Housing minister Lindiwe Sisulu was on Saturtday reminded how desperate people are for housing when a group in the parliamentary gallery began to toyi-toyi as she started her budget vote speech.
They were from Fedup - the Federation of the Urban Poor - and were protesting at the fact that despite pledges made last year, provinces had not yet supplied them with subsidies.
“They indeed have a right to be fed-up with us,” Sisulu said. She added that she would ask the Treasury to divert the pledges directly from the national department to Fedup.
The minister announced measures taken to improve the quality of housing, minimise delays and root out fraud and corruption in the housing sector.
“We have suffered a great deal from both unscrupulous contractors and inexperienced ones,” she acknowledged.
The state had in the past been provided with “shoddy work” and in some cases, incomplete houses by developers and contractors, and poor communities felt “the government was not exercising its powers adequately” to protect them from unscrupulous contractors, she said.
The department was considering making changes to tendering processes and the government would look into the possibility of buying “quality fully developed integrated housing projects” built by the private sector.
In addition, the National Housing Code had been revised to ensure developers and contractors sold only houses whose quality could be vouched for, Sisulu said.
Quality was the issue raised time and time again by opposition parties, from the Democratic Alliance to the African Christian Democratic Party and Minority Front.
DA MP James Masango noted that the National Home Builders Regulation Council was failing in its mandate to protect housing consumers and carry out proper inspections.
The department is also cracking down on fraud - a presidential proclamation signed about three weeks ago has given the Special Investigating Unit powers to investigate fraud in housing projects, director-general of housing Itumeleng Kotsoane said later.
In addition, the department had waded through about 30 000 of 50 000 cases where public servants had possibly acquired houses fraudulently between 1994 and 2004, Kotsoane said.
Good news, however, included the fact that banks - who used to see funding low-income housing as a risk - had not only come to the party, but were “threatening to take over the dancefloor”, Sisulu said.
The Banking Association of SA had said that an estimated R32-billion of the R42-bn pledged in loans for low-cost housing had already been expended, she announced.
But later she said work still had to be done to transform banks into humane entities that people were not scared to approach for help if they ran into difficulties with repayments. Cape Argus
Heavy rains cause widespread flooding
More than 5,000 people are getting disaster relief from the city as heavy rain and flooding continue to wreak havoc.
Monday morning’s downpour disrupted rush-hour traffic, caused a spate of accidents and blocked drains. Flooding was reported in 16 areas.
Metro Police spokesperson Nowellen Petersen said two key city routes were flooded.
‘Demanding houses instead’
But motorists on the Ottery/ Shawcamp route and Turfhall/ Chukker were able to navigate their way through.
“There were a number of accidents, luckily with no serious injuries, just a few fender benders, but we appeal to motorists to be extremely cautious on the roads because of the weather conditions,” Petersen said.
There was one accident on the N2 at Mew Way near Khayelitsha, two on the Racecourse Road junction with the M5 near Kenilworth, two on the N2 at Borcherd’s Quarry, and a truck had jack-knifed at the intersection of Beach Road and Golf Course in Strand.
Johan Minnie of Disaster Risk Management said this morning that in addition to 5 000 people they were assisting, a number of residents of Burundi in Strand were relocated overnight.
Minnie said they were making emergency shelter available.
But some of Cape Town’s poorest families, who have been battling with cold and wet conditions, have refused to accept help from the city and demanded houses instead.
Extensive flooding caused by the week-long rains and blocked drains has hit informal settlements.
About 600 people gathered at the Lucas Mbebe Educare Centre in the Lotus informal settlement in Gugulethu to collect bread, blankets, plastic sheeting, hot meals and baby packs.
Wilfred Solomons-Johannes, head of Disaster Risk Management, said Lotus was worst hit, with engineering services having to pump out excess water that had accumulated from a retention pond in the area.
Elsewhere, residents burnt tyres in the streets in protest at slow delivery of houses.
Residents in the Never Never informal settlement, behind Tambo Square in Gugulethu, had demanded homes instead of relief, said Solomons-Johannes.
Residents had also protested over housing in Khayelitsha’s CCT on Sunday, Solomons-Johannes said.
An Intersite area in Langa was severely flooded at around midnight on Sunday but the area had been cleared by Sunday morning.
Mayor Helen Zille visited several of the affected areas on Sunday.
During her tour of Lotus, she expressed concern about the drainage system.
She said the area had been cleared before the winter rain but that pollution that had accumulated in the interim, combined with the floodwater runoff, had clogged the drains.
Amanda Fodo of Lotus said she did not want the bread or the blankets: she wanted a house.
She said she had been on the council’s housing waiting list for 10 years.
She wanted her house so that next year she would not need relief.
“They want to help, but we are too many people living here,” she said.
Ward councillor in the Lotus area Mandisa Matshoba said residents were happy with the food and blankets but were, at the same time, angry over the housing issue.
“The mayor says she is going to drain the area today (Monday) so that the water can run down out of the people’s houses, but the people say they are tired of getting food and blankets and want to know when they will be moved out of the area, by next winter they want to be out,” she said.
Nomvuyo Xundu of Lotus said her prayers had been answered when relief was provided.
“God brought them here, who else is going to give me food and blankets?” she said.
Zintle Mqukuse, also of Lotus, was happy to receive the blankets and nappies.
“I’ve been struggling the whole week. I don’t have a room to sleep. The blankets they really help me and the nappies for my baby,” she said.
Nozibele Tyala, who lives in Lusaka, Nyanga, with her two sons, spent yesterday sweeping out water that had risen from beneath her shack.
She said plastic sheeting provided did not help much. “I go to work and my sons go to school, so there is no one to put sand and stones on the sides of the house to stop the water.”
