Gateway row: Scopa takes Sisulu to task

In your article “You’re blocking the Gateway!” , the former minister of housing, Lindiwe Sisulu, was extensively quoted disputing the findings contained in the auditor-general’s report on the embattled N2 Gateway Project.

Among other things, she claimed that the auditor-general failed to provide a “balanced audit report” on the project. She also said that the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) didn’t have sufficient knowledge of the project; thus its criticism of the project was ill-informed.

And she suggested that Scopa didn’t know what the auditor-general’s report was about (‘I get the feeling that if they knew, they might be concentrating on a different outcome.’)

We would have welcomed it if the minister had engaged with us directly for any clarification on the issues raised under her leadership of the department.

We will continue to execute our oversight work relentlessly in our quest for accountability, without yielding to undue political pressure from the executive.

Although it’s not usual for Scopa to account to anyone outside parliament for its activities, a few misstatements by the minister regarding our engagement with the department on the N2 Gateway project require some form of clarification.

Firstly, Scopa’s engagement with the department regarding the project was on the basis of what was contained in the auditor-general’s report.

Thus, the outcomes of the hearings reflected the information provided to the committee by officials from the three spheres tasked with the implementation of the project, including the director-general of the national department of human settlements.

Our criticism of the project was not of an extraordinary nature, but a reflection of the challenges faced by the department in implementing the project.

The key challenges identified by Scopa related to unsound procurement processes (including the appointment of Cyberia although it was ranked sixth in the list of companies which bid for the contract), poor financial planning, and a lack of co-operation between the three spheres of government in implementing the project.

Secondly, during our interaction with the department, the director-general, Itumeleng Kotsoane, and other officials present never disputed the findings of the auditor-general, but rather gave a thorough account of the structural, financial, leadership and other challenges facing the full implementation of the Gateway project.

It was clear from their submissions that there were incomprehensible disparities between the three spheres — so much so that the committee halted its hearing as Scopa was not satisfied with the level of responses given by officials in all three spheres during its initial hearing.

Thirdly, our mandate as a committee is to ensure that public funds are spent effectively and efficiently in a manner that contributes to greater service delivery.

‘We will continue to execute our oversight work relentlessly in our quest for accountability’

Ours is to get clarity on why things have gone wrong and to find solutions to challenges faced by departments appearing before us.

The report compiled by Judge Willem Heath might have assisted the minister in getting a “balanced audit” but that report was never presented to us before our engagement with the officials — nor did the officials mention it during their submissions.

In the quest to get the “balanced view” the minister referred to, we kindly request her to give us the opportunity to view the report, as it will assist us to enhance our resolutions on the matter.

We see her sentiments regarding our engagement with the auditor-general’s report on the N2 Gateway project as an illustration of the lack of proper representation by her former officials.

This misrepresentation highlights a trend that the committee has also noted: of certain directors-general who at times act on the instructions of ministers, not owning up to some of the decisions taken.

In its recent strategic workshop, Scopa resolved to revisit the norm of having only directors-general appearing before it.

We have decided that ministers should accompany their directors-general to the committee, because cabinet members bear ultimate political accountability for their departments.

While Scopa can’t comment on Sisulu’s statements regarding the findings of the auditor-general, we remain confident and appreciative of the work of the auditor-general in enhancing oversight and we will continue to strengthen our relations with him as he is one of the key stakeholders who enhances our mandate.

We believe in the integrity of the auditor-general, as opposed to Judge Heath, who falls outside our constitutional mandate in the oversight cycle.

— Themba Godi, chairman of the standing committee on public accounts, parliament, Cape Town

- Sunday Times

‘Middle class’ swine flu eclipses frightening TB stats

As panic over swine flu continues to mount, health experts say TB is still the most serious threat facing the country. Although the respiratory disease claims an estimated 1000 lives per day in South Africa, doctors feel the media has neglected TB coverage and instead created a disproportionate anxiety over H1N1, responsible for fewer than 10 deaths over three months since it hit the country.

“The media is fuelling hysteria in the middle class group,” said professor of public health at the University of the Western Cape, David Sanders, of the swine flu coverage.

Sanders said “great awareness” had been created among the richer groups while the “sad truth” was that little was said of those who die every winter in the townships, where TB, HIV/Aids and diarrhoea are rife.

