BATTLEGROUND wc: The African National Congress government and the Democratic Alliance-controlled Western Cape have embarked on what is shaping up to be a long struggle for control of housing delivery.SA HAS just witnessed the first round of an intense power struggle between the national government and a Western Cape controlled by the Democratic alliance (DA).
The transfer of about 1000ha of prime land by the previous provincial administration to the recently formed national housing agency set the scene for the first battle between the two.
Apart from the indignation at the transfer having taken place the day before the general election, and the perception that the African National Congress (ANC) wanted to hobble the DA’s delivery efforts in the province, what is really at stake is the struggle over the control of housing delivery.
More battles lie ahead as the national government tries to tighten its hold on housing delivery, and expand the concurrent powers that the constitution assigns to national and provincial governments.
The Western Cape is trying to claw back more of these powers.
On the immediate horizon is a fight over the proposed amendment to the constitution to allow the national government to force municipalities into a harmonised national system of electricity reticulation.
Another big battle can be expected when proposals emerging from a review of provinces are made, probably next year. These are likely to include the transfer of provincial powers over housing and education to the national government.
At the heart of these struggles is the battle for dominance of competing political ideologies, between the ANC’s belief in the centralisation of the state and the DA’s support for decentralisation.
This boils down to the difference between the concept of a developmental state with a high degree of state involvement in the economy and the liberal idea of a minimalist state leaving market forces to hold sway.
Commitment to the developmental state saw the creation of the National Housing Development Agency, intended as the national driver of the government’s “breaking new ground” housing policy across all three spheres of government. The policy aims to eradicate or upgrade all informal settlements by 2014-15.
The agency is meant to speed up housing delivery by cutting red tape and buying up land much faster and at affordable prices. Officials stress, however, that the agency is only one mechanism, and does not exclude initiatives by other spheres of government.
The housing policies of the ANC and the DA reflect ideological differences over the role of the state. The ANC believes the state is responsible for providing low- cost housing while the DA believes it should be merely a facilitator of individual effort.
The DA policy puts more emphasis on in situ upgrading of informal settlements and greater participation by beneficiaries. It argues that the state does not have the financial means or the capacity to provide built houses to the 2,2-million people without them. Since 1994, the government has spent more than R100bn to build about 2,8-million houses.
“A policy which obliges government to provide as many houses as possible as fast as possible has failed to provide the quality or quantity required,” DA housing policy states.
“Providing homes for themselves is, first and foremost, the people’s responsibility, not the government’s. Access to land first, and basic services second, are immediate priorities. Once people have these, they can live more healthily and with greater dignity, and they can begin to create opportunities for themselves.
“Self-help approaches are frequently cheaper than a managed delivery process.”
But a housing expert says the government was also involved in settlement upgrading and servicing, and this has not always worked out better than the construction of houses. It was invariably more expensive in the long term. Government policy has also addressed the need to overcome apartheid urban planning by creating integrated settlements. The DA resisted this as it would depress middle class property values, says the expert.
The bottom line, ideologies aside, is that this ANC-DA fight is ultimately about securing votes, for which successful service delivery is the key.
- BusinessDay - News Worth Knowing
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