giving free houses was to right the wrongs of the past and make sure that we can give our people dignity. And that group of people is not the people below the age of 40,” she is reported to have said.

“I don't know of a country that gives free houses to young people. Free housing in a few years will be something of the past. You (the young people) have lost nothing (to apartheid).”

The HDA could not confirm reports that the issue of age came up in their discussions with the Joe Slovo Task Team this week. Spokeswoman Kate Shand said that the HDA would only be able to respond to GroundUp’s queries later this week.

Madikizela of the Western Cape Human Settlements department, which is a partner in the N2 Gateway project, acknowledged that expectations had been raised in the Joe Slovo community that keys would be handed over this week.

“But, at no stage were those residents told to move their possessions or to demolish their shacks,” he said.

“The development’s contractor is the only body tasked with doing this. If they do not give the instruction, which they did not do, it would be irresponsible to start the process of moving.”

On the issue of age, Madikizela said:

“There is no way that we are giving houses to kids in their 20s. It cannot be fair that youngsters - who are new on the waiting list - get houses when there are people in their 60s and 70s who have lived in shacks for decades. They may threaten violence, but government will not bow to this pressure.”

But Mpozolo, a mother with a four year old boy, said that she was merely asking for government to make good on previous agreements that she and 55 of her neighbours would move into the new houses.

If they were not handed the keys to the new houses, Mpozolo said, the community would violently resist relocation.

“We are old enough to vote for these politicians to be in power, but now all of a sudden we are not old enough to be given the houses that we were promised.”

“They themselves agree that we have been on the housing waiting list. We qualify for these houses, they are ours. This is unfair and, as you can see, we must now live outside without a roof over our heads.” 

- DM

No parallel between Nkandla and airport

There is no equivalence between the building of a public airport and the provision of private retirement accommodation, says Dave Steward.

Pretoria - In comments that he is reported to have made at a luncheon at the weekend, President Jacob Zuma apparently asked why there was so much criticism over state expenditure on his personal residence at Nkandla, if the state had been prepared to build an airport for PW Botha in George in 1977.

He also pointed out that he lived in official accommodation without paying rent and that he made use of official aircraft without having to pay the costs involved.

Were these unfair benefits, the president asked.

When it was pointed out that Nkandla was his own personal property he asked whether it was not the state’s duty to protect the president and the deputy president.

The president pointed out that the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) had already found that he was not responsible for the expenditure on Nkandla and had recommended disciplinary steps against 12 officials (a finding that is being hotly contested by some of the accused officials).

If he is correctly reported, the president’s comments raise disturbing questions regarding his views on the distinction between proper state expenditure on bona fide projects and expenditure that will result in his own enormous and unjustifiable enrichment.

The state naturally has a duty to provide official accommodation and transportation for a president while he is in office.

It also has a duty to provide a reasonable level of security to retired presidents.

However, something must be seriously wrong if the provision of such security leads to state expenditure that vastly exceeds the value of the property that is being protected, as well as expenditure on the security of other former presidents.

This is particularly the case when one considers that the amount spent on Nkandla would be sufficient to build 2 500 RDP houses.

Any state action that results in the enrichment of a political office bearer to the tune of hundreds of millions of rand is fundamentally wrong and unacceptable.

Even if the SIU were to be proved right, that Zuma was not responsible for the decisions involved, he would still not be entitled to the personal enrichment that would nevertheless ensue from the mistakes of the accused officials.

There is clearly no equivalence between the building of a public airport and the provision of private retirement accommodation.

PW Botha was not given ownership of George Airport and derived no personal benefit from it above and beyond the benefit that it brought to all people wishing to fly in and out of the southern Cape region.

Neither was it built simply to accommodate Botha’s personal travel needs.

The southern Cape was in sore need of an airport as is illustrated by the fact that George Airport now handles 600 000 passengers a year – significantly more than East London, Bloemfontein and Kimberley.

And anyway, since when has Zuma adopted the former president as a role model?

What emerges from Zuma’s remarks is his growing sensitivity to media criticism over Nkandla; his, and the ANC’s failure to accept that the expenditure of R246 million on his private residence is indefensible; and the lack of credibility of the findings of organisations like the SIU that are ultimately under the president’s control.

* Dave Steward is executive director of the FW de Klerk Foundation.

** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.

- Pretoria News

Cape residents march over service delivery

Cape Town - Hundreds of frustrated Philippi residents marched to protest against poor service delivery on Thursday morning, while police monitored the situation.

Marikana and Rholihlahla informal settlement residents marched to the Fezeka municipal offices in Gugulethu to demand basic service delivery.

About 200 residents dressed in yellow ANC branded T-shirts with a picture of President Jacob Zuma, marched down Sheffield Road, voicing their frustration.