According to the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) Global TB Report South Africa currently ranks fourth in the world for TB infection, with an incidence rate of 940 cases per 100 000 people - a major increase from 338 per 100 000 population in 1998. The Western Cape health department confirmed there is an annual increase of TB cases, with 50 156 cases in the Western Cape in 2008. Of this figure 3.5% of those diagnosed with the disease, and 6% of those who had suffered from it previously, died.

About 234 XDR/MDR (Extreme Drug Resistant and Multi-Drug Resistant) patients were admitted to Brooklyn Chest Hospital between January 2009 and July 2009. The number of outpatients with MDR TB for this period was 606.

Meanwhile the latest statistics from the National Institute for Communicable Diseases revealed that 430 people in the Western Cape have tested positively for swine flu.

Spokesperson for the Treatment Action Campaign, Mandla Majola, said media had definitely put too much focus on swine flu than TB. He said this created the impression that the high rate of TB deaths in the country was neither as problematic nor as frightening as swine flu.

Majola said while it was important for the media to raise awareness, such focus had spread panic among people living in informal settlements too, who were particularly vulnerable due to lack of sanitation, water, housing, electricity and other basic needs. Moreover they seldom have access to private treatment or a healthy diet as a result of unemployment and poverty.

Dr Eric Goemaere of Medicines Sans Frontieres (MSF) said the country and media should concentrate more on what needed priority. He said at least 6% of people diagnosed with in Khayelitsha last year had a drug-resistant strain of the disease, and of those, three-quarters were also HIV-positive.

— West Cape News

R50m housing scam probed

The police commercial branch unit is investigating a R50-million housing scam in the Atlantis area of the Western Cape, police said on Friday.

Superintendent Jerome Hardenberg said Eugene Hendricks allegedly took deposits from victims, offering an attractive housing project.

He also offered a fixed payment system of R700 per month for 15 years to enable people to become home owners.

"According to our preliminary investigation there are... approximately 1500 victims from the residential areas of Atlantis, Eerste River and Scottsdene who fell prey to the housing scam," Hardenberg said.

He called on anyone who was a victim of the scam to register affidavits at the Atlantis police station next Wednesday or at the commercial branch offices on Thursday and Friday, during office hours.

- Sapa

Cape to ease housing problems

The City of Cape Town will need to triple its housing delivery to about 38,000 "housing opportunities" annually to keep pace with the growing demand for shelter, and this means it needs to build upwards.

The lack of available land for housing means the city will have to consider creating high-density "integrated towns" with 6,000 housing units of up to 14 storeys.

They would be built in "towns", and each would have necessary facilities such as schools.

The city council provided 10,000 housing opportunities this year, the city's manager of land and forward planning, Basil Davidson, said.

Housing opportunities are defined as dwelling places or serviced sites.

But with the number of people demanding shelter increasing by in-migration of between 18,000 and 20,000 each year, the city will need to accelerate its delivery.

Davidson said national government allocations for housing needed to reflect the impact of people moving to the Western Cape from other provinces.

"We are grappling with the impact of migration and the delivery (of houses)."

The Division of Revenue Bill uses a formula based on poverty levels to allocate funding to the provinces.

Davidson said that, while the Western Cape was not one of the poorer provinces, the large numbers of people migrating from other provinces meant that funding should be increased.

The city had a national government allocation of R663-million in 2009, which would increase to R900m in the next three years.

Davidson said the city's revised housing plan would include long-term strategies to improve housing.

The number of people waiting for houses increased from 117,000 in 2007 to 400,000 in 2009.

The demand for shelter would increase by 18,000 to 20,000 each year, Davidson said.

City housing director Hans Smit said the city's biggest challenge in dealing with the housing backlog was limited funding from the national government.

With an allocation of R1-million, the city could provide 40 serviced even at R25,000 an erf, 10 Breaking New Ground (the houses that have replaced RDP units) houses of 40m2 in size at a cost of R100,000 or eight community residential units or rental flats at a cost of R120,000.

The city was also being pressed to provide emergency housing opportunities because of natural factors, such as flooding. Davidson said the city was working on several land acquisitions for emergency housing, but would not name them for fear of land invasions.

"We need to deal with emergency."

