Moral Fibre

Remember hemp? Dagga's non-narcotic cousin, the wonder plant that was going to alleviate rural poverty, stimulate small enterprises, provide jobs, houses, textiles, paper, food and possibly even save us from global warming and the oil crisis?

Well, that’s what we were told when the government launched the National Hemp Initiative back in 1998.

So where are all the fields of waving weed?


You’d have to go to the Eastern Cape to find them, and then you’d find only five little plots, adding up to about a hectare in total, each surrounded by a two-metre-high fence in case anyone is stupid enough to try and smoke the stuff.

After almost 10 years and the investment of tens of millions of rands, the government’s hemp-growing project has done little but prove that hemp grows very well in South Africa.

There is a small and flourishing local hemp industry, producing everything from clothing, cosmetics and bio-friendly nappies to food products and building materials, but the hemp they use comes from elsewhere, mostly China.

Why aren’t we growing our own? The short answer is that the law still doesn’t differentiate between dagga and industrial hemp.

The law, in this case certainly, is an ass. The hemp strains authorised for research in South Africa contain less than 1% of the psychoactive agent tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). To be of the slightest interest to a recreational user, the plant would have to contain at least 3% THC, and no drug dealer of any disrepute would touch anything under 7%.

More than 40 other countries have managed to make the distinction, including most of Europe, Canada, Russia, India, Thailand, South Korea and, of course, China, which produces most of the world’s crop. Global hemp sales have rocketed from just $10 million in 1996 to $250 million in 2002, the last year for which we could find statistics. But the market is continuing to boom as the search for greener alternatives to everything becomes more urgent.

A noted absentee from the list of growers is the US, which, like South Africa, uses the spectre of mass drug addiction to justify its indiscriminate suppression of this incredibly useful and versatile plant (although this hasn't prevented six US states from issuing growing permits in defiance of federal law).

Where there is no reasonable explanation for government policy, it is not unreasonable to follow the money.

American corporate interests are widely blamed for the ruinous 1937 “marijuana” tax which destroyed the US hemp industry overnight. For hundreds of years before that, hemp had been an important fibre crop, used for sails, rope, clothing, paper, building materials, fuel, food and medicine. It was so important that you could be jailed for refusing to grow it.

But the well-connected timber and cotton barons, along with the increasingly muscular petrochemicals industry, weren’t willing to compete with a material that had so many uses, and which anyone could grow in their own back yard.

Could a similar conspiracy be behind South Africa’s reluctance to allow even the most tightly-regulated cultivation of a commercial hemp crop?

One man who has no doubts is former advisor to the Department of Agriculture Thierry-Alban Revert.

Revert, a food technology engineer, scientist, entrepreneur and sustainable development consultant, was a key member of the governmental task team charged with redesigning South Africa’s agricultural policy after 1994.

The team produced a series of policy framework documents aimed at transforming the agricultural sector by creating commercial opportunities for small farmers.

As both Revert (and any small farmer) can tell you, few of their recommendations have made it off the page. [Small farmers mean small money for politicians. Agribiz, however ... – Ed.]

But one proposal, the National Hemp Initiative, was enthusiastically adopted by government at the time.

Even the cannabis-shy Department of Health was persuaded to grant special permission for a pilot growing project, and the first seeds were planted in 1996 at the Agricultural Research Council's testing centre in Rustenberg.

Revert, who says he knew nothing about hemp before he began his research, was so excited about the plant’s potential that he joined the hemp revolution.

As a member of the officially sanctioned National Organic Produce Initiative, he joined forces with a number of other NGOs to form the Western Cape Hemp Initiative. In 2004, they partnered the provincial Agriculture Research Council in growing trials in Riversdale and Elsenberg, Stellenbosch.

The trials continued for four seasons with great success, so everyone involved was keen to move on to the next step – actually making use of the crop...

Build your own cannabrick home here's how!

They devised a project called Grow your House which would encourage rural communities to farm their own hemp and use it as building material. One hectare of hemp can produce enough material in four months for an RDP-sized house – a much stronger and more comfortable one too. The company hoped to build between 10 000 and 20 000 such houses over the next 10 years.

But this time, they were refused permission even to import the seeds.

Revert says they were told that the three hemp cultivars registered as industrial crops by the Department of Agriculture had “disappeared” from the register.

“It’s unbelievable. After all these years ... they’ve spent R65 million, and we’re back at the beginning.”

Revert blames greed, both of the national research councils which are getting all that tax-payers’ money to investigate what everyone already knows, and of hemp’s competitors in the commercial world.

“And of course the research councils have long-standing relationships with these industries, so their interests are often the same.”

Revert says he has spent enough time in the boardrooms of big corporations to know how they operate, and that he has no doubt that rival industries will do anything to stop hemp in its tracks.

“This is the worst form of insidious colonisation of our resources and people. The country has moved but the basic players in the first economy are the same. These guys have not transformed or changed their economic agenda.”

Hemp advocates like Revert can recite the plant’s competitive advantages like litany.

“It produces four times as much cellulose per hectare as a tree plantation, and it produces it in four months, while timber takes seven years.

“The pulp is almost white so you don’t need to use chloride bleach like you do with wood pulp.

“It is a more versatile fibre than cotton and more sustainable: it contains a natural pest repellent, it uses much less water and fertiliser and if you plant it properly, you don’t get weeds, so you don’t need herbicides. (So there is no profit in it for the agro chemicals industry? Bad idea!)

“It is also a very effective rotational crop – far better for enriching the soil than a legume.

“Bricks made from hemp and lime are seven times lighter than those made from clay or cement, provide excellent insulation and are much stronger.

“Cement uses huge amounts of fossil fuels so it is a carbon taxing industry, while hemp is a natural carbon sink (absorbs and holds carbon).

“Hemp seeds are a wonderful food. They contain more essential fatty acids than any other vegetable source and they are high in protein, B-vitamins and fibre.

“The plant has a very complex DNA so it is almost impossible to create a genetically engineered variety.”

And much, much more.

“So you can see,” Revert concludes, “why all these industries would be against hemp. Especially since it is so easy to grow. You don’t need to be a big corporation with big plantations and machinery.”

As far as he is concerned, if the government is serious about its developmental agenda, it “has a duty to promote this technology immediately”.

“In almost 14 years of democracy nothing has changed. The more we delay stuff, the more people get poor ... and poorer and poorer. This is very painful for all of us.

“Climate change is another reason this is so urgent. Hemp is not only relevant as a crop, but for the health of the planet.”

He says that in the coming weeks he intends “engaging” more strenuously with the Department of Agriculture in a last ditch attempt to make them see sense.

“I will try to explain why this is so urgent. If the explanation route doesn’t work, we will have to consider other options. Like a public awareness campaign. Perhaps even the legal route.”

In the meantime, the NGO will press on with its housing project, but it will be on a far smaller scale and will have to depend on hemp imported from more enlightened, more farsighted nations.

www.InternAfrica.org Continues to focus on delivering sustainable appropriate affordable carbon efficient cannabrick building options to the Western Cape Human Settlement Crisis.