As they sang struggle songs, police in two vans kept an eye on the situation in an effort to prevent violence breaking out.

Residents claim they have had no access to water, sanitation and electricity since moving on to privately-owned land at Marikana and Rholihlahla in August.

A series of eviction attempts by police and other officials ended in violence and residents soon returned to the site.

Phillip Mvundlela, chairman of the Rholihlahla Street Committee, said residents had signed a petition which would be handed to the chairman of Subcouncil 13.

“The subcouncil chair must hand the petition to the mayor (Patricia de Lille) and she should see that we get these services,” he said.

Mvundlela said residents were not aware the land they had invaded was privately owned.

However, he said even if it was privately owned, the fact should not infringe on their human rights.

“Its been three months now. How do they expect us to wash?”

Another resident, Nosiphiwo Lali, said they were tired of not being heard.

“A month after settling here, we approached the ward councillor asking for basic services. He still hasn’t got back to us, so we are going to his superiors.”

But some residents did not participate in the protest.

They said there was a court case pending about the illegal invasion and marching was against court rules.

Gcinikhaya Ngqangqu said: “We are dealing with a court case against the owners of the land and the City of Cape Town is the second respondent in that court case.

“We were supposed to wait for the outcome before protesting.”

zodidi.dano@inl.co.za

- Cape Argus

MyCiTi demolitions a ‘done deal’

Cape Town - Plans by the City of Cape Town to demolish houses in a Plumstead road earmarked for the construction of a new MyCiTi bus route appear to be a done deal, according to a report submitted to the Protea Subcouncil.

Approval has already been given for the demolition of three vacant houses in Waterbury, Rotherfield and Lympleigh roads.

Part of the motivation for removing these “dilapidated houses” was that Transport for Cape Town, and specifically the Integrated Rapid Transit department, had “informed and requested the demolition of various houses within the proposed road reserve to enable the construction of Phase 2A of the IRT project”.

The project would start in 2015, said the report. “They are currently finalising the concept design and expect the detail design of Phase 2A to be completed in mid-2014.”

Brett Herron, mayoral committee member for transport, has said that the detailed route was still being finalised and that more information would be announced at a media briefing within two weeks.

The city has meanwhile confirmed that 26 occupied council-owned houses and six vacant houses would be demolished to make way for the MyCiTi trunk route that will come through Wynberg and Plumstead. Tenants have already been sent council notices terminating their leases, and have been given until January to leave their homes.

Members of the South Road Families’ Association, representing those facing eviction, say the MyCiTi plans had been “slapped” on to outdated road schemes dating back to the 1950s.

Herron said the properties in South Road were bought by the city after the initial planning of the South Road scheme in the 1960s. The detailed design for the road scheme was finalised early in 2000, but construction never took place.

The South Road reserve, as well as the Wynberg Couplet reserve, also approved in 2002, would form part of the second phase of the MyCiTi service between Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain and Wynberg.

But the Wynberg Residents and Ratepayers’ Association said the council had agreed in 2002 that the Brodie/Main Road couplet proposal would be a long-term plan and would be phased in only if there was an “extensive meaningful public participation process” and if “overwhelming support of the public is obtained”.

At a recent press conference about the Integrated Public Transport Plan, Herron said the Wynberg route would start at Wynberg Station and travel along the Main Road, the Brodie Road couplet and the new carriageway in South Road, Plumstead.

The Cape Flats District Plan of 2012 refers to a link from South Road to Constantia. This link, which would include an underpass under the railway, is part of the proclaimed road area. The Brodie Road couplet would create a two-lane public road through residential Wynberg.

After a public meeting to discuss the city’s plans, the Wynberg Residents and Ratepayers’ Association issued the following statement: “Wynberg residents do not support the South Road/Brodie Road couplet scheme, which has been disguised as a MyCiTi route.”

anel.lewis@inl.co.za

- Cape Argus

Lindiwe Sisulu’s housing stance outrages youth

Statements made by Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu that people younger than 40 will not get a free house has angered and shock the National Freedom Party Youth Movement (NFPYM).

“Anybody below the age of 40 will need to understand that they are not our priority unless they are special needs or are heads of child-headed households,” Sisulu said in Durban.

“Our intention in giving free houses was to right the wrongs of the past and make sure that we can give our people dignity. And that group of people is not the people below the age of 40,” she reportedly said on the sidelines of the 6th Planning Africa Conference.

Sisulu reportedly said the government had received a lot complaints for not providing free housing to the youth, but that the message to young people needed to be clear – that they would not receive free housing.

“I don’t know of a country that gives free houses to young people. Free housing in a few years will be something of the past. You [the young people] have lost nothing [to apartheid].”