- Cape Times

Emergency Effort Needed to Solve Western Cape Housing Crisis

It is good news that Tokyo Sexwale and Helen Zille have decided to bury the hatchet on the petty squabbling between the African National Congress (ANC) and Democratic Alliance (DA) (largely, let it be said, initiated by the ANC) over the N2 Gateway project and land allocation in the province.

The spat has hampered housing delivery in the province. We are now told “the three spheres of government are to sit around one table to decide on the future of the project.” (‘Sexwale, Zille and city to decide on N2 Gateway’, August 10).

But Sexwale, Zille, Dan Plato and their officials would be making a big mistake if they believed the future could be settled without involving beneficiary communities, through their representative committees, at the decision-making table.

Unlike his predecessor as housing minister, Sexwale has at least already gone on walkabouts in N2 Gateway Phase 1 and the Joe Slovo informal settlement. But walk-abouts are not the same as meaningful involvement in decision-making.

In the past “consultation” or “negotiation” for officials, meant merely informing beneficiaries of dogmatically set plans without any intention of altering them. What needs to happen is that the past needs to be rectified and the future of N2 Gateway planned with the beneficiaries rather than over their heads.

There is a crisis in housing nationally and in the Western Cape. In Cape Town alone, there is a backlog of 400,000 houses, which is increasing by 18-20,000 a year, with only 8-9,000 houses built a year.

On that basis, the housing backlog will never disappear.
It is time for some bold and imaginative thinking...

Read the full story Sangonet

Broken Homes - How the Eastern Cape's housing plan has failed the poor

“Bhisho is spending R360 million to fix nearly 20 000 broken homes in the province while the poor live in flimsy cardboard units and ghost towns emerge from the ruins of disastrous housing projects.” This equals an amount R18, 000 above the subsidy amount already paid.

- Broken Homes

W Cape: More floods to come

AT LEAST 300 shacks in Cape Town’s Masiphumelele township were submerged when heavy rains lashed Western Cape yesterday.

In less than seven hours, 50mm of rain fell on Cape Town and surrounding areas, flooding homes and roads.

By midday, Masiphumelele residents had called on the city’s disaster risk and management centre for assistance.

“Residents were given blankets and food. They have not yet been evacuated and are currently trying to mop up, though the rain continues,” said centre spokeswoman Charlotte Powell.

Disaster management closed parts of the N1 and M5 highways as debris from nearby construction sites was washed onto them.

Sandbags were placed on slopes in Hout Bay and Hangberg to prevent mudslides.

The SA Weather Service has reported that icy winds and heavy rain will continue in Western Cape until tomorrow, and snow is expected to fall on high ground overnight.

Forecaster Carlton Fillis said: “We have sent out a warning about flooding and we also want people to know that it is going to be very cold because of the wind.” - The Times

Mandela Park Backyarders Broker 50/50 Deal With MEC

Cape Town — After a battling for almost six months to get access to a new housing development in Khayelitsha's Mandela Park, backyarders finally brokered a 50/50 deal with new Housing MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela.

On April 19 this year, backyarders from Mandela Park prevented former MEC Whitey Jacobs from handing keys to beneficiaries of completed houses in the project and illegally occupied about 120 houses.

The Mandela Park Housing Project 823 is set to deliver 823 state subsidised houses, but backyarders were upset that residents on the housing waiting list from Khayelitsha Site C at least two kilometres away were being accommodated, while they still squatted behind other peoples' houses right next door to the new housing development.

But on Sunday, their plight was finally heard.

At a meeting to hear their complaints, called by Madikizela, an agreement was reached that 23 of the 57 remaining houses in the project currently under construction would go to backyarders living in the immediate area.

The backyarders blame their ward councillor, Mthwalo Mkhutswana, for not managing the process properly from the beginning, and boo-ed him when he tried to introduce Madikizela at Sunday's meeting.

Addressing the crowd of 300 backyarders, Madikizela said: "The process of handing out houses was not well managed by your leaders. I have been following this project and updating myself before I met with you and I heard there are people in houses where they are not suppose to be. For different reasons, which include corruption by leaders.

"We must separate development from politics because it is for everyone, irrespective of which party you belong to."

On the issue of people illegally occupying the completed houses, provincial housing department spokesperson Zalisile Mbali said: "The department is currently busy with the on-site evaluation to establish how many houses are occupied illegally and how many have been built in total."