Moral fibre

Remember hemp? Dagga's non-narcotic cousin, the wonder plant that was going to alleviate rural poverty, stimulate small enterprises, provide jobs, houses, textiles, paper, food and possibly even save us from global warming and the oil crisis?

Well, that’s what we were told when the government launched the National Hemp Initiative back in 1998.

So where are all the fields of waving weed?


You’d have to go to the Eastern Cape to find them, and then you’d find only five little plots, adding up to about a hectare in total, each surrounded by a two-metre-high fence in case anyone is stupid enough to try and smoke the stuff.

After almost 10 years and the investment of tens of millions of rands, the government’s hemp-growing project has done little but prove that hemp grows very well in South Africa.

[[InternAfrica has to question this claim that hemp grows well in SA - looking at these pictures]]

There is a small and flourishing local hemp industry, producing everything from clothing, cosmetics and bio-friendly nappies to food products and building materials, but the hemp they use comes from elsewhere, mostly China.

Why aren’t we growing our own? The short answer is that the law still doesn’t differentiate between dagga and industrial hemp.

The law, in this case certainly, is an ass. The hemp strains authorised for research in South Africa contain less than 1% of the psychoactive agent tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). To be of the slightest interest to a recreational user, the plant would have to contain at least 3% THC, and no drug dealer of any disrepute would touch anything under 7%.

More than 40 other countries have managed to make the distinction, including most of Europe, Canada, Russia, India, Thailand, South Korea and, of course, China, which produces most of the world’s crop. Global hemp sales have rocketed from just $10 million in 1996 to $250 million in 2002, the last year for which we could find statistics. But the market is continuing to boom as the search for greener alternatives to everything becomes more urgent.

A noted absentee from the list of growers is the US, which, like South Africa, uses the spectre of mass drug addiction to justify its indiscriminate suppression of this incredibly useful and versatile plant (although this hasn't prevented six US states from issuing growing permits in defiance of federal law).

Where there is no reasonable explanation for government policy, it is not unreasonable to follow the money.

American corporate interests are widely blamed for the ruinous 1937 “marijuana” tax which destroyed the US hemp industry overnight. For hundreds of years before that, hemp had been an important fibre crop, used for sails, rope, clothing, paper, building materials, fuel, food and medicine. It was so important that you could be jailed for refusing to grow it.

But the well-connected timber and cotton barons, along with the increasingly muscular petrochemicals industry, weren’t willing to compete with a material that had so many uses, and which anyone could grow in their own back yard.

Could a similar conspiracy be behind South Africa’s reluctance to allow even the most tightly-regulated cultivation of a commercial hemp crop?

One man who has no doubts is former advisor to the Department of Agriculture Thierry-Alban Revert.

Revert, a food technology engineer, scientist, entrepreneur and sustainable development consultant, was a key member of the governmental task team charged with redesigning South Africa’s agricultural policy after 1994.

The team produced a series of policy framework documents aimed at transforming the agricultural sector by creating commercial opportunities for small farmers.

As both Revert (and any small farmer) can tell you, few of their recommendations have made it off the page. [Small farmers mean small money for politicians. Agribiz, however ... – Ed.]

But one proposal, the National Hemp Initiative, was enthusiastically adopted by government at the time.

Even the cannabis-shy Department of Health was persuaded to grant special permission for a pilot growing project, and the first seeds were planted in 1996 at the Agricultural Research Council's testing centre in Rustenberg.

Revert, who says he knew nothing about hemp before he began his research, was so excited about the plant’s potential that he joined the hemp revolution.

As a member of the officially sanctioned National Organic Produce Initiative, he joined forces with a number of other NGOs to form the Western Cape Hemp Initiative. In 2004, they partnered the provincial Agriculture Research Council in growing trials in Riversdale and Elsenberg, Stellenbosch.

The trials continued for four seasons with great success, so everyone involved was keen to move on to the next step – actually making use of the crop...

InternAfrica has been advocating building your own cannabrick home for 9 years here's how!

They devised a project called Grow your House which would encourage rural communities to farm their own hemp and use it as building material. One hectare of hemp can produce enough material in four months for an RDP-sized house – a much stronger and more comfortable one too. The company hoped to build between 10 000 and 20 000 such houses over the next 10 years.

But this time, they were refused permission even to import the seeds.

Revert says they were told that the three hemp cultivars registered as industrial crops by the Department of Agriculture had “disappeared” from the register.

“It’s unbelievable. After all these years ... they’ve spent R65 million, and we’re back at the beginning.”

Revert blames greed, both of the national research councils which are getting all that tax-payers’ money to investigate what everyone already knows, and of hemp’s competitors in the commercial world.

“And of course the research councils have long-standing relationships with these industries, so their interests are often the same.”

Revert says he has spent enough time in the boardrooms of big corporations to know how they operate, and that he has no doubt that rival industries will do anything to stop hemp in its tracks.

“This is the worst form of insidious colonisation of our resources and people. The country has moved but the basic players in the first economy are the same. These guys have not transformed or changed their economic agenda.”

Hemp advocates like Revert can recite the plant’s competitive advantages like litany.

“It produces four times as much cellulose per hectare as a tree plantation, and it produces it in four months, while timber takes seven years.

“The pulp is almost white so you don’t need to use chloride bleach like you do with wood pulp.

“It is a more versatile fibre than cotton and more sustainable: it contains a natural pest repellent, it uses much less water and fertiliser and if you plant it properly, you don’t get weeds, so you don’t need herbicides. (So there is no profit in it for the agro chemicals industry? Bad idea!)

“It is also a very effective rotational crop – far better for enriching the soil than a legume.

“Bricks made from hemp and lime are seven times lighter than those made from clay or cement, provide excellent insulation and are much stronger.

“Cement uses huge amounts of fossil fuels so it is a carbon taxing industry, while hemp is a natural carbon sink (absorbs and holds carbon).

“Hemp seeds are a wonderful food. They contain more essential fatty acids than any other vegetable source and they are high in protein, B-vitamins and fibre.

“The plant has a very complex DNA so it is almost impossible to create a genetically engineered variety.”

And much, much more.

“So you can see,” Revert concludes, “why all these industries would be against hemp. Especially since it is so easy to grow. You don’t need to be a big corporation with big plantations and machinery.”

As far as he is concerned, if the government is serious about its developmental agenda, it “has a duty to promote this technology immediately”.

“In almost 14 years of democracy nothing has changed. The more we delay stuff, the more people get poor ... and poorer and poorer. This is very painful for all of us.

“Climate change is another reason this is so urgent. Hemp is not only relevant as a crop, but for the health of the planet.”

He says that in the coming weeks he intends “engaging” more strenuously with the Department of Agriculture in a last ditch attempt to make them see sense.

“I will try to explain why this is so urgent. If the explanation route doesn’t work, we will have to consider other options. Like a public awareness campaign. Perhaps even the legal route.”