She said government free housing projects were aimed at helping those who had suffered under apartheid.

“To us this is shocking. It’s this type of arrogance that makes young people less interested in voting. It’s a shame that Minister Sisulu has forgotten that the majority of the people she is talking about have lost their parents during the apartheid era, said NFPYM general secretary Maria Busi Tshabalala.

Tshabalala said the minister spoke about the youth not receiving houses while she was around as if the money for housing came from her own pocket as opposed the fact that it was taxpayers’ money

.

“It’s shocking and disturbing that few months after the general elections, she is taking such a stance because it’s us as young people who voted in numbers,” said Tshabalala.

“Is the ANC saying to hell with young people, now that they put in power for the next five years? We, as the NFPYM we are not surprised that the Minister speaks like this because she knows nothing about poverty or going to school bare-footed.”

The youth fraction of the NFP said the ANC’s true colours are now coming out and that it is clear that the ruling part does not care about the youth.

The political party has challenged the minister to a public debate on the issue.

- citizen

MyCiTi evictions are ‘like District 6

Cape Town - Mixed communities in Plumstead and Wynberg say the construction of a MyCiTi “freeway” through their peaceful suburbs will, like the Group Areas Act of apartheid, rip apart their neighbourhoods and their families.

More than 30 City of Cape Town tenants – including pensioners, single mothers and families with children at nearby schools – have been served with notices by the city’s property department, instructing them to move out of their council-owned homes by January next year.

“They’ve just thrown us out like dogs,” said Mogamat Bester, head of the South Road Families Association. “We are ratepayers and we pay rent.”

Others said the planned evictions harked back to the days of District Six, when families were scattered across the peninsula after the bulldozers moved in.

Bester, who was given his notice to vacate a few weeks ago, has vowed to fight the evictions. Legal advice has already been sought, and Bester is working on getting signed petitions of support from the area’s schools, churches and mosques.

He said it was understood that there were three phases to the city’s proposed MyCiTi route: the South Road demolition, the Brodie Road couplet in Wynberg and eventually the Constantia Road couplet.

Bester spoke to the Cape Argus on behalf of some of the residents who were shell-shocked after hearing at last week’s meeting of the Wynberg Residents and Ratepayers’ Association that the road was a “done deal”.

One resident, who has lived in her house since the late 1960s, was too ill to attend the meeting. Another spoke of the toll the uncertainty was having on her health.

But amid the anxiety and anger, there was also a strong sense of community and compassion. Recurring comments were “we’ll fight this together” and “we are not leaving”.

Ironically, the city’s intention to go ahead with a road scheme that was first mooted during apartheid to divide Wynberg along racial lines, has united residents of all races and religions in opposition.

For some, like Duncan Human, 76, this is not the first time they have stared eviction in the face.

Human, who has lived in Pluto Road, Plumstead, for more than 40 years, took the city to court in 2008 when he was first told to vacate his property.

He won his case.

“This is disturbing news for me. I’m 76 years old. Where am I going to go to? I’ve been through this before.”

The residents are adamant that they don’t want to leave.

“We don’t want alternatives, we want to stay here,” said John Abrahams. “We want public participation. There’s a highway coming through and it will bring noise and an influx of people to our area.”

One of the residents claimed he was told that if he did not like the city’s plans, he could live in Blikkiesdorp.

Lisa Miller’s house in Pluto Road will be flattened to make way for a MyCiTi bus stop. The planned road will have a devastating impact on her family.

“We can’t afford to buy a house, so I will have to take my daughter out of school and move to Pretoria where I can stay with family.”

Miller will have to leave her husband, a policeman, behind in Cape Town as he will be able to stay at the barracks.

Joanne Louw lives with her mother, a pensioner, and her 14-year-old son. She’s delighted that he has been accepted at a leading high school in the area. But, now she will have to find somewhere else to live.

“We will sit with our belongings in our gardens,” she said.

Another mother of three is concerned about schooling options. One of her daughters is at Vista Nova, and the school’s bus picks her up at their home.

“Where we are now, we are comfortable and safe. And now for council to tell us we have to move…”

The city has confirmed that tenants renting city-owned properties have been given four months’ notice to vacate their houses and to find alternative accommodation.

Brett Herron, mayoral committee member for Transport for Cape Town, said the bus lanes along South Road would “by and large” fall within the road reserve defined by the original scheme that was approved by the Protea Subcouncil in 2002.

He said the properties were acquired by the city over a period specifically for the purpose of the road scheme and “it was always the city’s intention that these properties would be demolished to make way for the construction of the proposed road”.

But Kristina Davidson, of the Wynberg Residents and Ratepayers’ Association, said a town planner had indicated earlier this year that the couplet road for a bus service made no sense as it would simply place a bus lane parallel to the existing railway line.

