Foreign Shopkeepers - Tensions Run High

Tensions are rising in the Wallacedene area in the Western Cape between local businesses and owners of new low-cost government houses who are renting their properties to foreign shopkeepers as business premises.

In many cases the owners of the houses have not yet been given their keys but they are making an average of R1 500 a month in rentals from foreigners. The situation is infuriating local shopkeepers, who say the foreign business are undercutting them. And they say the owners of the houses should be living in them and not making money from them.

People who have been on a housing waiting list for years were recently allocated the houses by the provincial housing department.

Just two weeks ago the community buried its "housing heroine" Irene Grootboom, who went to the Constitutional Court in 2000 to force the government to provide housing for the poor. Grootboom died while still living in a shack, waiting for her own house.

Mzwandile Mfundisi, secretary of the Kraaifontein Small Business Association, said their members were upset about the Somali businesses running from the houses because their prices were too competitive.

"We are struggling on our side since they started, because they will charge half of our prices. We run our businesses from our own houses or from proper business premises."

The Small Business Association has around 800 members in the area, who either run shops or bottle stores.

"Our members are closing shops every day because of this situation, we are losing money every day. And every day you see another shop opening. One minute the house is standing there, the next minute it's a shop. Some of these houses don't even have toilets yet.

"It affects our people who have been running businesses here for years who can't even afford to support their families properly. Since the beginning of the year more than 20 local people have closed their shops," Mfundisi said.

Businesses which usually made about R3 000 a month now made about R1 000 because of the "situation", Mfundisi said. "We tried several times to speak to the police station commander and they spoke to these people but nothing has stopped. We are now busy with getting together with the housing department about this," Mfundisi said.

Chippa Arosi, chairman of the local branch of the South African National Civics Organisation (Sanco), said: "We are concerned about this because these are government houses given to the poorest of the poor. The owners are staying in their shacks, giving their houses to businesspeople who are not even from the area. Their shacks get flooded every year and they've been waiting for houses for years."

Sanco represents the community of Wallacedene and Bloekombos.

Arosi said around 3 000 new houses had been built in the area in the past five years. Before the xenophobic attacks in May, people ran businesses mostly from business premises and there were no problems.

"We see this as a dangerous situation because these are people's houses and it's causing tension. We spoke to the owners to explain this. They didn't even know it was a problem to rent their houses to business people, because to them it's about money."

The organisation had spoken to Somali shop owners and explained that the situation they were in could be dangerous to them, but Arosi said they responded that they were running a business and paying for it.

One homeowner, Sandile Sigcbu, who is renting his unfinished house to a businessman, said he had not yet received a key. He was living in one room of the two-bedroom house.

Sigcbu said he charged a Somali shopkeeper rent of R1 000 a month for the lounge and the other bedroom.

"They gave me the house and he wanted it for a business so I gave it to him. He gives me money. I need the money. I stay in the one room and they use the other room," he said. - Cape Argus

Council boots out victims of xenophobia

REFUGEES from xenophobic violence have been told to leave community halls and other sites in Cape Town by the weekend or the city’s officials will “pursue legal options” against them.

VIDEO: Re-integrated Refugees Face Life After Xenophobic Violence

Hans Smit, executive director for housing for Cape Town, said yesterday that there “has been unhappiness” among the communities that used the halls and other facilities before they were turned over to the refugees.

The refugees are housed at five makeshift camps, in 11 community halls, and in mosques and churches around the city.

The city council and the provincial government’s plan is to consolidate the remaining 3300 refugees at three sites.

Smit said communities wanted their halls back — and that meant the refugees had to be moved.

“People plan weddings and run creches; they need the halls,” said Smit.

“If people refuse to move we’d have to pursue legal options, [but] we won’t serve eviction notices without exploring other options.”

Hildegard Fast, head of provincial disaster management, said transport to other accommodation would be provided for refugees from today .

Refugees would be moved to three sites: Harmony Park in Strand; Youngsfield military base in Ottery and Blue Waters in Strandfontein. Two sites, Soetwater and Silwerstroom, would be dismantled.

“We want to focus on a couple of sites, which will also intensify our reintegration and repatriation process,” said Fast.

She said that Muslim refugees would be grouped together because they would be observing Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting, from Monday.

“ Different eating patterns and ablution facilities will be needed. Mothers and their children are a priority and they will be put in family tents ,” said Fast.

Capacity at the three sites would be increased to house more refugees but, she warned, they were “not going to [get] higher standards”.

She said helping the refugees had cost the province more than R104-million.

Sifiso Mbuyisa, who works on refugee reintegration in Cape Town townships, said communities had welcomed the refugees back.

- The Times

Reconnect illegal power cables, Eskom hears

Angry Khayelitsha residents have threatened to burn down ward councillors houses if they are not given electricity, after their illegal cables were cut.

The residents from the Island, an informal settlement in Site C, told the Cape Argus on Thursday that they would take action if their complaints were not heard by councillors and Mayor Helen Zille.

The Island residents protested and blocked Lansdowne Road after they said that Eskom and Metro Police had cut the cables running to neighbouring areas with legal electricity.

On a visit to the area on Thursday, the Cape Argus was told by residents that the Island had relied on these illegal connections for electricity for past 16 years.

They said they had spent thousands of rands buying the cables that were now useless.

They said they had no choice but to connect illegally because they had no jobs. They said they used the electricity to open shops in the area.

Spaza shop owner Lucy Dlokolo, 53, said she would lose business because her meat would rot.

"I am worried that my meat worth R2 000 will be rotten and who is going to buy it now? How am I going to survive?"

The residents said that at night, streets in the Island area were dark and residents feared they could be mugged.

They said they had resorted to using paraffin for energy, but were worried accidents could result in fires that might destroy their shacks.

The residents also complained about sewage, which posed a health hazard, especially to their children.

Resident Patricia Dywili said her child who drowned in the sewage in 2003.

"I am still mourning."

Ward councillor Jacky Solizwe told the Cape Argus that residents had chosen to live in the area, and he was doing everything he could to help them.

"I did not put them there but I have organised a meeting for them with the mayor."

When the Cape Argus asked what he planned to do to prevent residents from causing further damage, he responded: "I cannot stand before the people, because they have the right to do whatever they can to achieve what they want."

The communications officer at the mayor's office, Bonginkosi Madikizela, said: "We have heard the people's concern, but it is unfortunate that we cannot install electricity in that place because it has a lot of water that could pose a risk to them. "

"On September 3 we have scheduled a meeting with the ward councillor and the mayor so that we can try and find a solution we will all be happy about."

He said he hoped the community would be relocated to a safer area and a piece of land had been identified. - Cape Argus

Municipality literacy shock

One in three municipal councillors cannot read or write, and more lack basic competencies to run local government finances.

Some councillors are even embarrassed to admit they do not understand English and are therefore unable to follow council proceedings or training sessions.

It is recommended that adult education becomes a priority in all municipalities.

On average, only half of local government politicians have post-matric qualifications, while only two out of 10 understand how tariffs are set or the cost implications of municipal services.

And more than two-thirds of councillors - including those who serve on mayoral committees - don't understand their roles, their responsibilities or local government legislations.

These facts are contained in a study by the SA Local Government Association (Salga).

The depressing figures have been fingered as one of the main contributors of poor municipal service delivery, but also expose the legacy of apartheid in institutions of governance.

The study - conducted since the 2006 local polls and completed late last year - evaluated 7 000 of the country's 9 300 councillors.

Salga said 32 percent of councillors required ABET training.

"Without these skills (reading and writing) they may not fully develop their abilities and optimally contribute to council activities - especially when affairs of council are driven by agendas, reports submitted and minutes.

"The 32 percent of councillors who require ABET training should receive support as a matter of priority, particularly as this report shows councillors with higher levels of education stand a better chance to serve in senior positions, such as mayoral committees."

Salga head of skills development Sifiso Mbatha said the illiterate councillors "don't understand local government issues", admitting the illiteracy rate in municipalities greatly contributed to poor service delivery.

A number of councillors were not comfortable in conducting business or being trained in English.

"Some councillors are not comfortable in doing business in languages that are not their mother-tongues.

"But they keep quiet because they are embarrassed.

"This study has helped us a lot, together with the Local Government Sector Education and Training Authority (Seta) and the department of provincial and local government in terms of service delivery," said Mbatha.

"We need to take this (illiteracy) into consideration when we improve capacity for councillors, for them to understand what government is trying to do when it comes to service delivery."