In the meantime, the NGO will press on with its housing project, but it will be on a far smaller scale and will have to depend on hemp imported from more enlightened, more farsighted nations.

www.InternAfrica.org Continues to focus on delivering sustainable appropriate affordable carbon efficient cannabrick building options to the Western Cape Habitat Crisis.

(Next month noseweek takes a closer, critical look at the reasons and explanations offered by those hampering hemp's progress.) Noseweek

Shack fire leaves 100 people homeless in Langa

At least a hundred people have lost their homes in the fire

At least 100 people have lost their homes in a fire in Langa on the Cape Flats. Cape Town Fire says a blaze in Zone 17 early this morning razed about 30 wood-and-iron structures to the ground.

There were no injuries or fatalities. The displaced people are being accommodated by friends and family, as well as in a nearby community centre. The cause of the fire is not known at this stage.

Disaster Management is expected to assess the plight of the fire victims later this morning. - SABC

VOTE!

Joe Slovo plea to Mbeki

UDM leader Bantu Holomisa has urged anxious Joe Slovo residents to take their grievances straight to the top structures of government if they want any action to be taken.

The residents face eviction to make way for the flagship housing project, the N2 Gateway.

But in a desperate move to halt their removal and avoid being moved to Delft, the residents appealed against the Cape High Court's order and are now, albeit only temporarily, safe from eviction pending the outcome of the application.

Holomisa insisted he was "not taking advantage of the situation" to pick up votes come election time

Holomisa on Wednesday gave an undertaking to write an open letter to President Thabo Mbeki asking him to intervene.

The residents, mostly from the Joe Slovo informal settlement, gathered in their hundreds at a Langa community hall on Wednesday night in the hope of being thrown a lifeline.

Most were concerned that Delft, which has been identified as their temporarily living area until the housing project is complete, was too far from their workplaces and schools.

Holomisa told residents they had to ignore provincial structures and report straight to the ANC headquarters, Luthuli House, and national government if they wanted anything done.

Holomisa insisted he was "not taking advantage of the situation" to pick up votes come election time and said he was there by invitation to advise the residents to raise their housing concerns with government and the ANC and to insist on making more viable options available to them.

"You must talk to national government because this route of going to court is going to cost you at the end of the day. Government cannot remove people without giving them options," he said.

"I am advising you to go to the influential people who can make a change. You must expect that the (court) judgment can be against you when you appeal, which shows that government policy is against the poor."

Holomisa also lambasted the ANC, saying that infighting as a result of Jacob Zuma's gaining the ANC presidency last year had blinded the movement to its responsibility to provide adequate housing.

"The situation is very uneven. The change of leadership in the ANC has disturbed government.

"That means people on the ground are not going to be the government's priority right now their infighting for power is going to affect the poor people."

Holomisa also urged the community not to use violent tactics to attract the attention of the government as it would jeopardise their situation. - Cape Argus

Migration swells Western Cape

The provincial government has initiated a ground-breaking partnership with the Eastern and Northern Cape in an effort to ratchet-up service delivery and stem the tide of migration into the Western Cape from the two impoverished provinces.

Called the Governance Summer School, the project was initiated by the Western Cape Local Government and Housing Department.

Over five days this week, MECs of local government from the three provinces and senior managers in these departments will meet in Somerset West to discuss challenges facing service delivery and that influence migration.

Local Government MEC Richard Dyantyi said the project was inspired by a need for the three provinces to share experiences that would lead to increased economic development and better service delivery.

"It has become quite clear that unless we sit down as the three provinces to unpack issues of joint concern... we will not be able to deal with the challenges of migration, service delivery and good governance," he added.

According to Statistics South Africa, the Western Cape's population has grown from 4.5 million in 2001 to 5.3 million at the end of last year. The population increase has mainly been attributed to migration from the less affluent Eastern and Northern Cape provinces.

Reasons for the increase in migratory movements vary from a need for better economic opportunities, to that of households sending their children to the Western Cape because it is perceived to possess a superior resourced schooling system.

The unexpected population increase is blamed for creating an unmanageable housing backlog and overcrowded classrooms in the Western Cape.

Dyantyi's department estimates that 54 percent of new migrants to the province hail from the Eastern Cape, while 10 percent came from the Northern Cape.

The University of Stellenbosch business school last year estimated that Western Cape-based migrants contributed between R100-million and R200-million to the economy of the Eastern Cape during the December festive period.

Dyantyi has however cautioned that building a "Chinese Wall" around the Western Cape will not solve the province's migration woes. He hopes the Governance Summer School will be the beginning of a process that will build the capacity for service delivery among civil servants in the Eastern and Northern Cape provinces.

"The summer school offers the opportunity to groom leadership. When you have leadership you are able to utilise your resources effectively," he said.

It is envisaged that the summer school would be an annual event. The Cape Town workshop began on Monday and ends on Friday.

Thoko Xasa, the Eastern Cape Local Government MEC, has welcomed the summer initiative as long overdue.

"In our estimation it provides a wonderful opportunity to engage with a number of issues that have confronted all of us as we deliver services to our communities.

"We share common borders, which would suggest that we also share common challenges," she said. "One of these challenges is to deal with the issue of migration across our respective borders." - Cape Argus

Granny, 3 kids die in fire in Gugulethu

According to the City's Disaster Risk Management, seven people died and about 700 people were left homeless in fires around the Peninsula this weekend.

Cape Town - South Africa A woman and her three grandchildren one of whom was wheelchair bound have died and 500 other people have been left homeless in a shack fire that started in Gugulethu in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

The woman is believed to be in her 60s, while two of her grandchildren were 15 and 18. The third grandchild, believed to be disabled, was in his 20s.

The fire started at about 3am on Tuesday morning and left fire fighters battling to contain the blaze in heavy winds .

Platoon commander Theo Layne said that in this morning's fire, between 80 and 100 wood and iron shacks had been destroyed in the blaze.

He said the wind played a big part in fanning the flames.

By 6am the fire had been contained but at 8am there were still 15 fire vehicles damping down the area.

By 9am, police had cordoned off the area where the woman and her three grandchildren lived but had not yet removed their bodies.

Although fire officials could not confirm where the fire started this morning, residents said the fire had started in the woman's house.

Residents said the woman was known to brew traditional beer on a fire outside her shack.

Standing nearby, clutching a burnt Bible, a visibly distraught Xoliswa Nkukhwana said she had woken up to the sound of people screaming at her to vacate her shack.

"It was very windy this morning and this is what may have driven the fire so quickly," she said.

On Tuesday morning, while fire fighters were damping down the area, people were standing despondently on the streets of KTC's NY78.

Some had managed to salvage their belongings before the fire reached their homes but others were left with only the clothing they were wearing.

Constance Nkukhwana said: "I only managed to get my children out of the shack. But I have lost everything I owned. "

Siviwe Nzilikazi, 14, said: "I have lost my home, my belongings, my school uniform and books.

