...The only people that benefit are the small group of politically connected individuals who take home millions of rands in bonuses each year, despite the fact that they repeatedly fail in their core mandate of electricity generation and reticulation.
The latest example of the tragic consequences of the ANC's policy of empowering the few at the expense of the many is the housing crisis in Delft, in Cape Town. Recent flare-ups between police and various categories of homeless people as a result of the N2 Gateway Project illustrate the rage that such policies can provoke.
This project is pumping billions of rands into housing that is affordable only to those who can afford to pay substantial rentals. These are the people whose housing needs should be addressed by the banks and developers in the market category known as the "gap" housing market. Government policy should be designed to encourage the market to service people in this market with long term, affordable housing loans. Government grants should be reserved for the truly indigent.
The ANC has done the opposite. Through the N2 Gateway we have seen indigent shack dwellers permanently displaced from well located land near Cape Town, despite the fact that the previous ANC administration promised they would return to formal housing on their previous sites. In fact, only one of the hundreds of displaced families could afford to pay the rent and return to a unit when the first phase of the N2 Gateway in Joe Slovo was completed. The rest had to be moved 15 km outside the city, to what is known as a "temporary relocation area" in Delft. This is also a poverty stricken community where hundreds of families, many of whom have been on the housing waiting list for decades, live in backyard shacks.
For them the new RDP houses would have been a considerable improvement, and they felt they should have first preference to new housing in their areas, especially as most of them have been on the housing waiting list for much longer than the residents of Joe Slovo.
The N2 Gateway formula was a social and political powder keg waiting to explode, and seriously fuelled by racial divisions. When I warned the Minister of this, (shortly after I was elected Mayor) I was expelled from the project. Ironically this has not deterred the ANC from blaming me and the DA for everything that has gone wrong with the project.
When I saw a looming conflagration in Delft, I made an appointment to see the Minister to offer my help to resolve it. She did agree to meet me, but failed to arrive for the appointment. I waited for two hours in vain.
It was clear from the beginning that the project was never intended to seriously tackle the housing backlog, but to present an illusion that something substantial was being done to house the homeless. The real target is the middle class, while the poor are set up in conflictual situations against each other.
The residents of the second phase of Joe Slovo realized that those who were moved out in phase one did not return. They therefore resisted removal and blockaded the N2 Gateway in protest. They took their case to the High Court.
Equally, in Delft, the backyarders invaded the houses meant to "temporarily" house the Joe Slovo shack dwellers...
- Helen Zille - Cape Town Mayor - Politicsweb
The latest example of the tragic consequences of the ANC's policy of empowering the few at the expense of the many is the housing crisis in Delft, in Cape Town. Recent flare-ups between police and various categories of homeless people as a result of the N2 Gateway Project illustrate the rage that such policies can provoke.
This project is pumping billions of rands into housing that is affordable only to those who can afford to pay substantial rentals. These are the people whose housing needs should be addressed by the banks and developers in the market category known as the "gap" housing market. Government policy should be designed to encourage the market to service people in this market with long term, affordable housing loans. Government grants should be reserved for the truly indigent.
The ANC has done the opposite. Through the N2 Gateway we have seen indigent shack dwellers permanently displaced from well located land near Cape Town, despite the fact that the previous ANC administration promised they would return to formal housing on their previous sites. In fact, only one of the hundreds of displaced families could afford to pay the rent and return to a unit when the first phase of the N2 Gateway in Joe Slovo was completed. The rest had to be moved 15 km outside the city, to what is known as a "temporary relocation area" in Delft. This is also a poverty stricken community where hundreds of families, many of whom have been on the housing waiting list for decades, live in backyard shacks.
For them the new RDP houses would have been a considerable improvement, and they felt they should have first preference to new housing in their areas, especially as most of them have been on the housing waiting list for much longer than the residents of Joe Slovo.
The N2 Gateway formula was a social and political powder keg waiting to explode, and seriously fuelled by racial divisions. When I warned the Minister of this, (shortly after I was elected Mayor) I was expelled from the project. Ironically this has not deterred the ANC from blaming me and the DA for everything that has gone wrong with the project.
When I saw a looming conflagration in Delft, I made an appointment to see the Minister to offer my help to resolve it. She did agree to meet me, but failed to arrive for the appointment. I waited for two hours in vain.
It was clear from the beginning that the project was never intended to seriously tackle the housing backlog, but to present an illusion that something substantial was being done to house the homeless. The real target is the middle class, while the poor are set up in conflictual situations against each other.
The residents of the second phase of Joe Slovo realized that those who were moved out in phase one did not return. They therefore resisted removal and blockaded the N2 Gateway in protest. They took their case to the High Court.
Equally, in Delft, the backyarders invaded the houses meant to "temporarily" house the Joe Slovo shack dwellers...
- Helen Zille - Cape Town Mayor - Politicsweb
2 comments:
Zille is so full of it. Everyone living on the pavement now in Delft know that she had everything to do with the invasions. The councilor in question (Frank Martin) is not only on the DA central committee which has a direct link to Zille but she was also seen in numerous meetings with Frank Martin over the issue. She knew exactly what Mr. Martin enticed the community to do and approved of it from the beginning because it would provide the DA with another bad thing to say about the ANC.
The truth is, both the ANC and DA are opportunistic and in reality they both have virtually identical housing policies.
I agree.
Politics has long since stopped serving the city of Cape Town's development.
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