He defended the appalling literacy rate of councillors and pointed to the country's historical political system.

"We need to understand where we come from, because some of our councillors were in the struggle and did not have a chance to go to school. Their political parties have deployed them to municipalities.

"Not only councillors have problems, but also appointed officials."

Mbatha said R32-million had been approved to train councillors and register some for ABET classes.

Professor Enslin van Rooyen, an expert on local government at the University of Pretoria's School of Public Management and Administration, said the situation had dire consequences for municipalities.

"The practical implications are that if so many of them do not have proper reading and writing skills, then we can assume that councils end up approving budgets they can't interpret," he added. - Pretoria News

Joe Slovo residents vow to fight removal

Joe Slovo residents are to decide this week on how they propose the Constitutional Court should settle the community's bid to have an eviction order overturned.

The proposal was requested by the Constitutional Court, which reserved judgment in the matter last week.

About 6 000 residents face eviction
The contested order was granted to national Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu by Cape High Court Judge John Hlophe in March and could see the community forcibly removed to Delft.

Last week the residents sent scores of their representatives to Johannesburg to attend the court proceedings and to hold a a demonstration to highlight their plight.

They are being supported by the Western Cape Anti-eviction Campaign, as well as other housing lobby groups.

On Sunday, residents gathered in their community after hearing that judgment had been reserved and that the court had asked them to lodge their proposal before Friday.

Mzwanele Zulu, Joe Slovo taskforce team spokesperson, said the national housing department and its agent, Thubelisha Homes, had "sidelined the community about the development of the N2 Gateway housing project", planned for the land on which they currently live.

'If they evict us, we won't vote'
He said residents remained optimistic about the Constitutional Court proceedings. But if they lost, they would visit the court again. About 6 000 residents face eviction.

"We are happy and following the case closely," said Damba Xolile, 35, who has lived in the area for nearly 15 years and works in Bellville.

He said the planned evictions would be painful since he was among those who had originally cleared the bush at Joe Slovo so people could build their shacks.

Zakhele Mqolo, 35, who works in Parow, said the ANC should not be surprised next year if people did not vote for it, adding: "If they evict us, we won't vote."

- Cape Argus

Millions flock to SA cities, towns - Nqakula

The massive scale of urbanisation in South Africa, which has seen millions of people move into informal settlements outside cities and towns across the country, was highlighted at a government media briefing on Monday.

Up to 5,5 million people trekked to urban areas in South Africa between 1996 and 2001 - a rate of more than a million a year.

This had resulted in "the mushrooming of almost 3 000 informal settlements", according to a statement released by Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula at a justice, crime prevention and security cluster briefing in Pretoria.

"The majority of those internal migrants went to urban areas. The consequence is that Gauteng has 639 informal settlements. It is followed by KwaZulu-Natal (618) and the Eastern Cape (416).

"A study commissioned by the department of housing has revealed that between 1996 and 2001, 5,5 million people migrated across South Africa."

This "internal migration", together with a flood of illegal immigrants across South Africa's borders, posed a serious problem for law enforcement agencies.

"Both cross border and internal migrants establish themselves in informal settlements. Most of them have no jobs and live in squalor, while others are drawn into crime to make a living."

The statement further notes there is an "urgent need to define new tactics" to police South Africa's land borders.

This would involve the use of "advanced technology", including satellites, aircraft and helicopters, as well as stepping up border patrols.

"The intelligence community, working with the organised crime combating units, will identify areas of illegal crossing for the necessary intervention by the patrolling teams," it said. - Sapa

Mufamadi on MIG - Service Delivery?

The Democratic Alliance has called on Provincial and Local Government Minister Sydney Mufamadi to explain why funds available to municipalities in terms of the Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) are not being fully utilised.

This follows an Auditor-General performance audit that "shows that municipalities are failing badly in delivering the services this fund is supposed to provide," DA spokesperson Willem Doman said in a statement on Monday.

The MIG - approved by Cabinet in 2003 - is aimed at providing basic services, including sanitation and electricity, to all communities by 2013, by financing the cost of basic infrastructure for the poor.

Doman said underspending by municipalities was compounding the situation.

"It is estimated that approximately R647-million, for the three financial years between 2004 and 2007, was not spent.

"For the same financial years there was no action plan to address the under-spending by 24 municipalities, which totalled R87,7-million."

The DA would be posing questions in Parliament to Mufamadi, who was responsible for the fund, to establish what steps he was taking to address the shortcomings highlighted by the AG, he said. - Sapa

Drive to democracy at a standstill - Manuel

Finance Minister Trevor Manuel has taken a swipe at MPs and government officials, accusing them of having lost touch with ordinary citizens, and saying the fact that they had seats in parliament and offices in state was not a cure-all.

The drive for democracy, he told a secondary 25th anniversary celebration of the United Democratic Front (UDF) on Sunday, had been brought to a standstill by the government, and the public's lack of self-belief, passion and determination that once characterised the struggle for freedom.

These vital characteristics, Manuel said, had defined the UDF.

The celebration in Belgravia, Athlone, on Sunday followed the official UDF commemoration in Rocklands, Mitchells Plain, last week.

Manuel compared the battle for democracy in SA to a journey that had not yet been completed.

"It is a journey that has no endpoint; the (1994) election was only a milestone along that journey, but when we reached the elections, we paused to rest," he said.

Government officials, however, should not have rested in the comfort of their new offices, but instead engaged with the people on how they could do things in a way that was "substantively different from anything we've done before".

MPs and other government top brass had been "deluded" into thinking their seats and offices in state would solve broader problems.

There had to be a way by which disengaged leaders in public office could reconnect with the people they served.

"We should not be pausing. We should be quickening the pace because we've lost time and we need to catch up," he said.

Manuel did not believe "the journey" could be completed in our lifetimes, saying the passion, self-belief, determination and unity that were associated with the UDF had been lost. This had to be reinstated if headway was to be made.

He questioned the quality of South Africa's democracy and of public services, the safety and peace of mind of the country's most vulnerable, and assurances for the futures of the country's children.

But, he said, the public should not simply blame the government for all their woes and urged people to tackle their concerns.

Communities had to take responsibility by building community strength that matched that of the struggle days.

Other speakers included struggle stalwarts Willie Hofmeyr, Andrew Boraine and Zoe Kota.

Boraine warned that while the UDF was filled with "creativity, energy and comradeship", the idea of the organisation should not be romanticised.

"If we are honest, we will also look back on many mistakes, wrong decisions and factional problems."

Hofmeyr quoted the late anti-apartheid activist and government minister Dullah Omar with a strong message that although it was tough to overthrow a government, it was tougher to build a democratic one.

Kota said the spirit of activism was still relevant today, and that one could not "let the blood spilled in Belgravia, Gugulethu and Manenberg be eroded overnight". - Cape Argus

'It's our duty not to be silent'

After 15 years of fighting with government and the Cape Town municipality about their right to live in Langa, the Joe Slovo community finally had their day in the Constitutional Court this week.

Opposing their right to continue living in Cape Town's Langa township -- earmarked for housing development -- were Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, government-appointed housing agency Thubelisha Homes, former Western Cape housing minister Richard Dyantyi and the city of Cape Town.

They argue that the squatters are obstructing the delivery of houses to the poor.

Five months ago beleaguered Cape Judge President John Hlophe ruled that the Joe Slovo squatters should be evicted to make way for Sisulu's N2 Gateway Housing Project's phase two and three.

This was after the project had been stalled for more than two years because of the squatters' refusal to move to a temporary relocation area in Delft, 10km from the city.

Hlophe's ruling, which upheld government's Breaking New Ground housing policy, found that the Joe Slovo residents were unlawful occupants of this piece of prime Cape Town real estate and had no valid expectation of being housed there.

Central to the Joe Slovo community's case is their insistence that they have no faith in an undertaking by the authorities that they will be allowed to return to Langa after the area has been developed.

During phase one the original residents of Joe Slovo were promised that they would be rehoused in Langa once the development was finalised. However, with that phase completed, only one resident of 705 was given the opportunity to return.

In a surprise move, the Constitutional Court gave the community permission to challenge the ruling and approach it without going through the Supreme Court of Appeal.

At Thursday's hearing judges Kate O'Regan and Zac Yacoob questioned the shack-dwellers' legal representatives, Geoff Budlender and Pete Hathorn, on whether their clients could legitimately expect to continue living in Joe Slovo.

The judges suggested that the squatters could not have expected to live indefinitely in the area and could reasonably expect to be evicted once development started.