"What am I going to do when school reopens?"

Police spokesperson Senior Superintendent Billy Jones said the identities of the dead would not be revealed until their next of kin had been informed.

He said the first priority was to accommodate the people who had lost their homes.

On Sunday a child died in a shack fire in Hazendal near Athlone. Ten people also lost their homes.

Meanwhile, about 15 homes in Sweet Home, Philippi, were gutted, leaving 50 residents homeless on Sunday.

Also on Sunday, in Freedom Farm near Valhalla Park, another five houses were destroyed, leaving 24 people without homes.

About 80 people were left homeless when a fire gutted their homes in Phola Park, Philippi, destroying 29 shacks on Sunday.

Meanwhile, in Simon's Town on Tuesday morning, fire fighters were still struggling to access mountainous terrain above the Simon's Town Naval base in Dido Valley.

Although the fire had been contained by10pm last night, fire officials were still damping it down early this morning.

Last night three helicopters, seven fire engines and six water tankers were sent to contain the fire.

No injuries were reported and no structures or buildings were threatened. - Cape Argus

Raging fires keep firefighters busy

Firefighters from the city and Table Mountain National Park on Sunday battled for nearly two hours to control a fire at Platboom above Cape Point. The fire was fanned by a strong south-easter.

According to Nimrod Luthuli, a dispatcher at Cape Town Fire Command and Control Centre, the fire had started at 3pm, destroying a large area of fynbos.

"Six fire engines along with six water tankers and a helicopter have been dispatched to the area. At the moment there is no threat to any buildings," said Luthuli.

He said the strong south-easter which had been blowing at up to 80km/h had made it difficult for the helicopter firebombing the blaze.

Philip Prins, Table Mountain National Parks's fire and technical services manager, said the fire had eventually been contained at 4.30pm.

"The fire has been contained but with the wind, anything can happen," said Prins.

He said some of the firefighters who had battled the blaze would remain on the mountain during the night to secure the area and ensure there were no flare-ups.

Although there had been people hiking on the mountain in the vicinity of where the fire started, Prins said there had been no casualties among visitors and firefighters.

"There had been a lot of cars going past the area where the fire had started and at this point its difficult to say how the fire started," said Prins.

Meanwhile at least 70 informal settlement residents spent their Easter salvaging what they could from the remains of their homes and belongings gutted by fires.

Hours after the blazes yesterday the city's Disaster Risk Management Centre provided the residents with building materials and they began erecting their shelters again in temperatures which soared to 30 degrees C.

Disaster risk management spokesperson Wilfred Solomons-Johannes said the residents were also given food.

He said 15 homes in Sweet Home, Philippi, were gutted, leaving 50 residents homeless and in Freedom Farm, near Valhalla Park, another five homes were destroyed, leaving another 20 people without homes.

In another fire in Phola Park, Philippi, about 80 people were left homeless when a fire ravaged the informal settlement, destroying 20 shacks on Sunday afternoon.

No one was reported injured and the causes of the blazes were being investigated.

The Cape Town Fire Command and Control Centre said five fire engines had rushed to Philippi and three to Freedom Farm to extinguish the flames.

He said the wind had not been too strong.

Ntuli said firefighters also responded to a number of small veld fires throughout the weekend.

- Cape Times

New bill will let ex-tenants off the hook

A bill has been tabled in Parliament that says that a tenant who stops paying rent, or a landowner who stays in occupation of land after he has ceased to own it, cannot be regarded as an illegal occupier.

The prevention of illegal eviction from and unlawful occupation of land amendment bill was presented on Parliament on Monday by Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu. It amends the 1998 act, which a memorandum accompanying the bill says was subjected to "various implementation and interpretation problems".

The appeal court, for example held that the old act did indeed apply to proceedings for eviction of erstwhile tenants whose leases were ended, or mortgagors who refused to vacate land after foreclosure of their bonds.

The aim of the act, the memorandum says, was only to cover those who unlawfully invaded land without the prior consent of the landowner or person in charge of the land.

However, the bill does make clear that the definition of land includes buildings and structure. "Many buildings, particularly high rise buildings have been and continue to be occupied unlawfully," the memorandum says, "often at the instance of non-owners who then collect rent from the illegal occupiers."

The old act did not make it an offence to arrange the unlawful occupation of land - although it does prohibit the receipt or solicitation of money for doing so. This the amendment bill remedies, "due," the memorandum says, "to the nature and increase in land invasions, often on land which has already been earmarked for housing development."

The new bill also inserts a definition for "constructive eviction", so as to allow for prohibition of the practice. The distinction between people occupying land for less or more than six months is also done away with, because it constituted an unconstitutional inequality in the protection of a person’s right not to be evicted.

A previous version of this bill was tabled three years ago, but the portfolio committee on housing asked for it to be withdrawn to allow for further consultation with the department of land affairs, so as to align it with similar land occupation laws administered by that department.

- I-Net Bridge

Cape authorities clash about housing land

At least 4,000 informal structures would be flooded this winter, but the City of Cape Town said its winter readiness programme was being hampered by the provincial government's refusal to release the land it needs for housing and emergency relocation.

Mayor Helen Zille said at Wednesday's mayoral committee meeting that the province last year "refused" to hand over land that could be used for emergency housing after heavy floods.

"It was a real crisis."

But Local Government and Housing MEC Richard Dyantyi said the city had not used the "significant portions of land" allocated by the province since 2001.

"I have repeatedly asked the city to provide a list of all the land that was ceded to it by the province and how the land is being used. The city has no basis to make any claims that we are not releasing the land."

Dan Plato, mayoral committee member for housing, said many families refused to relocate to dry land. Others deliberately occupied high-risk flood spots so that the city would relocate them to a better area.

He said the city needed to work with the province to resolve the matter.

"This is a thorny issue for us. We need to come up with different mechanisms or we will have to use community halls (again, during the next floods)."

Hans Smit, housing executive director, said the city could expect between 4,000 and 6,000 structures to be flooded during the rainy season.

He said the city did not have the political support of the provincial Housing Department to make land available. Three sites in the east of the city had been identified as alternative land, but Dyantyi had not yet agreed to release them, he said.

Dyantyi cautioned the city against using the land issue as "extreme political expediency".

Meanwhile 400 families who unlawfully occupied council houses will soon be able to say they are living legally.

The mayoral committee yesterday agreed to recommend that council legalise their occupation if "strict" criteria are met. The previous administration had put a three-year moratorium on evictions, which made it difficult for the city to now remove the families. - Cape Times

Sewerage shapes up as next crisis

Any local politician would prefer to be remembered for "building" a thousand new houses, rather than for passing a budget setting aside more money for the local sewerage network. But it is exactly this innocent twist of human nature that is helping to shape a sewerage crisis, which is now hitting the country.

Since 2004 a spate of surveys and technical papers have noted that up to 70 percent of municipal waste-treatment works face collapse for lack of proper maintenance and extension, while around a third require "immediate intervention" and another third intervention "within the short to medium term".