Backyarders group organiser Sbongile Mhlahla said: "He (Madikizela) promised to give us 50% but didn't say on which project, and he also said of the 57 houses that are standing at the moment, backyarders will get 23. So we're going to sit down with him and talk about those too."

Mhlahla said the MEC was not able to respond to all their concerns as he was pressed for time.

"But he promised to meet with us again this week so we can put everything into detail."

Another leader of the backyarders group, Loyiso Mfuku, said they would now deal directly with Madikizela and not go through the councillor or Sanco as they had done in the past.

But Mkhutswana said: "It won't happen that I'm sidelined in the proceedings of my ward. I even told the MEC that he can't let the backyarders deal directly with him because Mandela Park is still under my ward. He also agreed that I should be part of everything that happens in my ward."

"They will never sideline me, the ward belongs to me."

- West Cape News

Cars stoned - cop assaulted by angry residents

An off-duty policeman who was attacked and beaten over the head with a large rock by protesting Khayelitsha residents is in a serious but stable condition in hospital, police said this morning.

The officer, whose name police have declined to release, was attacked when he tried to drive through a barricade erected by residents of BT Section, Site C, Khayelitsha on Sunday.

He is stationed in Stellenbosch, and was off-duty and not in uniform at the time.

'Violence and other forms of intimidation would not be tolerated.'

Police used rubber bullets to disperse protesters late last week, but angry residents took to the streets again at the weekend.

Residents in BT Section started protesting on Thursday night.

Street committee spokesperson Nosisa Mgoduka said the residents were angry with mayor Dan Plato.

She said Plato had promised to move the community to a piece of land where there were services.

"On (last) Monday he said there was no place for us. He said that he would look for a place for us in the next six months." "That is what angered people. Police have also said that they are going to kill us if we keep protesting."

"We would rather be killed by police while protesting than live in this place. It's not safe here. We want a better place," said Mgoduka.

Yesterday the section of busy Lansdowne Road that runs through the area was barricaded with an empty shipping container and strewn with litter.

Stoned passing cars

Protesters stoned passing cars and dug trenches in the road. Rocks and cardboard were used to make barricades.

Tempers flared when the off-duty officer, driving a Fiat Cento, tried to drive through part of the barricade. He lost control of the car and crashed into the pavement.

Residents surrounded the car while the policeman and his passenger, who has not been identified, tried to start it.

Angry words were exchanged, and the policeman pulled out a gun. This made the residents back off at first, but then they raced back to confront him again. A struggle ensued, and the police officer was knocked unconscious.

Residents started assaulting the man and his gun was taken away.

As he regained consciousness and tried to get up off the ground, one resident picked up a rock and slammed it into the policeman's head and upper back.

He collapsed again. His companion, bleeding from the forehead after also being attacked by protesters, fled into an alleyway between nearby houses.

Police who were stationed nearby managed to get to the unconscious officer, who was taken away from the area in an ambulance.

Plato said this morning that "violence and other forms of intimidation" would not be tolerated.

He said residents of BT Section should use the city council's "existing political structures" - such as ward councillors and ward forums - to air their concerns.

The area was quiet this morning.

- Cape Argus

Gateway never had a chance

Cape Town's disastrous N2 Gateway project began without a funded budget and was starved of agreed funding by the National Housing Department, according to a confidential report by independent forensic auditors, which was leaked to the Mail & Guardian.

Envisaged as a model solution to South Africa's housing backlog, the Gateway project was to be delivered by the three spheres of government, which, in the Western Cape, were all run by the ANC at the time.

In January 2005 Lindiwe Sisulu, then minister of housing, publicly declared that 22 000 houses would be built in six months. Two years later the project had delivered only 821 units.

The new DA-led Cape Town council asked independent forensic auditors SizweNtsaluba Forensics to conduct an investigation and the company's report was handed to the auditor general for use in his special audit of the N2 Gateway. The project is being scrutinised by the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa).

The auditors found that the National Housing Department failed to facilitate funding for the project and the Western Cape government had to "reprioritise" its funding to help meet the shortfall.

It provided about R294,6-million -- far below the R2,3-billion budget.

"Numerous attempts were made by the City to procure funding commitment from the National Department of Housing, but to no avail," says the report. "This is contrary to the stipulation of the MOU [memorandum of understanding], which required the National Department of Housing and province to facilitate funding."