Budlender and Hathorn, representing two different sections of the community, had argued that the community had a "legitimate expectation" of residence. They also argued that there had been inadequate consultation between authorities and the squatters.

"I contend for a legal approach and not a legalistic approach," Budlender told the court.

Deputy chief justice Dikgang Moseneke intervened to suggest that the parties talk to each other and advise the court on a "just and equitable" solution.

The community law centre of the University of the Western Cape and the Centre on Housing Rights for Evictions were admitted as friends of the court, in support of the resident's right to be properly consulted before being evicted.

After travelling to Johannesburg by train and spending the night at the Methodist Church in Braamfontein, about 200 Joe Slovo residents arrived at the Constitutional Court on Thursday in high spirits.

After the morning's argument, the mood was more sombre however. "It's a sad day for us because we're not supposed to be here fighting with our own government," said community spokesperson Manyenzeke Sopaqa.

"All my life I've been poor and homeless fighting for the right to be heard and consulted. We should be in Cape Town celebrating the birthday of the United Democratic Front. Now, not even this Constitutional Court gives me the comfort that the poor people's struggle for dignity is over. The road of the poor and homeless is long -- our story is a test for democracy and our Constitution and we're still struggling."

Joe Slovo leader Mzwanele Zulu said the squatters were angry with the government.

"I don't know why we are here in 2008 fighting about evictions and our right to be heard and holding those in power to promises they make so lightly to the poor.

"They don't want to develop that land for the poor -- their aim is to make money and it's our duty not to be silenced." - M&G

Government to talk to Slovo lawyers

The department of housing has told its legal team to engage with lawyers representing Cape Town's Joe Slovo squatters in a bid to thrash out a settlement for the Constitutional Court.

The court on Thursday urged all sides in the dispute to co-operate in putting together a draft order to replace an eviction order issued earlier this year by Cape judge president John Hlophe.

The squatters are challenging the order, which seeks to remove them from land destined for the N2 Gateway housing project.

"We have instructed our lawyers to urgently prepare to engage with the legal team representing the other parties to try to reach a common position on the draft order," housing director-general Itumeleng Kotsoane said in a statement on Friday.

He said there could be no disagreement with the sentiment expressed from the Bench that the best way to resolve challenges in housing delivery was "by agreement with the people".

"From the outset of the N2 Gateway pilot project, in all our consultations with residents of Joe Slovo... we have sought to affirm the dignity of the people," Kotsoane said.

However, delivery should not be hamstrung, he said. - Sapa

Competing rights to housing, land argued in court

THE Constitutional Court yesterday grappled with arguments about the state’s constitutional obligation to provide access to adequate housing versus the rights of occupiers of land to occupation .

In March, Cape Judge President John Hlophe ordered that the various occupiers of Joe Slovo informal settlement in Langa, Cape Town, be moved to a temporary relocation area in Delft, 15km away.

Joe Slovo is an informal settlement of about 20000 people alongside the N2 highway.

The housing department sought to temporarily remove the residents from Joe Slovo to Delft in order to construct houses for them.

The residents, who had applied for leave to appeal to the Constitutional Court against Hlophe’s order, argued that they were not unlawful occupiers of land as defined in the Prevention of Illegal Eviction From and Unlawful Occupation of Land Act (PIE).

One of the pre requisites for the application of the act was that the person sought to be evicted must be an unlawful occupier.

Geoff Budlender, counsel for a committee known as the Task Team, said the residents had the express consent of the c ity to occupy the land.

He said the purpose of the PIE Act was to give protection to the occupiers of land.

Budlender said Joe Slovo residents would prefer to remain in the settlement rather than move to Delft as there were no guarantees they could come back to the redeveloped Joe Slovo. Budlender said the promises made by city authorities that 70% of new houses would be given to Joe Slovo residents had been broken.

Counsel for another committee, Peter Hathorn, said the lives of the residents of Joe Slovo would not improve by being moved to Delft.

Judge Sandile Ngcobo said residents knew that they would have to leave the settlement at some stage because the area was earmarked for development.

Michael Donen SC, for the government, said the housing minister’s greatest desire was to deliver houses to the people of Joe Slovo and not to engage in litigation.

He said the government’s decision to build houses in Joe Slovo was a response to the Constitutional Court judgment of Irene Grootboom, where the court ruled that the state must attend to the needs of vulnerable groups.

The court reserved judgment on the case. - Business Day News worth knowing

Concourt lashes Hlophe's squatter ruling

The Constitutional Court's battle with Cape Judge President John Hlophe did nothing to dampen the justices' criticism of his landmark eviction order against 20 000 Western Cape squatters.

Justice Kate O'Regan on Thursday expressed disquiet over Judge Hlophe's controversial order that the residents of the Joe Slovo informal settlement be moved to make way for government's pilot N2 Gateway Housing Project, pointing out that it made no mention of where they would be moved to.

"It's one of the things that really bothers me ... I couldn't imagine an order for eviction that didn't set out where and how the respondents would be accommodated," she said.

She added that Judge Hlophe's order gave no sense of the process the state would follow in relocating the informal settlement dwellers, many of whom took trains from Cape Town to attend Thursday's hearing.

The comments came just one day after the hearing of Judge Hlophe's acrimonious legal wrangle with South Africa's highest court, in which he sought to have their public accusations that he attempted to lobby two of them for pro-Jacob Zuma rulings declared unconstitutional.

O'Regan and her fellow justices on Thursday repeatedly urged lawyers for the government, its housing agency and the squatters to work together to compile a draft order, replacing that given by Judge Hlophe and detailing how government would move the squatters "fairly and openly", within the next week.

Counsel for Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, Michael Donen SC, responded positively to the court's proposal of a negotiated settlement order.

Justice Zac Yacoob said such a settlement order should place obligations on the state to say where exactly the squatters would be moved to and what conditions they would stay under.

He also suggested that it place on record what percentages of the Joe Slovo development's finalised homes would be provided to its former occupants. He then went on to grill advocate Steve Kirk-Cohen, who is representing the housing agency employed by the state to construct the Gateway Project, about the validity of concerns raised by squatters about the area to which they would be moved.

Kirk-Cohen confirmed that the squatters would be moved to Delft, 15km away from where they were living in Joe Slovo, into temporary accommodation slammed as "woefully inadequate" by the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions. He further confirmed that:

• Transport from Delft to the informal settlers' employment areas was problematic.
• The crime rate in Delft was higher than that of Joe Slovo.
• There was a shortage of electricity in Delft, which government was attempting to correct by installing electricity meters.
• There are no schools in Delft, but government was in the process of constructing such facilities.

While Joe Slovo's informal settlers made headlines last year when they blocked the N2 highway in protest against their allegedly unfair treatment by government housing authorities, the group attending the hearing were quiet and restrained - even earning the praise of Chief Justice Pius Langa.

Represented by counsel Geoffrey Budlender, the squatters have asked that the Constitutional Court overturn Judge Hlophe's ruling that they were "illegal occupants" of the Joe Slovo land, which some claim they have lived on since the early 1990s. The squatters also want to challenge his decision that they had "no reasonable expectation" that most of them should be accommodated in the homes to be constructed.

Justice Langa on Thursday reserved judgment on the application. - The Star

Joe Slovo residents contest move to Delft

Lawyers for around 20 000 residents of the Joe Slovo settlement in Cape Town, have taken their case to the highest court in the land, the Constitutional Court. They want the court to overturn an eviction order which was granted to government by the Cape Town High Court.

The lawyers claim that the order was not just and equitable but government has defended its position, saying it only wanted to move the people in order to make way for the Gateway housing project.

Residents from the Joe Slovo informal settlement have been opposed to government’s decision to relocate them to Delft from the beginning. The residents vented their anger by setting a truck alight along the N2 gateway. Angry residents also gathered outside the court in protest of government’s actions.

Government says they will respect and abide by the court’s decision. Judgment in the matter has been reserved. - SABC

Joe Slovo residents picket outside Concourt

Residents of a Cape Town informal settlement are protesting against their relocation outside the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg on Thursday.

Joe Slovo residents are opposed to a High Court order to relocate them to Delft, said community leader Mzwanele Zulu.

"We came with 100 people from Cape Town and we have about 60 Joburg people who joined us in support of the march. We are going to be picketing here the whole day."

Zulu said they were against an order which would see 20 000 people being evicted and moved.