Collapse may be the wrong word, but what is happening is ongoing decay as municipalities increasingly fail to comply with the specifications of the licence that allows them to release "treated wastewater" into our rivers, with serious consequences for human health and water ecosystems.

Signs of this decay among the nearly 1,000 wastewater treatment works nationally are becoming ominously visible, in sewerage works in Gauteng, beaches outside Durban and Western Cape facilities.

Last week, while denying that South Africa faced an overall water crisis, water (DWAF) minister Lindiwe Hendricks told Parliament that a DWAF audit of municipal wastewater treatment works "found that the situation in many municipalities is dire, and must be addressed as a matter of urgency".

"The pollution in some of our rivers can be directly linked to failure on the part of these municipal wastewater treatment plants, and there is no denying that some of these plants are in poor condition."

The crisis is not confined to small towns.

The Percy Stewart works in Mogale City (Krugersdorp) feature in a Democratic Alliance report detailing overall infrastructure maintenance problems. The nearby Flip Human works have also run into difficulties.

A 2007/8 DWAF study of the drinking-water quality of 28 Western Cape municipalities found poor water quality (a lower than 97 percent compliance with E coli or faecal standards) in 13 Western Cape municipalities, including Stellenbosch and Oudtshoorn.

In Durban, a sewage leak into the Umhlatuzana River was the main cause of the fish killed in Durban Harbour in late December.

All three of the sewage works in Emfuleni are, if not in crisis, at least under strain. North West University water researcher Professor Johan Tempelhoff has observed raw sewage from the Leeuwkuilspruit works in Sharpeville reaching the Vaal untreated, and raw sewage spilling from the Sebokeng works into water used by Sebokeng residents for washing clothes, for their kids to play in, and as drinking water for animals.

In August last year, on Women's Day, raw sewage from the Rietspruit works lined the road between Vanderbijlpark and Potchefstroom for a distance of two kilometres.

DWAF has intervened in Emfuleni where a residents' organisation, Save the Vaal Environment (Save), is threatening to take the municipality to court. Emfuleni will now spend R50-million on emergency measures while DWAF has undertaken to build a new, regional sewage works at a cost of between R500- and R800-million, and has upgraded sewage pump stations along the river.

The many reports on sanitation agree on what the solutions have to be: regaining skills to operate wastewater treatment plants, and budgeting for proper operations and regular maintenance. Many people responsible for water and wastewater management are inadequately experienced, and lack the skills required for effective and compliant works operation.

They often lack the clout to convince the politicians that limited municipal budgets must give greater priority to funding for staffing, maintenance, repairs, rehabilitation and expansion. Works are frequently under-staffed, with a single operator working during office hours on plants running 24/7.

Because of the complexity of wastewater treatment, many plants have been automated. However, there is a national shortage of instrumentation technicians, who are paid far better in the private sector. This leaves municipal plants at particular risk of failure.

Municipal water services personnel are operating under extreme stress. Often the easiest solution is to defer decisions, including maintenance. There is high staff turnover, and institutional memory and routines are lost. A new study by Allyson Lawless, published by the SA Institution of Civil Engineering, demonstrates that today municipalities employ only a seventh of the number of engineers employed 15 years ago, while service coverage has increased significantly.

Shockingly, 94 municipalities currently employ no engineering staff at all. Training institutions remark that workers who come to them for "advanced training" are often not equipped with the basics. Managers take on positions that require technical training, knowledge and experience, often without having any of these.

Municipal budgets focus on new construction, and not on the unglamourous task of maintenance. The emphasis in government is on building new housing and extending services to the unserved. All this increases the burden on the existing network and treatment works, some of which do not even have the water supply needed to do their job.

Because pipe and storm-water systems are badly maintained, storm water and contaminated rainwater also enter the system, overloading the treatment works.

Similarly, the government is also putting in flush toilets wherever it can. Flush toilets and sewered systems depend on the idea that water carries the waste to where it can be treated and disposed of safely. But when this assumption no longer holds, our sanitation system ends up deliberately polluting fresh water.

The flush idea comes from water-rich Europe, whereas South Africa is an arid country with many poor people. The idea of toilet-flushing, at say 12 litres per flush, is hardly feasible within the current allocation of 6 000 litres of free basic water per household per month.

The irony is that the huge investment in extending coverage in taps and toilets may well lead to rising diarrhoea incidences if we cannot ensure the quality of our effluent treatment and our drinking water treatment. The results are a pollution nightmare.

Our current sanitation system of "flush and forget" is a dangerous one - made more dangerous by the way it is not working. The first mistake is to mix urine and faeces, which makes for a much more active chemistry than they would separately, and then to drop that into clean water.

This mixture then goes through a network of sewer pipes, some of them really old and cracked, with tree roots growing into them creating hooks for plastic bags and condoms.

Assuming it gets to the treatment works, it is then treated by a person who may well not have mastered the basics of his or her job.

To add another layer to the crisis, power interruptions mean that sewage treatment is interrupted too. When the pumps and aerators are out, delicate chemical and biological treatment processes are disrupted, and minimal treatment is possible. The result is that inadequately treated effluent is discharged.

The water, when released from the water treatment plant, may or may not meet the stipulated effluent specifications. However, it still contains nutrients like phosphate which leads to eutrophication - an excess of nutrients in the water resulting in algal blooms - which can turn toxic and disturbs ecosystems.

Even though most of the works treating effluent that is discharged into the Hartebeespoort dam do comply with the conditions of their discharge permits, it is the sheer volume of the nutrient load coming through that is impacting on water quality.

Munnik is an independent environmental researcher working in Johannesburg. - Cape Times

Housing crisis looms as Western Cape grows by 16%

While the Western Cape is "the receiving province" for thousands of people migrating from the Eastern and Northern Cape in search of jobs, there is not enough housing for the massive influx of people.

But Local Government and Housing MEC Richard Dyantyi said the three provinces would find sustainable solutions to the problem. "We will not return to influx control or build a Chinese wall."

Statistics showed the Western Cape's population, about 5.2 million last year, grew by 16% annually and that 54% of this increase was from the migration of people from the Eastern Cape while the Northern Cape's contribution was about 10%, Dyantyi said. - Cape Times - HighBeam Research

Build your house from hemp

Klara Marosszeky is a licensed industrial hemp researcher who has been working with University of New South Wales since 2003.

According to Marosszeky, "We've developed the material for blocks, sprayed walls, panels and in-fill... so we have a range of products that could go ahead if we were allowed to grow hemp in NSW."

Commercial production of industrial hemp is permitted under legislation in Victoria, Tasmania, Queensland, ACT and Western Australia.

In September 1995, the New South Wales Government announced that field trials of low-THC hemp would be authorised in NSW. The first trial was sown in October 1995 and there have been trials in each spring and summer since that time. (THC is the psychoactive component in hemp/cannabis).

But hemp can not be legally grown in NSW.