The project made use of funding from the upgrading of informal settlement programme (UISP), the housing subsidy and the emergency housing programme.

While the UISP funded a portion of the units built, the auditors found no evidence that beneficiaries were identified or that the intended beneficiary community qualified for housing subsidies.

The MOU stipulated that the National Housing Department was required to ensure that the project complied with national legislation, to facilitate policy and to channel financial support to the city.

Mziwonke Dlabantu, deputy director general of the Department of Housing, said the Gateway project was conceived by the Cape Town council before Sisulu became housing minister.

When the MOU was signed it was recognised that the National Department of Housing had already allocated funding to the province for housing development, Dlabantu said, which included some precincts seen as part of the Gateway project.

"The role of the national department was then to solicit funding, over and above that which could be allocated by the province from the funds which the national department had already allocated to it in terms of the Division of Revenue Act," he said.

"As the business plan was developed, discussions with treasury on the project were then initiated and these took place until allocations were made in subsequent years."

The government's "breaking-new-ground" designs for the housing specified that units should be no smaller than 40m2. The price hike made them unaffordable by backyarders and shack-dwellers who had been moved off land to make way for the project.

Under the existing subsidy, of about R36 900 a unit, there was a national government-funding shortfall of R44 000 a unit.

SizweNtsaluba found that a statutory separate operating account (SOA) at the City was used as a funding mechanism for the first phase of the project. The account is subject to statutory audit, but the report recommends that internal procedures and policies be developed to ensure "transparency and accountability" in the use of its funds.

"The City was responsible for the SOA and the only requirement for the use of funds from the SOA is that the expenditure is used for an approved housing project," the report states. "The SOA does not form part of the council's budget and can be used for unplanned expenditure without conforming to the City's budget processes."

Last month hundreds of angry Gateway residents marched on the Western Cape government to complain about structural defects and plumbing problems.

Residents also complained that they were originally told they would be renting with an option to buy, but that the purchase option seemed to have disappeared.

Sisulu has moved up the ministerial hierarchy, becoming minister of defence in President Jacob Zuma's Cabinet.

- M&G

‘You’re blocking the Gateway!’

Minister rounds on those she accuses of stalling flagship R4.5-billion project to house thousands in Cape Town

Minister of defence Lindiwe Sisulu has come out with guns blazing to roundly criticise those she blames for holding up Cape Town’s stalled R4.5-billion N2 Gateway housing project.

Sisulu made the rare move of defending her former portfolio, department of housing, this week when she accused the auditor-general, Terence Nombembe, of failing to provide what she called a balanced audit report on the project.

She also lashed out at the City of Cape Town , and took a swipe at parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) for criticising her former ministry without sufficient knowledge of the project.

Sisulu commissioned the auditor-general’s “value-for-money audit” into the Gateway project following allegations of irregularities in the awarding of a project management tender to Cyberia .

Unhappy with the auditor-general’s report, she asked for a second opinion from a consultancy firm headed by Judge Willem Heath.

Sisulu told the Sunday Times this week that she agreed with Heath, who criticised the auditor-general’s conclusion that millions of rands spent on the project were “fruitless and wasteful”.

This related, in part, to reports that Cyberia had been paid R12-million — after winning a tender for R5-million.

Although Heath did not refute the auditor-general’s findings, he said: “It appears that the auditor-general may not have meticulously and exhaustively investigated the facts, which led him to the conclusion that in some instances, the expenditures were fruitless and wasteful.

“If he had conducted an exhaustive investigation of such expenses, he may have arrived at the conclusion that the three spheres of government may have fallen victim to fraudulent conduct by private sector institutions or that some of the expenses related to necessary testing of policy.”

Controversially, Heath said: “It is however, generally not the legislative function of the auditor-general to investigate fraud and other similar irregularities.”

Sisulu said Heath’s report gave more insight to the project, and she was inclined to agree with it: “It does indicate in detail what processes were wrong and what processes could be improved, and it evaluates the project.”

The Gateway project, intended to upgrade informal settlements on Cape Town’s N2 highway, was launched in 2005 as a national pilot project to fast-track housing delivery.

It aimed to build 23000 low-cost housing units within six months.