"The court will decide today (Thursday) whether we are supposed to be moved." - Sapa

R2,6m for premiers' legal bills

Western Cape taxpayers have had to fork out more than R2,6-million in legal fees for premiers and ex-premiers since 2003, as there is no law regulating who is liable.

Premier Lynne Brown, responding in the provincial legislature to a question from DA provincial leader Theuns Botha, revealed that the province had paid R19 130 for Gerald Morkel's defence and more than R1,8-million for Peter Marais between 2003 and 2008.

During the 2003/04 financial year, the province had paid R119 985 in legal fees for Marais. It had stumped up R783 483 for Marais in 2005/06 and R900 000 in 2007/08.

Premier Ebrahim Rasool's legal fees came to more than R800 000.

While Brown didn't specify the cases, in 2002 Marais was accused in the Cape High Court of sexual harassment by former social services MEC Freda Adams, but the charge was not proved. He was, however, found to have defamed her.

Early in 2003, Marais and former MEC David Malatsi were arrested in connection with corruption charges relating to payments of R100 000 and R300 000 by Italian businessman Riccardo Agusta.

In October 2003, Agusta pleaded guilty to two charges of corruption and was fined R1-million in a plea bargain with the Scorpions after admitting making the two payments to "grease" the approval process of his Roodefontein golf estate development outside Plettenberg Bay.

After a marathon trial that started the following month and lasted for nearly three years, Marais was acquitted in October 2006 on two charges of corruption stemming from these payments by Agusta, while Malatsi was convicted on one charge.

In November 2006, Malatsi was sentenced to five years in jail.

However, the matter is far from over, as the Scorpions want to appeal against Marais's acquittal, and Malatsi wants to appeal against conviction and sentence.

Last year, the province paid R818 550 for Rasool during a parliamentary investigation into whether he had misled the House about security upgrading at the home of the then Community Safety MEC, Leonard Ramatlakane.

Brown said there was no formal government policy regulating the provision of state legal assistance to public office bearers and public servants in civil or criminal matters. The provincial cabinet would have to make policy on the issue.

Brown's spokesperson, An Wentzel, said no premier, past or present, was held personally liable for legal fees. - Cape Argus

‘There is no way I’ll go to starve and die in Delft’

This morning an important case comes before the Constitutional Court, involving 20,000 Cape Town residents whose informal settlement is set to be bulldozed.

State-owned company Thubelisha Homes (now bankrupt), Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu and Western Cape housing MEC were granted an eviction order on March 10 this year against occupants of the Joe Slovo informal settlement in Langa.

They argued that the residents must be moved to fibre-cement shacks in a “temporary relocation area” in Delft, about 20km away from the city. They said this was necessary so that they could continue building houses as part of the N2 Gateway housing programme. After the houses were built, they said, they would move the residents back.

The community quickly established though that most residents would be left in Delft, a place many describe as “God-forsaken”, which has no rail service, where crime is rife, schools are overcrowded and medical facilities dire. Delft is also not close to any suburb where people might find work.

Housing ministry spokesman Xolani Xundu agreed that “not everyone will come back” to Langa.

He told Sowetan that 1500 families will get free houses in Langa, and 45 bonded houses will be sold to the public. The bonded houses are unaffordable to 99percent of the residents who are unemployed. And the community of 5000 families said they did not want 3500 families to be left behind in Delft’s temporary relocation area.

Joe Slovo task team leader Mzwanele Zulu said that all the families could be accommodated if the government built RDP houses or if they worked with the people to come up with a plan that suited everybody.

Xundu said: “People who did not relocate back to Langa would be housed in Delft. They would not be left in the lurch in the temporary relocation area.”

But these claims were contradicted by Ashraf Cassiem of the Delft Anti-Eviction Campaign.

He said that hundreds of people who voluntarily relocated to Delft from Khayelitsha were still languishing in the temporary relocation area seven years later.

Leon Goliath, a civil engineer at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, found that the temporary relocation area was “unfit for human habitation”.

Goliath said the roofs of the temporary dwellings did not connect with the walls and the gaps “led to leaks and drafts, which was not good for health … and could be a fire hazard”.

He said that windows and doors did not have frames and residents have been forced to secure them to the walls with concrete.

“These chunks of concrete could fall off and injure someone. Without proper frames, how do you lock and secure your dwelling?” Goliath asked.

He also found traces of asbestos in the fibre-cement material.

Thubelisha Homes, which was declared bankrupt a few months ago, has also been criticised by residents in bonded flats the company built in Langa in 2004.

Luthando Ndabambi, coordinator of the N2 Gateway flats residents, said the flats are uninhabitable. Walls were cracked, roofs leaked and Thubelisha supplied the same lock to all the front doors. Anyone could open any other flat in the building.

Residents said they do not see why they should move when they have been promised RDP houses for the past 14 years. They live 10km from the city centre and are part of well-established Langa where their children are happy in schools.

Some residents said that they often “jog” into town where they find casual work.

There is also a wholesale fresh produce market just 4km a way in Epping. Residents said that many have no food other than that which they get at the market in exchange for cleaning.

Nombini Mbeqe, 67, and Majangaza Ndithini, 55, have been living at Joe Slovo for 10 years, supporting several family members, including grandchildren.

We are not going to Delft because here we can walk to Epping Market. I work there in exchange for fruit and vegetables. Many people do this whenever they have no food,” said Mbeqe.

“If I don’t get fruit and vegetables for my grandchildren, they will starve and die. There is no way I will take my family to die in Delft,” she added.

Ndithini said: “I am unemployed, but I get temporary work now and again and I make use of the market. Whenever there is nothing for my family to eat, I go to Epping Market.”

In the face of their impending forced removal, the community blockaded the major N2 highway last September, which threw the city’s traffic into chaos for a day.

Residents then engaged the support of the Legal Resources Centre to fight the housing ministry’s and Thubelisha’s eviction order. They lost their case last December in the Cape high court.

The Centre of Housing Rights and Eviction and the Community Law Centre from the University of Cape Town have joined the case as friends of the court. They argue that “a mass relocation ... even further away from the city, will significantly disadvantage the residents”.

Zulu said they have built a well organised community, which though crowded and prone to flooding, could be improved if the government built RDP houses there.

“We are not against the democratic government and would love to work closely with them.

“We need to be involved in decision-making in developments that affect our lives. We want the RDP houses that we were promised 14 years ago,” he said.

- Sowetan

Demonstrate against Joe Slovo eviction

No evictions from Joe Slovo shack settlement, Langa, Cape Town!

Asiyi eDelft!

We, the residents of Joe Slovo shack settlement in Langa, Cape Town, are going to the Constitutional Court to contest the order obtained by Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu in the Cape High Court in March to evict us and send us to the outskirts of Cape Town in Delft! She wants to house better-off people along the N2 highway to make it pretty for tourists to the 2010 World Cup!

In Delft we would pay more for transport and have less chance of jobs. We won’t go to Delft! Asiyi eDelft! We want houses built for us in Joe Slovo!

We are going to the Constitutional Court because it is supposed to protect the rights of the poor.

We are supported and joined by residents of Joe Slovo phase 1, known officially as N2 Gateway phase 1, whose flats were built on land taken from the Joe Slovo settlement. They are on rent boycott because their rents are too high and their flats are badly constructed. We support their demands.

We are supported and joined by backyarders from Delft who want houses in Delft, and therefore occupied the N2 Gateway houses built there. They were evicted, and now live on the pavement next to the houses. We support their demand for housing in Delft.
We are supported by the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign, which includes communities in Mitchell’s Plain, Gugulethu, Athlone, Hanover Park, Ocean View, Khayelitsha, Atlantis and elsewhere in the province. People from these areas are also coming with us to Jo’burg.

We are supported by Abahlali baseMjondolo, representing more than 30 shack settlements in Kwa-Zulu Natal, as well as Abahlali baseMjondolo (Western Cape) which represents numerous shack settlements in Khayelitsha.

Millions of people around South Africa have problems with housing and service delivery. We support all these struggles!

Support us! Join us at the Constitutional Court where we will be demonstrating from 9am on Thursday 21 August!

Issued by: JOE SLOVO TASK TEAM

For more information contact Mzwanele Zulu 0763852369 - WCAEC

‘We’ll sleep on court steps’

More than 100 residents of the Joe Slovo informal settlement in Langa will travel from Cape Town to Johannesburg today to attend the Constitutional Court appeal against the forced removal of 20,000 of their community.

The residents said they were prepared to sleep “on the steps of the Constitutional Court” ahead of the case on Thursday.