Marosszeky says, "It's commercial in Queensland, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia but not in NSW. A lot of the knowledge and research is in NSW and we can't grow fibre."

"So we have an incredibly sustainable product that creates a carbon sink when you build a house out of it. So it takes out carbon when you're growing, then locks it in to the wall and we are going to be trucking it from Western Australia which really isn't a logical thing to be doing," she says.
The process of turning hemp fibre into suitable building material is where Klara Marosszeky gets passionate about her work.

"The herd of a hemp stem reacts with lime based materials and starts to petrify, so it turns from a fibre into a mineral. It can be very commercially competitive... a lot of the work at the University of NSW was getting to a commercially competitive model because I realised there was no point in having a sustainable product that cost an awful lot to build with," Marosszeky said.

The chemical reaction enables the material to set like cement naturally but with more flexibility and less weight. The material breathes and provides an ideal mould free environment with a modern look.

President of the Nimbin Hemp Embassy Michael Balderstone was delighted to see Klara building a section of a hemp wall inside the Embassy.

"It will be enlightening for most of the estimated 100,000 visitors per year who walk through our doors. Klara will also be at this year's MardiGrass on May 3 and 4 where we plan to have a hands on HEMP EXPO where people can mould their own creations from industrial hemp as well as see hemp paper being made and handle hemp blocks. It looks like being an exciting gathering of people working with hemp in its various commercial forms."

- ABC

108 homeless, two killed as Cape doctor blows

From uprooting tents and tearing branches from trees to fanning fires which led to more than 100 Cape Town residents being left homeless and a fatal car crash, the weekend's gale-force Cape Doctor kept rescue workers busy around the clock.

On Sunday, even though the wind had died down from Saturday's 94km/h, the city's Disaster Risk Management Centre remained on alert.

On Monday the SA Weather Service predicted the wind would remain moderate while temperatures were expected to reach 30°C.

At the weekend, though, the blustering winds, which started on Friday, caused widespread chaos and Disaster Risk Management spokesperson Wilfred Solomons-Johannes said the centre had received an increased number of complaints.

"We've heard of branches being blown off trees and Telkom lines being blown down.

"The gusts of wind were very strong," he said.

In more serious incidents, 80 residents of the Masiphumelele informal settlement in Fish Hoek were left homeless late on Saturday after a fire destroyed 15 shelters.

Earlier winds had also fanned a blaze through the Sheffield informal settlement in Philippi, gutting 16 shacks and leaving another 28 residents without homes.

A room above the Fairdeal Furniture factory in Parow was also destroyed by a fire which firefighters managed to extinguish before it spread.

The Cape Town Fire Command and Control Centre said the strong winds had made it difficult for firefighters to battle the flames.

They had also struggled to get a big veld fire, heading towards the Samora Machel informal settlement, under control.

Although the blaze did not destroy any homes, thick smoke blown from it was suspected to have caused a fatal car accident. An operator at the Metro EMS control room said "a thick pall of smoke" had blown across the R300.

"It reduced visibility to almost zero. A car was driving through it and stopped. Five others cars crashed into that car," he said.

Two people died and three others were seriously injured.

The names of the dead have not yet been released.

Police spokesperson Billy Jones said a culpable homicide case was being investigated and said it was believed smoke being blown from the fire had caused the accident.

Meanwhile, in Delft scores of residents evicted from the N2 Gateway housing project last month for illegally occupying houses were again left homeless when gale-force winds uprooted their tents along Symphony Way.

By Sunday Solomons-Johannes said the tents had been stabilised again.

In the city centre gusting winds also caused scaffolding at a building site at the corner of Spin and Longmarket streets to collapse but the area was secured later the same day, after building inspectors had inspected it.

Fifty knot south-easterly winds also caused problems at sea. On Saturday in Kommetjie, rescuers found a crewman, about 50 years old, from a snoek boat dead and face-down in the water.

The NSRI's helicopter duty commander Ian Klopper said the 3.5-metre snoek boat capsized 800 metres off-shore from the Kommetjie slipway.

When rescuers arrived they found a private boat being launched by Wayne Sheppard, the son of the skipper of the capsized boat and he rescued his father Fanie Sheppard and a crewman known only as Flippie.

Soon after, rescuers discovered the third crewman's body.

His name has not yet been released. - Cape Times

Gale-force winds sweep through Cape Town

Gale-force winds destroyed informal housing, leaving hundreds destitute in Cape Town on Saturday, said disaster management officials.

Worst affected were Delft residents living in tents on the N2 Gateway project after being evicted, said spokesperson Wilfred Solomons.

South-easterly winds blowing at 90km/h left the tents unstable and unsafe, he said. Some had even been "uprooted", but contractors were on site to stabilise them.

The winds started on Friday and were expected to continue throughout the weekend, said Solomons. Disaster management services would remain on alert.

The wind also swept a fire through the Sheffield informal settlement in Philippi, on the Cape Flats, destroying 16 shacks and leaving 28 people homeless.

In the Cape Town city centre, scaffolding collapsed at a building site in Long Street. Building inspectors and metro police were on the scene to assess the damage.

Solomons also said two men had to be rescued when a boat capsized in Kommetjie. They were taken to False Bay Hospital. -- Sapa

Gale force winds wreak havoc in Cape Town

The Cape Town weather office has issued a severe weather warning, saying gale force southeasterly winds are expected in places along the Cape Peninsula today.

Melkbosstrand to Hout Bay and along the False Bay coast to Cape Hangklip are expected to be the worst affected. Deepsea swells of four metres are expected near Cape Columbine, with three metre swells at Cape Point, Agulhas and Mossel Bay.

Several tourist attractions - including the Table Mountain cable way and the ferries to Robben Island - have been forced to stop operations. The weather office's Nick Koegelenberg suggests that residents stay indoors and keep safe. - SABC

Delft evictees told to register for subsidies

As the deadline draws closer for them to leave their temporary shelters, people evicted from N2 Gateway houses they had illegally occupied in Delft have been urged to ensure their names are put on a council register that will allow them access to government housing subsidies.

At Thursday's meeting with evicted families, DA councillor Frank Martin told them that the city council was preparing an alternative site in Delft where they would each get their own plot, and from where they would later be moved to proper houses.

About 400 families have been living in council-provided tents on an open field adjacent to Section One, one of two areas that people were evicted from. At the time the council issued the tents, people were told that they could stay for only four weeks - this period ends on Tuesday - while the alternative site was prepared.

"If you have not put your name on the register and have not completed the subsidy application form, the city will have to come to you and have the forms completed," Martin said.

About 400 families have been living in council-provided tents on an open field

Some people wanted to know how big their plots would be and if the alternative site would be better than where they were now. Martin, who faces a council investigation as well as criminal charges for his alleged role in the December invasions, promised to find out what structures the council had in mind.

"If they tell me its four poles and plastic sheets, I will say that it is unacceptable because if they can spend R22,000 on a TRA (temporary accommodation for squatters moved from Joe Slovo), then they can do it for you as well," he said.