Meanwhile, mopping-up and road repairs continued in the Swartland area after severe flood damage last week. - Cape Argus
They were from Fedup - the Federation of the Urban Poor - and were protesting at the fact that despite pledges made last year, provinces had not yet supplied them with subsidies.
“They indeed have a right to be fed-up with us,” Sisulu said. She added that she would ask the Treasury to divert the pledges directly from the national department to Fedup.
The minister announced measures taken to improve the quality of housing, minimise delays and root out fraud and corruption in the housing sector.
“We have suffered a great deal from both unscrupulous contractors and inexperienced ones,” she acknowledged.
The state had in the past been provided with “shoddy work” and in some cases, incomplete houses by developers and contractors, and poor communities felt “the government was not exercising its powers adequately” to protect them from unscrupulous contractors, she said.
The department was considering making changes to tendering processes and the government would look into the possibility of buying “quality fully developed integrated housing projects” built by the private sector.
In addition, the National Housing Code had been revised to ensure developers and contractors sold only houses whose quality could be vouched for, Sisulu said.
Quality was the issue raised time and time again by opposition parties, from the Democratic Alliance to the African Christian Democratic Party and Minority Front.
DA MP James Masango noted that the National Home Builders Regulation Council was failing in its mandate to protect housing consumers and carry out proper inspections.
The department is also cracking down on fraud - a presidential proclamation signed about three weeks ago has given the Special Investigating Unit powers to investigate fraud in housing projects, director-general of housing Itumeleng Kotsoane said later.
In addition, the department had waded through about 30 000 of 50 000 cases where public servants had possibly acquired houses fraudulently between 1994 and 2004, Kotsoane said.
Good news, however, included the fact that banks - who used to see funding low-income housing as a risk - had not only come to the party, but were “threatening to take over the dancefloor”, Sisulu said.
The Banking Association of SA had said that an estimated R32-billion of the R42-bn pledged in loans for low-cost housing had already been expended, she announced.
But later she said work still had to be done to transform banks into humane entities that people were not scared to approach for help if they ran into difficulties with repayments. Cape Argus
Heavy rains cause widespread flooding
More than 5,000 people are getting disaster relief from the city as heavy rain and flooding continue to wreak havoc.
Monday morning’s downpour disrupted rush-hour traffic, caused a spate of accidents and blocked drains. Flooding was reported in 16 areas.
Metro Police spokesperson Nowellen Petersen said two key city routes were flooded.
‘Demanding houses instead’
But motorists on the Ottery/ Shawcamp route and Turfhall/ Chukker were able to navigate their way through.
“There were a number of accidents, luckily with no serious injuries, just a few fender benders, but we appeal to motorists to be extremely cautious on the roads because of the weather conditions,” Petersen said.
There was one accident on the N2 at Mew Way near Khayelitsha, two on the Racecourse Road junction with the M5 near Kenilworth, two on the N2 at Borcherd’s Quarry, and a truck had jack-knifed at the intersection of Beach Road and Golf Course in Strand.
Johan Minnie of Disaster Risk Management said this morning that in addition to 5 000 people they were assisting, a number of residents of Burundi in Strand were relocated overnight.
Minnie said they were making emergency shelter available.
But some of Cape Town’s poorest families, who have been battling with cold and wet conditions, have refused to accept help from the city and demanded houses instead.
Extensive flooding caused by the week-long rains and blocked drains has hit informal settlements.
About 600 people gathered at the Lucas Mbebe Educare Centre in the Lotus informal settlement in Gugulethu to collect bread, blankets, plastic sheeting, hot meals and baby packs.
Wilfred Solomons-Johannes, head of Disaster Risk Management, said Lotus was worst hit, with engineering services having to pump out excess water that had accumulated from a retention pond in the area.
Elsewhere, residents burnt tyres in the streets in protest at slow delivery of houses.
Residents in the Never Never informal settlement, behind Tambo Square in Gugulethu, had demanded homes instead of relief, said Solomons-Johannes.
Residents had also protested over housing in Khayelitsha’s CCT on Sunday, Solomons-Johannes said.
An Intersite area in Langa was severely flooded at around midnight on Sunday but the area had been cleared by Sunday morning.
Mayor Helen Zille visited several of the affected areas on Sunday.
During her tour of Lotus, she expressed concern about the drainage system.
She said the area had been cleared before the winter rain but that pollution that had accumulated in the interim, combined with the floodwater runoff, had clogged the drains.
Amanda Fodo of Lotus said she did not want the bread or the blankets: she wanted a house.
She said she had been on the council’s housing waiting list for 10 years.
She wanted her house so that next year she would not need relief.
“They want to help, but we are too many people living here,” she said.
Ward councillor in the Lotus area Mandisa Matshoba said residents were happy with the food and blankets but were, at the same time, angry over the housing issue.
“The mayor says she is going to drain the area today (Monday) so that the water can run down out of the people’s houses, but the people say they are tired of getting food and blankets and want to know when they will be moved out of the area, by next winter they want to be out,” she said.
Nomvuyo Xundu of Lotus said her prayers had been answered when relief was provided.
“God brought them here, who else is going to give me food and blankets?” she said.
Zintle Mqukuse, also of Lotus, was happy to receive the blankets and nappies.
“I’ve been struggling the whole week. I don’t have a room to sleep. The blankets they really help me and the nappies for my baby,” she said.
Nozibele Tyala, who lives in Lusaka, Nyanga, with her two sons, spent yesterday sweeping out water that had risen from beneath her shack.
She said plastic sheeting provided did not help much. “I go to work and my sons go to school, so there is no one to put sand and stones on the sides of the house to stop the water.”
Meanwhile, mopping-up and road repairs continued in the Swartland area after severe flood damage last week. - Cape Argus
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