The Joe Slovo community has lived next to Cape Town’s N2 highway for about 18 years.

Three years ago the provincial and national housing department were awarded an eviction order against the residents to make way for the “N2 Gateway” housing project.

The Legal Resources Centre lost an appeal against the eviction order in the Cape high court last December .

Thubelisha Homes project, which was to construct the houses with FNB, has since been declared bankrupt.

Joe Slovo task team leader Mzwanele Zulu says the community wants free RDP houses in Joe Slovo.

“Many residents only survive by doing casual work in the city centre and nearby suburbs, and at the Epping Fresh Produce Market,” he said .

Justin de Allende, head of the provincial ministry of housing, refused to comment. - The Sowetan

'Beware of badly polluted wetlands'

Rapid urbanisation, an increase in the number of informal settlements and ageing infrastructure are to blame for the "badly polluted" 14 rivers and 10 wetlands around the Cape Metropole.

And the City of Cape Town has warned residents in at least six suburbs to stay clear of the rivers and vleis in their areas.

This comes after scientists detected increasing counts of E coli and faecal coliform bacteria in rivers and wetlands.

Speaking to the Cape Argus, Clive Justus, mayoral committee member for utility services, said the poor water quality was the result of an increasing number of informal settlements, rapid urbanisation and ageing infrastructure.

In the past eight years, the average conformity with acceptable standards of inland water resources for recreational use had dropped from 80 percent to 58 percent, Justus said.

He urged residents near wetlands including Lotus River, Kuils River, Eerste River, Milnerton Lagoon, Zeekoevlei and Princessvlei to exercise caution and avoid coming into close contact with the contaminated water.

"These are but a few of the rivers I have mentioned. Residents are warned to beware."

He warned that the water was not suitable for human consumption and that open wounds should not be allowed to come into contact with the water.

Justus said that while the reasons for the polluted water varied, the main reason was the increase in informal settlements in the city.

"Have a look at the Lotus River there's a number of informal settlements surrounding it, as well as the Kuils River, (which) runs past the Khayelitsha informal settlement.

"Here they don't have proper sewerage and this is possibly the biggest contributing factor," he said.

Justus said Cape Town's population had increased from 800 000 to 3,4-million in the past 50 years, but infrastructure investment had not kept pace with this growth.

"Our infrastructure is now under great strain, so we have to move fast to catch up with the backlogs and get ahead of the curve."

He said the country's electricity crisis and ageing infrastructure had also proved to be among the key reasons for the deterioration of the water's quality.

"With the electricity crisis, pumps are switched off and on a lot. This way they become ineffective.

"And with the infrastructure, we have undersized capacity. These pumps were designed to cope with a certain amount of sewage; now suddenly this amount doubles and pipes can't deal with it.

"Our infrastructure is under great strain," he said.

Justus said R280-million had been set aside during this financial year to upgrade Cape Town's wastewater treatment plants. This was expected to improve the quality of treated water entering vleis, rivers and the sea.

The city is building a new wastewater treatment plant at Fisantekraal, north of Durbanville, and upgrading existing facilities at Potsdam, Athlone, Zandvliet, Bellville, Scottsdene and Westfleur to provide adequate treatment capacity.

"We are working with a plan," he said.

"This is not pie in the sky. (But) there is no quick fix solution and we realise that the water quality will only improve significantly once the infrastructure backlog is eliminated," Justus said.

- Cape Argus

City issues warning on river water

A steady drop in the water quality of rivers has sparked a city council warning to residents to avoid contact with water that has flowed through residential areas, particularly informal settlements.

"We acknowledge we have a problem and we don't have everything right, but we have a plan and a budget to fix it. What we emphasise is that people need to know," mayoral committee member for utility services Clive Justus said on Sunday.

He urged residents to heed notices and warning signs displayed in areas that were deemed unsafe.

Justus said scientists had detected increasing e-coli and faecal coliform counts in 14 rivers and 10 wetlands in the metropole, and found that the standard of water for recreational purposes had declined by almost half in the past eight years.

"Some counts are way above where they should be in some areas, mainly in rivers next to informal settlement areas, and slightly above in others. The idea of the warning is to tell people 'Be careful and don't play in the rivers. They are polluted', particularly at informal settlement areas," Justus said.

Justus said some vleis were less affected, as were golf courses and farms that received water recycled at waterworks plants before being pumped into rivers.

"This reduces the amount of fresh water they use. In vleis, the water quality is determined by the type of water that flows into that vlei," Justus said.

He said solid waste that washed into rivers during rains affected the type of water.

Justus said factors such as urbanisation, and aging. - Cape Times

'Govt and City of Cape Town must work together'

Western Cape Premier Lynne Brown says it's important that provincial government and the City of Cape Town work together for the benefit of all residents. This follows a meeting yesterday between herself and city mayor, Helen Zille - who belong to the ANC and DA respectively. Brown says they've decided to close all but three refugee sites by the end of August in a bid to streamline logistics.

She says other issues such as public transport and the N2 Gateway Housing Project were also discussed. "The MEC has had a meeting with minister Lindiwe Sisulu and what we are going to do is to get Whitey Jacobs to speak to the mayor in a lot more detail about the process that we got to go through. Remember there's still court cases hanging and so on. The City is not on the N2 Gateway Project but we have an agreement that the people of the city and the Western Cape are all our people and so we must make all efforts to try and unblock the processes as we go forward," Brown said. - SABC

The Solution to Shack Fires is Electrification, Not More Training

Despite all the confident government talk about ‘eradicating slums by 2014’ the fact is that the number of people living in shacks is growing. Recent statistics show that the percentage of the population living in shacks has now increased to 15.4 percent from 12.7 percent in 2002.

South Africa is not the first country where the government has simply announced a date by which shacks will be ‘eradicated’. In 1968 the military dictatorship in Brazil declared that shacks would be ‘eradicated’ by 1976. When attempts to achieve this goal by forcibly relocating people to peripheral housing developments were resisted the dictatorship resorted to trying to burn people out of their shacks. Things have not degenerated to this level in South Africa. But many municipalities, with eThekwini and Erkhuleni being amongst the worst, are trying to reduce the number of people living in shacks by way of unlawful and in fact criminal mass evictions that are often accompanied by state violence.

The talk of ‘eradication’ is clearly a form of denialism. It is a denial of the realities of urbanisation, it is a denial of the realities of poverty and it is a denial of the realities of the politics of space. We need to accept that people will continue to migrate to the cities in search of opportunity, that shack settlements will continue to be an important safety net for city people who cannot afford formal housing and that being able to live close to opportunity will continue to be more important for many people than living in a formal house. In some instances politicians are trying to cap the demand for urban housing by effectively criminalising urbanisation by the very poor. The KwaZulu-Natal Slums Act is the most egregious example of this. Measures like the Slums Act come down to a return to the use of state violence to keep the poor out of the cities.

The fantasy that shacks will be eradicated by 2014 also leads to a failure to provide basic services to shack settlements. Now that they have all been rendered ‘temporary’ at the stroke of a bureaucratic pen the provision of services appears to be wasteful in the eyes of elite planners. But the reality is that many shack settlement are up to 30 years old and could easily continue to exist for another 30 years. In many of these settlements the provision of water, toilets, refuse removal and electricity is either non-existent or wildly inadequate. The failure to provide these services leads to all kinds of health problems and lays particular burdens on women’s time and, in the case of the absence of toilets, safety.

One of the most acute consequences of the failure to provide services to shack settlements is the relentless fires. They can happen any time but across the country winter is particularly feared as the burning season. The huge Kennedy Road settlement in Durban has had 6 fires already this year. In Cato Crest, also in Durban, 8 people including 5 children recently burnt to death. Old people, disabled people and children are most at risk of death in the fires but everyone stands to loose their homes and possessions including the ID books and school uniforms essential for access to some state services.

The ultimate solution is clearly the provision of decent housing. But the housing crisis in South Africa is not reducible to the provision of houses. There are all kinds of smaller interventions that could immediately reduce the threat of fire. For instance, if there were taps spread throughout the larger settlements people would be able to fight the fires more effectively. And community fire fighting efforts would clearly be much more effective if fire extinguishers were provided. Fires would be less likely to start and to spread if people were given fire resistant building materials. Fire engines would be better able to access the large settlements if roads were provided into the settlements. But the biggest issue is that of electricity. In settlements or parts of settlements that have been electrified, whether by the state or by residents, the incidence of fires is greatly reduced. There is a direct link between the fires and failure of most municipalities to electrify settlements, and in Durban the 2001 decision to cease all attempts to electrify settlements. This is compounded by the regular and often violent police raids to remove life saving self organised electricity connections.