Meanwhile, at Symphony Way where another group of evictees have erected roadside shacks, people were unsure of where they would go. Their plight has been the subject of discussions between the Anti-Eviction Campaign (AEC) and housing MEC Richard Dyantyi.

AEC leader Ashraf Cassiem said a follow up meeting was expected next week.

"People are coping. We are trying to organise further relief for them and have already received a milk donation from a big company," he said.

The Symphony Way residents said they might be destitute, but there was sense of community among them. A couple would tie the knot tomorrow and a teenage boy would be baptised on Sunday, they said. - Cape Times

District Six uproar

The future of Cape Town's most sensitive site of apartheid forced removals is again in the balance as the city administration, land claimants and national government battle over the redevelopment of District Six.

The city is seeking to block the District Six Beneficiaries Trust from assuming control of residential and commercial development on the 42ha expanse of land overlooking central Cape Town.

City officials argue that the trust's claim to represent former residents is dubious and that it lacks basic mechanisms to govern the massive funding that will flow through the project.

"The core issue is: the city wants to determine what will be the best development vehicle and does not accept that the District Six Trust fairly represents all the claimants," executive director of housing in Cape Town Hans Smit told the Mail & Guardian.

A group of former District Six landowners, meanwhile, has launched an application in the Land Claims Court to stop the trust from acting as the representative of all claimants. That case is expected to be heard in May.

The trust's Anwah Nagia, however, insists that it has earned its legitimacy over decades of campaigning for restitution, and that the majority of the 1 500 beneficiaries support its approach. Opposition to the trust, he suggests, is driven by the electoral hopes of executive mayor Helen Zille. "It is a huge vote catcher," he said.

The chief state law adviser, Enver Daniels, has been mediating between the city, the trust and the regional land claims commission over the trust's draft founding deed, but those talks are now likely to stall as the city rejects a new draft, and Nagia vows to fight back. "There are going to be bloody noses," he said, "and they won't be ours."

A new version of the trust deed, modified following Daniels's intervention, substantially weakens control by the current trustees. They can now be voted out and are to serve five-year rather than life terms, but city officials believe the basic thrust of the draft -- to grant the trust sweeping and possibly illegal powers -- remains.

The new version still insists that the purpose of the trust is "to hold, manage, develop and administer the land on behalf of the restitution claimants/community/beneficiaries" and "to acquire in its own name for the benefit and on behalf of the beneficiaries property whether movable or immovable".

The trust will, it says, "oversee the planning and development of District Six in consultation with [national, provincial and local governments] by appointing the required professional persons and contractors and to award contracts to any person or legal entity to complete the development".

That vision seems to clash directly with an agreement by the intergovernmental District Six task team to avoid conflicts of interest by separating oversight, project management and development roles.

Confusion persists, too, about exactly who the beneficiaries are.

The trust deed offers a broad definition that includes land claimants, people "selected by the formerly disadvantaged community that may be accommodated", people who qualify for housing in the government's N2 Gateway project, and "other persons whom the trustees in their discretion after consultation with [the relevant government bodies] may decide to allocate housing to".

Nagia argues that these provisions are designed to ensure that the redevelopment does not cater to narrow racial or class interests, and that Africans, whose presence in District Six has largely been ignored, are also accommodated.

"The so-called Mitchells Plain people don't have unfettered access, as opposed to people from Langa and Guguletu," he said.

The city, however, points out that the current wording leaves the exact composition of the beneficiary group vague and allows the trustees to decide who will vote for them.

Underlying the city's jitters is a belief that the trust wants to be able to direct redevelopment funding that is likely to run into billions of rands to favoured contractors, and a suspicion that the national departments of land affairs and housing have allied themselves with Nagia in a bid to deny the Democratic Alliance-controlled city the coup of finally delivering restitution in District Six.

Nagia responds that there is not enough of a profit margin in the envisaged development to make corruption worthwhile, saying the city is seeking to "criminalise people" using the Municipal Finance Management Act. "I will fight them to my last drop of blood," he told the M&G.

Behind all the talk of racism and political manoeuvring, however, the city and the trust seem to share similar visions for the final shape of District Six. If anything, it is the national government that wants a more radical scheme.

Both Nagia and the city's Smit speak of 4,000 to 4,500 new dwellings, with construction costs for land-claim beneficiaries cross-subsidised by commercial development.

Of the new dwellings, roughly 1 000 will go to land restitution beneficiaries who lived in District Six and lodged claims before the 1998 deadline; another 1,000 will go to "late comers" who applied belatedly for restitution; 1,000 will go to land-reform beneficiaries who lost homes in other areas of Cape Town and 500 will go to people who are on the waiting list for houses in the N2 Gateway project, including former residents of the Joe Slovo informal settlement.

This leaves between 500 and 1,000 units available for commercial developers, as well as room for retail and office space.

"In terms of outcome we share the same vision; the key issue is how we do it in a fair and publicly accountable manner," Smit says.

Officials at the national Housing Department who are close to the task team process cite similar numbers, but other senior government officials speak privately of a much more aggressive approach.

"We need to really bulk up. It is possible to put 30,000 low-cost housing units there, if you look at what has happened in the city with office-to-residential conversions, it is doable," says one person familiar with the debate.

"The trust doesn't have, and can't access the necessary resources to build even 4,000 units. To unlock those resources they've involved national government, and agreed to build according to government policy on integration," this person says, arguing that state rather than private-sector money must drive the development, and state rather than private-sector priorities must shape its outcome.

"The trust came in to provide political and social perspective, and once restitution is effected, the trust will presumably fall away."

The real battle, it seems, may just be beginning. - M&G

Poor communication aggravating housing problems

The Deputy Director-General of Housing and Local government in the Western Cape, Mbulelo Tshangana, says lack of communication between government and communities has aggravated housing problems in Delft and Joe Slovo on the Cape flats and needs to be improved. Tshangana was the main speaker at a debate on government's N2 Gateway housing project at the University of the Western Cape yesterday.

Recently a Cape High Court eviction ordered backyard dwellers in Delft to vacate illegally occupied houses which are part of the N2 Gateway housing project.

Meanwhile a leader of the Joe Slovo community in Langa on the Cape flats, Mzwanele Zulu, says they will be filing for leave to appeal against the Cape High Court decision to vacate the area, later today.

Earlier this week Cape High Court Judge President John Hlophe ruled that the more than 4,000 dwellers must temporarily relocate to Delft. The community is occupying land earmarked for the N2 Gateway housing project. Zulu says the community will be following the legal route. - SABC

Government's 'housing list' only mythical

The people evicted from Delft are the last in a long line of communities to fall victim to the confused and untransparent process by which houses are allocated. Many of those evicted claimed to have been on the "housing list" of the council for many years.