It was recommended that the bus rapid transit (BRT) should end at the Wynberg Transport Interchange where commuters could switch to a taxi or train.

Davidson said Wynberg was an area of high pedestrian activity and the proposed couplet would create a one-way “race track” with limited pedestrian access.

“The city regards the road scheme as part of the long-term ‘mobility solution’. Yet those same schemes were developed in the 1950s and 1960s, when the car was king and building roads was all the rage. The proposed couplet/South Road makes sense if the aim is to increase car mobility but does not make sense in terms of accessibility for passengers.”

It was also contrary to the national public transport strategy which called for integrated public transport networks.

“It would appear that the BRT concept is being misused to get funding for a road scheme that nobody wants,” she said.

anel.lewis@inl.co.za

- Cape Argus

Zuma’s backers should help the poor: IFP

Durban - President Jacob Zuma's backers should rather donate money to the needy than attempt to bail him out, the IFP said on Monday.

“President Zuma is not poor, he can afford to pay his debt,” Inkatha Freedom Party secretary general Sibongile Nkomo said in a statement.

“With his monthly salary, he can afford to pay all his debt without any bail-out.”

She said Zuma could not accept an offer to pay back the money spent on his Nkandla homestead, as this would mean he acknowledged that it constituted unlawful spending of public funds.

The Sunday Times reported that KwaZulu-Natal tycoon Philani Mavundla had offered to raise funds and settle Zuma's Nkandla “debt”.

Nkomo said Zuma's so-called backers would be wasting their money.

“There are many people in our country who are in desperate need of food and shelter, therefore these so-called good Samaritans should divert their goodwill to help those in need, as they are the ones who deserve assistance.”

In March, Public Protector Thuli Madonsela found that Zuma had derived undue benefit from the upgrades and recommended that he pay back a portion of the money.

Zuma declined to do so, and instead waited for the outcome of another investigation by the Special Investigating Unit.

The SIU blamed Zuma's architect Minenhle Makhanya for inflating the costs of the Nkandla project, and filed a civil claim against him for R155m in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on August 11.

Makhanya has hired high-profile lawyers to contest the case.

- Sapa

Zuma's Nkandla comparison raises alarms - de Klerk Foundation

The foundation says the comments regarding Zuma's views on the distinction between proper state expenditure and self-enrichment are disturbing.

President Jacob Zuma’s reported comparison between the construction of George airport and money spent on his Nkandla home raises “disturbing questions”, the FW De Klerk Foundation said on Monday.

“If he is correctly reported, the president’s comments raise disturbing questions regarding his views on the distinction between proper state expenditure on bona fide projects and expenditure that will result in his own enormous and unjustifiable enrichment,” executive director Dave Steward said in a statement.

The state had a duty to provide official accommodation and transportation for a president while in office and had a duty to provide security to retired presidents. 

“However, something must be seriously wrong if the provision of such security leads to state expenditure that vastly exceeds the value of the property that is being protected as well as expenditure on the security of other former presidents,” he said. Beeld reported on Monday that Zuma compared the construction of airport in George for apartheid-era head of state PW Botha, and his own home in Nkandla.

‘Is it unfair?’

Answering a question during a Sunday lunch to mark media freedom day, he said he lived in a state house without paying rent and travelled on state planes without paying for it. “Is this an unfair advantage?” he asked. When it was pointed out that his Nkandla dwelling was a personal home, not state property, Zuma said it was the state’s duty to protect the president and deputy president. 

Zuma said the airport in George was not built for economic reasons. “It is because Botha lived there [at Wilderness].” He wanted to know why there was so much criticism over Nkandla saying: “Is Nkandla not meant to produce a president?” The government spent R246-million on upgrades to Zuma’s Nkandla home. 

The public protector recommended that he repay that part of the money not spent on security. Meanwhile, disciplinary hearings for government officials who signed off on aspects of the project were underway. 

Parliament was disrupted by a call by the Economic Freedom Fighters that Zuma “pay back the money”, and Minenhle Makhanya, the architect who worked on the project, is challenging his alleged liability for overspending in court. Steward said any state action, which resulted in the enrichment of a political office bearer was fundamentally wrong and unacceptable. 

He said Botha was not given ownership of George Airport and derived no personal benefit from it. It was not built just for Botha’s personal travel needs. 

“What emerges from President Zuma’s remarks is his growing sensitivity to media criticism over Nkandla; his, and the ANC’s failure to accept that the expenditure of R246-million on his private residence is indefensible; and the lack of credibility of the findings of organisations like the SIU that are ultimately under the president’s control,” Steward said. – Sapa