If the state is unwilling or unable to electrify settlements it must accept that, as happens across the word, people will do the job themselves. Electricity is about many things. It means that children don’t have to do homework under street lights, that meals can be cooked, clothes ironed and families kept warm with much more safety and much less time and effort, often by women. It also means that people have much better access to the national public sphere via television discussion programmes. But most of all it means that people are not at constant risk of fire.

Almost invariably government spokespeople respond to shack fires by blaming the victims. We are told that the fires are the fault of a parent who wasn’t watching a child carefully enough or someone who was drunk and so on. These stories are often simply fabricated. But even when they are true the point is that when people have electricity an exuberant child, a drunk adult or someone who has grown tired at a funeral vigil might knock over a lamp but the result will be trivial – perhaps a broken globe. In a shack that is lit by a candle and where people are warmed by a brazier and their food cooked on a paraffin stove a tiny slip in concentration can quite easily result in catastrophe. For this reason the solution to shack fires is not, as government spokespeople say, to train people in fire awareness. The solution is to electrify the settlements.

People cannot be expected to live in constant fear of fire until they get government houses. Many people now living in shacks will, like Irene Grootboom, end their days in a shack. Shack fires are an emergency and electricity is a life saving essential service.

By Richard Pithouse, an independent writer and researcher in Durban.

This article is distributed by the South African Civil Society Information Service.

'Our RDP houses are falling apart'

Residents of Reconstruction and Development Programme houses in Kuyasa, Khayelitsha, say their houses are in such a poor state of repair that they fear the walls could collapse in on them.

The foundations, they report, are not secure, and water leaks from the ceiling and seeps in from below, leaving the homes permanently dank and wet.

They say the houses smell bad and that they are concerned about the growth of mould.

From a health perspective, they charge, the houses are dangerous too, promoting lung infections like tuberculosis, asthma and pneumonia.

Resident Veliswa Poni, 36, is a mother of three and says that the health of her 14-year-old daughter is deteriorating because of the conditions in which they are being forced to live.

A tearful Poni said: "My child is sick with asthma and suffers from lung infections. The doctors say it is the cold that makes her sick. This is so bad."

Some time ago the child was admitted to hospital as a result of her illness.

Another resident, 59-year-old Thozani Kala, has TB and says he has given up hope that help will come.

He said that, since he got his house, his health had deteriorated significantly.

"When it rains outside, it also rains inside my house. I tried to get someone to repair it but he said that if you use a hammer on one side of the house, the other side collapses.

"When they tried, a brick fell out and nearly hit my three-year-old grandchild," he said.

"I've lost all hope now. Help will probably come after 10 years when I'm dead," he said.

Ward councillor for the area, Nolufefe Gexa, said she had no idea that the situation was so bad.

"If I had known I promise I would have talked to the people in charge of housing. But I will go to the area and follow up the matter, and then report it to the housing department," she said.

- Cape Argus

Climate change: Green investors bypass Africa

In 1997, the negotiators of the Kyoto Protocol, which regulates emissions of the industrial gases that contribute to climate change, adopted an interesting way to pay for clean development projects. It is called the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

The CDM is intended to reduce the cost of cutting emissions in the North while helping developing countries finance their own clean development projects. It allows businesses in developed countries to meet part of their domestic emissions-reduction targets by financing emissions-cutting projects in developing countries, where costs are often lower.

Projects are awarded one carbon emissions-reduction credit for each tonne of greenhouse gas they prevent from being released. These credits can be bought and sold like corporate stocks and used to lower the cost of green development projects.

After the first CDM project was approved in 2005, the world trade in emissions credits has grown rapidly, topping $64-billion in 2007. Industry analysts predict that the trade will exceed $100-billion by the time the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

Great potential, few projects... Click the Cannabrick
For Africa and other poor regions struggling to adapt to climate change, access to carbon-trade financing could be vital. Scientists argue that global warming is damaging the Earth's climate faster than expected, and a severe shortfall in funds is hampering African efforts to cope. Although Africa generates only a tiny percentage of global greenhouse gases, it is expected to be among the regions hit hardest.

"The accelerating growth of carbon markets resulting from the United Nations-brokered [Kyoto] climate-change agreement," the head of the UN Environment Programme, Achim Steiner, told a meeting of African bankers in May 2007, "represents a significant economic and development opportunity for Africa."

However, according to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat, the UN agency that oversees the CDM, Africa accounts for only about 3% of the more than 1 000 CDM-approved projects globally -- and half those are in South Africa, whose sophisticated industrial and financial infrastructure lends itself to the complex CDM approval process.

Africa's difficulties in attracting CDM projects are similar to those that have hampered the continent's efforts to land purely commercial investments. Those include a lack of infrastructure, high poverty rates, limited financial resources, a shortage of the management and technical skills, weak government institutions, corruption and political instability.

African governments and environmentalists also note that the CDM's rules favour pollution-reducing projects rather than those that could help Africa cope with climate change, such as irrigation schemes and flood-control programmes. Such projects are instead to be financed by the Kyoto Protocol's Adaptation Fund, financed in part by a 2% levy on CDM credits.

Marshall Plan needed... Click the Cannabrick
In the view of some of Africa's leading climate scientists and environmental officials, far more is needed to match the continent's needs with resources.

Richard Muyungi, deputy director for the environment in the office of the Tanzanian vice-president, says that the cost of climate change in that East African country, among the world's poorest, is already running into the billions of dollars and slowing economic growth.

"Our energy sector has been most affected," Muyungi says, noting that drought has sharply reduced reservoir levels for hydroelectric power. "Many of our islands are threatened by rising sea levels" because of melting polar icecaps, he continues, while higher temperatures are making costly new demands on health systems. "We now have malaria around Mount Kilimanjaro. We never had that before."

The severity of the drought, and mounting concerns about the effects of climate change on food production, Muyungi says, have already forced the government to shift spending from long-term sustainable development programmes to emergency relief. It has also downgraded its earlier target of 6% to 7% economic growth for 2008.

"We cannot estimate the total cost, as we don't know how severe the impact will be. It is already not possible to grow cotton and maize in some areas. How much the losses will be is harder to say."

Tanzania is collaborating with the UN to attract CDM funding, Muyungi explains. "But the procedures are complicated. Africa is already behind in attracting foreign direct investment. The same problems stand in the way of CDM projects."

The CDM needs a comprehensive approach to Africa if it is going to help the region cope, he concludes. "We really need a Marshall Plan."

Reforming the system... Click the Cannabrick
Ogunlade Davidson, a leading African environmental scientist and dean of postgraduate studies at the University of Sierra Leone, is even blunter. The CDM, he says, has been "hijacked" by the private sector and transformed into a profit-generating centre instead of a vehicle for greenhouse-gas reductions.

Under the current system, Davidson says, investors are able to "piggyback" carbon emissions credits on to commercial projects in countries such as China and India that are already attracting high levels of foreign investment. That is one reason so many CDM projects are located in Asia, he declares, and so few in sub-Saharan Africa.

Even more alarming, Davidson observes, is the failure of the CDM to require industrialised countries to actually cut their carbon emissions at home. "It's a major flaw. Developed countries need to reduce their emissions by 90%. We need more drastic action. Market forces alone cannot deliver the reductions needed. Markets caused the problem in the first place."

The CDM can be improved through reform of its criteria and procedures and tighter requirements for domestic emissions reductions, Davidson says. The mechanism also needs to be supplemented by programmes to make green technologies available to developing countries, tougher action against Northern greenhouse-gas emissions and more funding for adaptation.

"The needs are huge," he emphasises. "Most adaptation finance will have to come via development aid. It must become mainstreamed into the development process."

For Africa, however, fixing the market's flaws may be less urgent than finding a way into it. "When Africa only has 30 CDM projects out of 1 000," Muyungi notes dryly, "there is a problem."

CLICK THE CANNABRICK

CDM projects (percentage of total)
India: 31,96%
China: 20,52%
Brazil: 12,56%
Mexico: 9,84%
Malaysia: 2,62%
Chile: 2,06%
Africa: 2,34%

Source: UN Africa Renewal from UNFCCC data, 2008

Michael Fleshman is a writer for United Nations Africa Renewal magazine

- M&G

Hundreds say farewell to housing heroine

Close to 500 mourners gathered in a tent in the Wallacedene informal settlement in Kraaifontein to pay their last respects to Irene Grootboom, the woman they called their "struggle hero".