Rocked by political tensions between the three spheres of government, allegations of irregularities and a lack of funds, it has so far delivered only 4862 units.

Sisulu lashed out at the Democratic Alliance, which runs the City of Cape Town, for being a “nasty fly in the ointment” for questioning the project’s viability and labelling the houses “expensive”.

“We said, what makes you think that black people, by virtue of being black, would want to live in accommodation that is less than what is required? ” she told the Sunday Times.

The City of Cape Town is a ‘nasty fly in the ointment’ for questioning the N2 Gateway project’s viability

She said her frustrations with the stumbling blocks put in the project’s way by the City of Cape Town, including a failure to release land for the project, had turned her to a “vociferous campaigner” for co-operative governance laws that would ensure that provinces and municipalities comply with national government demands.

Sisulu did not spare Scopa, which has been questioning government officials based on the auditor-general’s report .

“I don’t know if Scopa knows what the auditor-general’s report is about.

“I get a feeling that if they knew, then they might be concentrating on a different outcome.

“What they are finding are the things which we ourselves did find and have tried to correct,” she said.

She cited an investigation she commissioned in 2005 from law firm Cheadle Thompson & Haysom , which found no evidence of “inappropriate behaviour” on Cyberia’s part, although it concluded that the company had no prior expertise in managing projects as large as N2 Gateway.

Cyberia was replaced by Thubelisha Homes, which also struggled to manage the project.

Scopa’s chairman, Themba Godi, demanded in the most recent hearing on the matter, two weeks ago, that action be taken against those involved in “fruitless expenditure”

Department of Human Settlements director-general Itumeleng Kotsoane conceded that the project was mired in political tension between the three spheres of government, who are supposed to co-operate through a steering committee.

He said that Cape Town city officials did not attend meetings of the committee.

- Sunday Times

Cop fires on Cape Argus team

Gallery: Khayelitsha service delivery protest

A policeman fired a rubber bullet at a Cape Argus news team during a service delivery protest in Khayelitsha's Site C - despite the reporter having identified himself as a journalist.

The reporter and photographer ran for cover when police opened fire at about 9pm last night on a small group of protesters burning tyres, clothing and furniture along Lansdowne Road.

'We want decent housing and electricity and all the other things he promised'

Police had closed the road and started firing, allegedly without warning. Everyone in the area, including the Cape Argus news team, ran for cover, finding refuge in a near-by shack. There they and two residents were approached by a policeman and asked to raise their hands.

The Cape Argus reporter complied, with his notebook still in one hand, and identified himself as a media member.

Soon after the policeman lowered his gun, a colleague ran in. Ignoring the first policeman's warnings that the group was media, the second policeman fired a rubber bullet into the shack without warning.

Earlier the photographer had been shot in the leg by a rubber bullet that had ricocheted off a nearby dustbin.

The team was on the scene to cover renewed service delivery protests in the area, the first of which took place about three weeks ago, with people demanding action from Cape Town mayor Dan Plato.

He met the residents at the time, promising them that he would address their grievances in two weeks. The angry residents at the scene said last night that they had waited long enough for the mayor.

Resident Xolani Ngcube said they were sick of empty promises.

"The mayor said he would deal with our problems in two weeks. That was three weeks ago. We want decent housing and electricity and all the other things he promised," he said.

Children were among the crowd of protesters when police opened fire with rubber bullets, prompting residents to question their use of force.

Resident Thandi Mswai said she could no longer trust the police.

Police were still patrolling by late last night and the only signs of the protest were the fires still burning on the roadside. The police were unable to respond before the Cape Argus went to print today.

- Cape Argus

Cut the stunts and do something real

MINISTER of human Settlements Tokyo Sexwale spent one night with the Diepsloot poor – then he wrote a blow-by-blow account for the newspapers. Apparently he is now armed with the views and concerns of that communities’ poor and will be handing in a report to the cabinet.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at this comical political posturing.

The minister undertook this act of experiencing poverty for one night in full view of the admiring media. He endured, he reports, a night of untold discomfort.

Impressive indeed!

The ministers dramatics remind me of my shock and outrage at my first experience of Parliament. I was there to make a submission for an amendment of farmworkers’ laws to give them a little more protection.