Tension is now rising because they claim people who have been on the "list" for a shorter time have received housing, and they have not. This mythical "housing list" is at the centre of many beliefs and opinions, strongest of which is that if you are on the list you will get a house, and you will get that house in the order in which you, and others, appear on the "list."

This is a convenient fairytale, and very far from the truth. As an NGO involved in getting information for people about housing, the Open Democracy Advice Centre says that there is no "housing list", as people understand the term. So what actually happens around the allocation of housing in Cape Town?

We understand the process as follows. First, you can register for a house through the municipality. If you meet the criteria, you will be put on a database of people who want housing. If there is a project, like the Delft one, you then get moved from the database to the list of individuals who will receive houses. This is done by the allocations committee, headed by the City of Cape Town.

Also represented on that committee are national government, and provincial government. Thubelisha Homes is the project manager and they get the list of individuals who are going to be given houses.

If you are registered in this way, you are generally not consulted during the process.

You can also form a group of people who qualify for homes, as part of the People's Housing Process. You then go to Thubelisha, and ask that they develop a particular area. They will then liaise with local government, and the province, and screen the applicants.

So, let us assume there is money for 250 houses in a particular area. If your People's Housing Process committee goes to Thubelisha, and negotiates with them, and Thubelisha has land available that is appropriate for housing, they will then put the 250 people who qualify on this "list" of that project. That is when you are on the list. Then you really can expect a house. That budget will then be exhausted, and only replenished in a new financial year.

If you are merely registered, it does not mean you are on the list. You only make the transition to a list for a particular project once you have been chosen by the allocation committee. They choose in terms of criteria, like 80 percent for a project from Joe Slovo and 20 percent from the backyards. Then you are on the "list". These criteria are not generally published.

The process is complicated by the role of councillors. They should be ensuring fair delivery from officials. In some cases, however, they take on the official's role, in that they say who must get on the list, and who not. They even suggest to people that they move to informal settlements, to get priority on a real list.

The complaint that there are people who have been in the Cape for less time than others, and get houses sooner, is therefore quite genuine.

The lack of transparency around who is chosen and why, is a cause of a great deal of the conflict on this issue. This conflict plays into racial tensions and xenophobia.

This story is not unique to the Western Cape. In eThekwini people will show you their "receipt" for their registration on the database for a house. They will tell you firmly that they are going to get a house. This receipt also does not mean that they qualify for a particular project. It can't, because different projects have different qualification criteria. It just means you are on the database. How long you have been on the database is not a criterion for getting a house.

We have seen real housing lists. They take an enormous amount of effort to get out of your average municipality. They have names, ID numbers and erf numbers on them. They relate to specific projects. Being on the database is not the equivalent of being on a list.

As housing delivery has advanced, the question of how to ensure fairness between individuals, especially in cities, has become more pressing. The history of the "list" in a city like Cape Town goes back well before the advent of democracy. The tale of the list has become almost oral tradition in some communities, and we have not seen a concerted effort to explain to these communities how housing is in fact dealt with.

It is also very difficult to say whether the housing allocation policy is fair in practice. This is not because we know that it is unfair, but because it is not transparent. It does seem reasonable to observe that priority in the allocation of housing has been given to those who are organised, and who complain effectively about their lack of housing, and who demand information about the process of delivering housing to them.

This should be the way forward for communities, who should be demanding information about where they stand in the process. These demands should be responded to quickly. People's frustrations should not be allowed to reach the point that they feel that they can only make their voices heard by breaking the law, putting themselves and their families at risk.

Tilley is CEO of the Open Democracy Advice Centre and Pietersen is its housing information fieldworker.

- Cape Times

'Govt aware of service delivery shortfalls'

Government hopes the programme will prevent illegal protests about poor service delivery

Public Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi says government is aware of frustrations among communities because of lack of information on service delivery. Yesterday her department launched an initiative to educate citizens on their socio-economic rights to enable them to better access services from government.

The Know Your Rights programme is to be rolled-out through national and provincial departments and with the assistance of community development workers. The manual details the services that citizens are entitled to and where they can go if public servants are not performing.

Government is also hoping the programme will prevent illegal protests about poor service delivery. - SABC

Housing (26)

(1) Everyone has the right to have access to adequate housing.

(2) The state must take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to achieve the progressive realisation of this right.

(3) No one may be evicted from their home, or have their home demolished, without an order of court made after considering all the relevant circumstances. No legislation may permit arbitrary evictions. - The South African bill of Rights

An InternAfrica Watchit!

THOUSANDS of Joe Slovo residents have vowed to resist being evicted from the informal settlement after the Cape High Court ordered that they vacate the land intended for the N2 Gateway housing project.

Cape Judge President John Hlophe said that the residents had a constitutional right to adequate housing. But he stressed that they did not have a right to a locality of their choice.

Hlophe said the temporary accommodation the government had provided for them in Delft was "far better" than the shacks they lived in..

Once the Langa houses intended for them have been completed, they will be able to move back into better quality homes "and a community where overcrowding is a thing of the past, where fire dangers are much less, where proper water facilities are led to the houses, sewerage facilities are in place and where floods could leave lesser damage if any at all after the soil has been rehabilitated and stronger, more steady houses have been built"...

And at a community meeting in Joe Slovo last night, about 500 residents gathered on an open plot of land to hear representatives from the Joe Slovo Task Team and the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign speak about the court's ruling.

They sang and danced, chanting "Down with (housing minister) Lindiwe Sisulu" and "Down with Hlophe".

Uniformed police were not at the meeting, though a lone armoured Casspir was parked near the N2 Gateway construction site.

Mzwanele Zulu, spokesperson for the Joe Slovo Task Team, promised that the community would take the case as far as the Constitutional Court to fight being evicted from the area.

Zulu said: "By this order, Hlophe and the others have declared war on the people of Joe Slovo and must take responsibility for the consequences."

Zulu said the order endorsed "the bureaucratic madness" of removing people to Delft who did not want to be there. The judgment follows an application by Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, housing agents Thubelisha Homes and local government and housing MEC Richard Dyantyi to evict the 20,000 residents from the land next to the N2 to make way for the next phase of the N2 Gateway Project.

Judge Hlophe said the court was aware of the housing crisis in South Africa and could not turn a blind eye to it.

However, he said the removal of the residents would not render them homeless, assuring them that the move was for their benefit...

Judge Hlophe also commented on the submission that the residents had a legitimate expectation that the houses to be developed at Joe Slovo, or at least 70% of them, would be available to them.

But he said that there was no merit in this argument and that unlawful conduct could not give rise to a legitimate expectation. Judge Hlophe ordered the residents to vacate the area in accordance with a schedule, which starts on March 17 and ends on January 19, 2009.

He also directed the government and Thubelisha Homes to file affidavits with the court every eight weeks to report back on the implementation of the order.

He gave the sheriff the authority to eject the residents.

On September 10, last year members of the Joe Slovo community barricaded the N2 highway to protest their removal to Delft when they did not succeed in their negotiations with the national Housing Department and Thubelisha Homes.

- Full Article Cape Times