Speakers passionately spoke of Grootboom, who took a fight for decent housing as far as the Constitutional Court in 2000 and won - only to spend her last years in a shack.

Grootboom, 39, made headlines again recently after the Western Cape Housing Department handed over nearly 300 housing units under the People's Housing Process programme to her community. But she was still waiting for her house. When the department handed over the houses last month,Vusi Those, spokesperson for then housing MEC Richard Dyantyi, said if she applied, she was bound to benefit "in the next round".

Grootboom died after a short illness 11 days ago.

She died at the Karl Bremer Hospital in Bellville late at night after her family had been to visit her.

"We'd just seen her and we hadn't been home for half-an-hour when I got the first call to say she was getting weak and then a few minutes later they called to say she had died," said Peter Roman, Grootboom's partner.

He was "proud" of her for the work she had done in the community.

Rennett Grootboom, Grootboom's 16-year-old niece, said Grootboom had brought her to Cape Town from Port Elizabeth when she was a small child and had been "like a mother" to her.

"She was very loving and would do anything for anyone. She did a lot for the people in the community. If it wasn't for her they wouldn't have houses now," she said.

Grootboom brought an application before the Constitutional Court eight years ago on behalf of children and adults living in appalling conditions in Wallacedene.

The benchmark judgment declared that the state was obliged to devise and implement "a comprehensive and co-ordinated programme to realise the right of access to adequate housing".

- Cape Argus

A pity Grootboom will not be there to ask about unfulfilled promises

Today I would like to celebrate a South African who shamed us and made us proud. Her name was Irene Grootboom, and she was a hero who was not given her just dues in life.

She shamed us because we failed her terribly. She made us proud because she tested our constitutional provisions, casting in stone the principle that our constitution will look after the people — particularly the most vulnerable ones in our midst.

Like the millions of South Africans on the margins, we in the middle classes mostly ignored her as we went about living the life of the new republic. We in the media made a great fuss about her from time to time and then we would move on to sexier stories.

Those in academia used her name in their research papers and grand lectures. Civil society activists referred to her to advance their causes.

From Ivy League universities to multinational developmental agencies, the name Irene Grootboom was iconic.

But no one really knew her. She was just a name that we bandied about without really bothering much about the human being to whom that name belonged . Not much was known about her life history, her beliefs, her likes and dislikes and her quirks.

Yet we owe her much.

We first made a fuss about Grootboom in 1998 when she led her community in a struggle against a state that wanted to ride roughshod over them.

She came from the shack settlement of Wallacedene, about half an hour outside Cape Town.

Grootboom and her community were being threatened with eviction from a site that had been earmarked for housing development. The community resisted the eviction, and instead fought to have the council provide them with services and facilities on the site.

It was a tough battle, fought all the way to the Constitutional Court. Championed by the Legal Resources Centre, a doyen of resistance to apartheid and pre-democracy public interest law, the case was largely sponsored by the European Union.

The community won the landmark case in 2000 in a judgement which not only defined socioeconomic rights for South Africans, but which became a reference point in constitutional states throughout the world.

As former Constitutional Court Judge Richard Goldstone put it, the case would go down in history as “the first building block in creating a jurisprudence of socioeconomic rights”.

In its judgement, read by Justice Zac Yacoob, the court had this to say: “There can be no doubt that human dignity, freedom and equality — the foundational values of our society — are denied those who have no food, clothing or shelter. Affording socioeconomic rights to all people therefore enables them to enjoy the other rights ... ”

It was those rights which Grootboom wanted but never got to enjoy, because, as Sunday Times obituarist Chris Barron wrote this week: “About a month ago, she finally succumbed to the elements, the wind, the rain and the cold.” She spent the last week of her life confined to her shack.

The saddest thing is that, having won one of the most important legal victories in South African history and having established the constitution’s relationship with the people, her fate did not improve. Very little has been done to develop the shack settlement, which was renamed Grootboom by the community after the court victory.

The authorities treated the court with disdain and have been incredibly lethargic about implementing the ruling.

They kept promising the residents that things would happen.

When the Sunday Times visited the settlement in 2004 as part of a series of articles marking 10 years of the establishment of the Constitutional Court, we found that the only thing “the site of Grootboom has to show for that victory is the smelly ablution block, built over a donga that had served as a latrine for the squatters who went to court.”

“Leaking sewage and piles of rotting rubbish smell so bad in Grootboom that you can actually taste the stench. Most of this rotten air, which coats your tongue with a tingling sensation, comes from an ablution block the size of a small house in the centre of the settlement,” the report read.

A week before Irene Grootboom died, the Cape Argus interviewed her in her shack and she spoke of how she was still waiting for promises to be fulfilled.

She told the newspaper of her frustration and pain: “I was supposed to get a house a while back, but I’m still in a shack which I share with my sister-in-law and her three children. They keep promising us ... I’m sick and tired of the whole thing ...

“When it rains, water seeps through every crevice and the thing is submerged in water. I try to repair it but I can’t do much.”

She died in that shack less than a week later. She was just 39 years old.

There is no doubt that her living conditions killed her. And that those who failed to change her conditions bear some responsibility for her premature death.

In the next few months, South Africa’s political parties will be knocking on our doors — and particularly the doors of the poor majority— asking us to support them.

They will promise all sorts of things — houses, clinics, schools.

A pity it is that Irene Grootboom will not be there to ask them what happened to their last promises.

- The Times

Copper targeted after fire

As a fire ravaged the Mandela Park informal settlement in Hout Bay on Friday, destroying 50 shacks and displacing about 200 people, young men helped themselves to copper cable stripped by the flames.

Men were spotted with pliers and garden clippers cutting through thick cable which supplied power to nearby houses, while fire fighters struggled to get the blaze under control.

Residents said the power had been out since Thursday morning, and said Eskom was responsible for the fire as it failed to send out people to repair the cables.

"Cable theft is rife here," said resident Lubeko Ndude. "If they had repaired the cables yesterday (Thursday) there wouldn't have been a fire." The fire is believed to have been caused by a burning candle.

Ndude said the area was in complete darkness on Thursday night and most families opted for candles. "These people were forced to use candles because the power was down," he said.

One of the young men, running down a side road with cables in his hand, said he would get between R30 and R40 for a kilogram of copper.

Witness Bakubaku, who lost all his possessions, saved his son as the flames engulfed his shack. "I wasn't at my shack and when I saw the fire I immediately ran to get my 17-month-old son," said Bakubaku. "He was sleeping and the fire was on the other side of my house. If I had arrived a few minutes later he would have been dead."

Mandela Park pastor Ncedo Ndongeni said fires occurred "every six months" but nothing was done to assist the people. "These people need proper housing," said Ndongeni. "Politicians are only seen at election time; they are nowhere to be found now. I'm sure next year people are going to carefully consider who they vote for."

- Cape Argus

Death in a shack despite ruling

IRENE Grootboom’s death while living in a shack has once again highlighted the government’s bureaucratic shortfalls.

She is hailed as the person who won one of the biggest victories for the constitutional right of access to adequate housing — only to die on Monday, still living in a shack.

When she approached the Constitutional Court in 2000, Grootboom had been on the waiting list for low-cost housing for seven years. When she died, she was still waiting.

The judgment in Grootboom’s case is regarded worldwide as a big step forward for socioeconomic rights . But it has also been criticised for its rejection of the idea that socio-economic rights be interpreted to impose an obligation on the state to ensure minimum essential levels of each of the rights, and for not providing a more rigorous remedy.

Sandra Liebenberg, Professor of Human Rights Law at Stellenbosch University , says it would be “unfair to lay the blame (for Grootboom having died in a shack) entirely at the door of the Constitutional Court”.

Before the case came before the Constitutional Court, Grootboom’s immediate needs had been settled by an agreement between the community and the municipality in Western Cape. It should be remembered that Grootboom never went to court seeking a house, but some form of emergency housing, Liebenberg says.

When the case first went to court, Grootboom literally had nowhere to go. Her community had moved from one informal settlement, in Wallacedene, and illegally set up in another. The land was privately owned and the owner evicted them , but they could not go back to their previous area as others had moved in there.

What Grootboom wanted was a solution for an immediate and urgent problem — this she received, although she and others clearly envisaged that they would be integrated in the broader housing programme for Wallacedene in the medium term.