I was struck by how black parliamentarians demanded facts and “scientific” evidence that farmworkers in South Africa were living under conditions of semi-slavery. I wondered what could have induced this amnesia in people, some of whom had experienced farm life directly.

We used to joke that once you get a big job in government or become a politician they give you an amnesia pill. What did Tokyo Sexwale think he could discover from shack life that is not already known by every black person his age?

The one-night forays of the minister into the dangerous battlefield of Diepsloot sounds and feels like a huge publicity stunt. This comes down to turning our political and developmental challenges into a soap opera to amuse the masses and keep them hoping.

But it also shows up the disingenuousness of politicians.

• Sexwale forgets it was matchbox houses that made him politically active in the first place.
  

• Sexwale forgets completely that most people in Diepsloot were dumped there by the ANC government with promises of a better life for all.
• In fact, the minister has already blamed the “previous regime” for the service delivery protests we are witnessing right now.
• By previous regime he doesn’t mean the apartheid government but the ANC under Thabo Mbeki.

Sexwale has even forgotten that he was once the premier of Gauteng and so belongs to the “previous regime” himself.

The Sunday Times reported that Sexwale is buying a whole island in Mozambique – yet the people he represents, and in whose interests he had gone into exile and to jail, continue to live precarious lives in shacks and in poverty.

Is this not the simple reality that must make us question what it means to be free? Hasn’t our freedom been sold under the tables of BEE deals?

The housing question is a problem inherited by the post-1994 government.

It needs a fundamentally different and democratic means to solve it. This solution must be related to other developmental challenges, such as income generation and livelihoods for the people.

Building houses is not rocket science. But instead of empowering communities we have surrendered this area to white construction monopolies that have made shocking profits.

A few examples since 2004: Aveng Group profits have grown by 1 854 percent from R170m in 2004 to R3,3bn in 2008, Murray and Roberts is up by 516 percent from R415m to R2,6bn and WBHO is up by 745 percent from R128m to just over R1bn.

It’s embarrassing but true that the matchbox houses built in the apartheid era are of a higher standard than most RDP houses our government has built.

We need to cut out the spectacles and get down to doing the simplest things.

- Sowetan

Backyard dwellers demand change

Angry backyard dwellers in Khayelitsha's Mandela Park - who burnt tyres in the streets of their neighbourhood - have given the provincial housing department a week to address their concerns or they will illegally occupy empty housing units in the area.

The residents, who protested there on Monday as police and private security guards kept a close watch, say they are at their wits' end and want action now.

Their leader, Loyiso Mfuku, said the residents had previously written to the department about their issues, but had received no response.

And he said that if the department did not resolve their grievances soon, they would illegally occupy the 53 empty units in their community.

The backyarders said they were "fed up" with their ANC ward councillor, Ryder Mkutswana, who they accused of failing them on service delivery.

During their protest on Monday, the backyard dwellers charged that Mkutswana and SA National Civics Organisation leaders in the area were "parcelling out" or selling unoccupied RDP houses to their "friends, relatives and girlfriends".

"The registration process for the houses is shady. They (leaders) are giving their friends and girlfriends first preference when filling out forms for the houses," one protester alleged.

Another said: "We want a fresh councillor. We are fed up with Mkutswana. He is not concerned about us. There is no development in our area.

"We are sick and tired of fraud and corruption."

Yet another, showing off alleged receipts, complained of having bought an RDP house for R1 500 from a then community leader in 2006, which, he said, he had never received.

"I want my money back," he complained, alleging that the seller was now working in the provincial housing department.

The residents also expressed unhappiness over "outsiders from Gugulethu and Site C" getting "first preference" in the allocation of housing units in Mandela Park, "while we are getting nothing".

"Our children should occupy these houses," said a mother of three, a backyarder there for about 20 years.

The residents dispersed only after government official Mbongi Gubuza, from the housing department, addressed them briefly.

He said Housing MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela was scheduled to address them next Sunday.

Meanwhile, Mkutswana denied any wrongdoing, saying that those who alleged that he was corrupt should "bring the proof".

He was "hands on" in his constituency, he said, and the "issue of backyarders is at the top of my list". He said he would ensure that local backyarders were catered for when the empty units were handed to their new occupants.

Mkutswana alleged that there was "someone" behind the protest, accusing the residents of "toyi-toying because they see these things on TV".

- Cape Argus