That this did not happen “raises serious questions about the ability of the government’s housing programme to facilitate the realisation of the right of access to adequate housing,” Liebenberg says.

In his judgment, Justice Zak Yacoob said what the constitutional right required was a “coherent public housing programme directed towards the progressive realisation of the right of access to adequate housing within the state’s available means”.

Yacoob said the government’s long and medium term plans to bring housing to the homeless was a “major achievement”. But that for the programme to be reasonable, it had to provide for “those in desperate need”. This was where the state fell short.

- Business Day - News Worth Knowing

Freedom fighter or terrorist?

Allow me to introduce you to two heroes of South Africa.

The first is Irene Grootboom, 39, who brought an application to the Constitutional Court eight years ago asking government to provide housing for 510 children and 290 adults living in terrible conditions in Wallacedene informal settlement. Irene died last Wednesday, still living in a shack in Wallacedene.

The second hero is Ramatuku Maphutha, of indeterminate age, the deputy national secretary of the Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans' Association. On Monday, according to the Cape Times, Maphuta said this: "We are going to make sure that Zuma becomes the next president of this country, no matter what. No Zuma, no country."

Irene Grootboom's application was successful, although in the incredibly slow world of our government, success is a relative term. News24 tells us that "Justice Zakeria Yacoob ruled that the constitution obliged the state to act positively to lessen the plight 'of the hundreds of thousands of people living in deplorable conditions throughout the country.'"

According to The Argus, the judgment "declared that the state was obliged to devise and implement 'a comprehensive and co-ordinated programme to realise the right of access to adequate housing.'"

Irene Grootboom died "sick and tired" of being on the housing list: "I was supposed to get a house but I'm still in a shack with my sister-in-law and her three children. They keep promising us. I'm sick and tired of the whole thing."

Ramatuku Maphutha believes that the allegations (made in the Sunday Times), that Jacob Zuma received R2m of a R30m arms deal bribe, should not be investigated. "No. Why? This thing has been done by the enemies of Zuma. They should just be dismissed. We cannot allow it."

Similarities

Let's consider the similarities between these two heroes. Irene Grootboom asked of the Constitution that it provide the basic conditions of life and human dignity to her community, and the government pissed on her. Ramatuku Maphutha pisses on our Constitution, and the government will reward him when his beloved Zuma comes to power.

Irene Grootboom laboured through the courts to get justice for her community, but it seems it was a hollow justice. Her funeral is on Saturday.

Maphutha is deploying "platoons" of MK soldiers across the country "to make sure the judge does not make an arrogant decision." He appears to believe that the justice system can be intimidated into bending the law to suit his "army" of veterans. He seems to have learnt a few tricks from Robert Mugabe, but hopefully we've learnt a few tricks as well. If his fascist tactics prevail, our country's funeral will be soon.

The only differences between Maphutha and Hitler Hunzvi, the leader of the Zimbabwean War Veterans Association, is that at least Hitler had the right brand message, and at least he's dead. Maphutha, alas, is alive.

Irene Grootboom is described as a Constitutional Rights Activist. Ramatuku Maphutha could be described as a Constitutional Rights Terrorist.

Social historians often ponder the question, when does a terrorist become a freedom fighter? Well, I can tell you when a freedom fighter becomes a terrorist. - NEWS24

City to expand study into sea levels

The City of Cape Town is to expand its climate-change study, with special reference to rising sea levels, to establish its possible effect on the coast as well as other parts of the city.

The city council's head of environmental policy and strategy, Gregg Oelofse, said on Tuesday the council needed more detail on predictions of sea-level changes made by consultants LaquaR.

Their results were presented to the council's portfolio committee on planning and environment on Tuesday.

New research has shown that melting ice could submerge part of the Cape coast within 25 years - with multi-billion-rand repercussions.

Oelofse said the city needed to start tracking storm patterns to determine which of three different predicted sea-level-rise scenarios could become a reality.

The first, seen as worst-case, would result in a rise of at least 35cm above the average, along at least 25km2 of coast, but for a short period. It has a 95 percent chance of happening in the next 25 years, carrying with it a potential economic loss of more than R5-billion.

Scenario two is modelled on the first, with a sea-level rise of 4,5-mitres, which would submerge nearly 61km2 of coast, with an 85 percent probability within 25 years, and an economic price tag of nearly R24bn.

Scenario three, with a 20 percent likelihood in the next 25 years, was initially believed to be unlikely this century. This predicts that 95km2 of the Cape coast being submerged, resulting in damage to property, tourism and infrastructure estimated at R54-billion.

- Cape Argus

Call for faster delivery after Irene's death

The government should up its game in response to the landmark Grootboom judgment by the Constitutional Court in 2000 by ensuring that millions of poor South Africans living in dire circumstances are better housed, civil society organisations said.

This follows the death of Irene Grootboom, the housing activist who died after a short illness last week.

The Anti-Eviction Campaign said Grootboom was an inspiration and a model for the poor.

"But, unfortunately, Grootboom would be remembered for living and dying in a shack," said the campaign's Ashraf Cassiem.

Cassiem said Grootboom "was humiliated during the case", as she was fighting for the rights of 510 children and 290 adults who had lived in poverty in the Wallacedene informal settlement.

He said the judgment, which had instructed the state to devise and implement "a comprehensive and co-ordinated programme to realise the right to adequate housing", had not been executed as thousands of desperate people remained homeless. "Just like Groomboom, who was a fighter, we won't give up."

Julian Apollos, the attorney who represented Grootboom and others in the case, said yesterday that for Grootboom to die in a shack, "was a sad reflection on how we have failed to meet expectations in the new democracy".

He said Grootboom did not want to be glorified through the case, "but thought it the right thing to fight for … the poor".

André du Plessis, of Intern Africa, a group fighting for better living conditions for the poor, said: "I remember her, she was made the biggest political soccer ball in South Africa … kicked from one goal post to the other … there are hundreds like her today who are still being kicked like that."

Steve Kahanovitz, of the Legal Resource Centre, said the Grootboom judgment was "incredibly important … It forces government to deliver houses to desperate people … and (government) is still struggling to get it right".

The Treatment Action Campaign said civil society had to ensure provisions of important judgments such as the Grootboom case were implemented by applying pressure on the government. - Cape Argus

Sea Flood - Parts of Cape in danger

Greenland and the West Antarctic may sound too far away to have any effect on the Western Cape, but new research shows that melting of ice shelves could put part of the Cape coastline under water within the next 25 years, with multibillion-rand repercussions.

The melting polar ice sheets could result in 95km2 of land around the Cape coastline - approximately 4 percent of the total land under the city's jurisdiction - ending up permanently under water.

At risk would be property, the tourism sector and infrastructure valued at more than R54-billion, the latest results in an ongoing city-commissioned study show.

Until recently this scenario was considered unlikely this century, but the new results say there is a 20 percent likelihood of it occurring in the next 25 years.

The risk of this scenario occurring is valued at R11-billion, a figure calculated by multiplying the probability of a hazard occurring by the cost of the damage caused.

The latest report containing the results of the third and fourth phases of an ongoing risk analysis assessment of sea-level rise was due to be discussed by the city's planning and environment portfolio committee today (Tuesday).

The city commissioned the study with the recognition that it must take a proactive approach to understanding the potential implications of climate change, as well as develop an adaptation strategy.

The latest research also quantified the potential economic impact to the city for two other likely scenarios, as a result of global climate change.

The first - the present day worst-case scenario - has a 95 percent chance of happening in the next 25 years with a potential economic impact of R5,2-billion.

The actual risk of this scenario occurring is valued at R4,9-billion.

With the increasing mean sea-level, and increasing intensity and frequency of storms, it is almost certain that the Cape Peninsula will be buffeted by at least one storm with this impact in the next 25 years.

During this time it is certain that the mean sea-level will be at least 35cm above the long-term mean, which could see 25.1km2 (1 percent of the city's total area) covered by the sea, albeit for a short time.

A second scenario, modelled on the first, assumes that this scenario would involve sea-level rise of 4.5m, which would see 60.9km2 (2 percent of the metro) covered by sea for a short period.

While researchers cannot be sure of exactly how the frequency with which these events will occur, it is assumed that this will be the prevailing scenario in 10 years' time, and has an 85 percent probability of occurring within the next 25 years.

It is estimated to have a potential economic impact to the city of R23,7-billion and carries actual risk valued at R20,2-billion.

But the third scenario in which there would be damage to property and infrastructure has a risk of actual occurrence of R11-billion. - Cape Argus