Masiphumelele quiet after violence arrests

Police were monitoring the situation in Masiphumelele near Fish Hoek this morning after a service delivery protest there yesterday turned violent.

On Thursday, police opened fire with rubber bullets on about 300 residents and arrested nine people on charges of public violence.

On Friday morning, the area was quiet, but police were patrolling Masiphumelele's streets to ensure that the protest did not flare up again.

Children ... started a game of 'cops and protesters'

Police spokesperson Inspector Nkosikho Mzuku said no incidents were reported in the area overnight.

"We hope it will stay like this now. Police are patrolling the area, because we have to be pro-active - it is not good for the residents of the area and neighbouring parts of the south peninsula when this sort of thing happens," Mzuku said.

On Thursday night, smouldering heaps of debris in the streets were the only remnants of earlier clashes between protesters and police.

The protest had started at dawn, and police fired rubber bullets into the crowd on two separate occasions in an attempt to disperse them.

No injuries were reported to police, but residents claimed that at least two people, both of them young boys, had been caught in the crossfire and wounded by rubber bullets.

The area's ward councillor, Felicity Purchase, was stoned by residents when she attempted to talk to them about their concerns.

Once the area had cleared yesterday, the spirit of the protest lingered - at least among Masiphumelele's children.

Children playing in a yard opposite the site where police had parked to monitor the area started a game of "cops and protesters".

Half of the group toyi toyied and shouted "viva comrade, viva!" The other half stood around them with planks, pretending they were shotguns.

Minutes after the "protest" started, the "cops" attacked the protesters and sent them off to sit in a wooden box.

- Cape Argus

Mayco member stoned

A member of the city's mayoral committee had to beat a hasty retreat under police guard from angry protesters in Masiphumelele near Kommetjie when rocks rained down on the car in which she was travelling after a failed attempt at addressing housing concerns.

Felicity Purchase, mayco member for economic development and tourism, later said the crowd was angry with her because she would not accede to their demands for land in the area to build their shacks.

The protesters also alleged she had been disrespectful.

The mayco member visited the area after repeated confrontations between police and angry residents that started before dawn yesterday morning. While residents barricaded roads and hurled missiles, police used rubber bullets, stun and smoke grenades.

'We won't stop protesting until our demands are met'

Purchase said backyard tenants who had been evicted by land owners in Masiphumelele were offered the chance to move to temporary relocation areas in Delft, but many had refused.

"The natural way for the city to expand is north and east - there's simply no space in Masiphumelele. All vacant pockets of land have been earmarked for development," said Purchase.

More than 100 residents of the area, all formerly backyard tenants, erected barricades in Pokela Road - the main entrance to Masiphumelele - from just before 5am yesterday, determined to be heard.

At issue for most of the protesters are the continued evictions of backyarders brought about by the "People's Housing Project" in the area.

Provincial government funds were released several months ago to provide building subsidies for title deed holders.

The resultant housing boom meant that many tenants were asked to vacate the properties which had been rented out, as deed holders planned to build their homes.

On Thursday, a fridge, tree cuttings and the contents of overturned wheelie bins littered the streets of Masiphumelele while police made an attempt at dispersing a steady crowd of mostly youngsters, that was spreading throughout the area.

One of the protesters, Buntu Twasile, 23, said that they were demanding land in the area to build their homes.

"People have been protesting the developments here in Masiphumelele for weeks and are justifiably angry at government officials for not listening to their demands.

"We won't stop protesting until our demands are met. People like (provincial premier) Helen Zille have not been listening to our cries, that's why we've been forced on to the streets," Buntu said.

As police armed with shotguns and firing rubber bullets moved through the area, several protesters were arrested and taken to awaiting vans parked in Kommetjie Main Road, where there was a heavy security presence. Another protester, Wendy Masiza, alleged her cousin had been arrested, even though he had not been protesting.

Later in the afternoon, a crowd gathered in front of Ukhanyo Primary School for a meeting with Purchase, but it ended in chaos when the protesters were left dissatisfied by her answers about available land for housing in the area.

Nontembiso Madikane, a community activist, said Purchase was responsible for the situation after police fired rubber bullets and several stun and smoke grenades at the crowd in response to rocks aimed at her car. "She shouldn't have addressed people like this (seated in a car over a PA system); she should've called the leaders to a meeting instead," Madikane said.

Ocean View police spokesperson Nkosikho Mzuku said 12 people arrested are to be charged with public violence and would appear in the Simon's Town Magistrate's Court "soon".

- Cape Times

Service delivery protests erupt

Police and hundreds of residents clashed violently in Masiphumelele near Fish Hoek on Thursday morning, leaving a trail of rubber bullet casings and burning rubble in their wake.

Police believe the protest was sparked by residents' anger over poor service delivery.

About 300 residents stormed up Tambo Road just after 8am on Thursday, prompting 10 police officers to race towards the crowd firing rubber bullets to disperse them.

Screaming, the residents scattered in all directions, some ducking between houses, before reconvening further down the road and moving up towards police again.

For a second time, police opened fire and residents again fled. Some sought refuge behind a canopy as rubber bullets flew past them.

By 9am on Thursday, the group of residents had again gathered at the bottom of Tambo Road, while clusters of onlookers stood further up the road watching the protesters and police as they tried to see what would happen next.

Children in school uniforms were among those milling in the street. Some residents told the Cape Argus they were afraid to send their children to school in the midst of a riot.

Burning rubble and debris littered the street alongside spent rubber bullet casings.

At least one man was arrested but, at the time of going to press, it was not clear what charges would be laid against him.

It was also not clear whether anyone had been injured during the morning's running battles.
There were unconfirmed reports that protesters had stoned private cars entering the area much earlier this morning. Fifteen police vehicles, as well as a fire and rescue services vehicle, were parked in Tambo Road.

Thursday's protest apparently revolved around service delivery, said Inspector Nkosikho Mzuku, a police spokesman at the scene.

In the past, protests at Masiphumelele were frequently over a housing development.

Ever since the development, backed by foreign donors, was proposed, various groups of residents have clashed over the plan and its proposed site, an area formerly suggested as school premises.

The organisation, Amakhaya Ngoku, made up of long-time residents of informal housing at Masiphumelele, led the development initiative, but people who arrived later and erected shacks on the school premises opposed the move, often with violent protests.

Earlier this week, backyard dwellers in the township demonstrated, demanding that they be allowed to erect shacks on the site. This protest took place just two weeks after the previous occupiers had agreed to vacate the site following negotiations with the MEC for Housing, Bonginkosi Madikizela.

- Cape Argus

Future of Cape Town in jeopardy - report

A damning report by an international forum of democracies on Cape Town's regional development gives all three spheres of government a hard-hitting "wake-up call" about the risks of letting politics get in the way of housing delivery, job creation and economic development.

The regional review of Cape Town by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) paints a bleak picture of the city's sustainability, highlighting rising unemployment, income inequalities, growing poverty and a high crime rate.

"Despite well-developed policies and strategies, government, as a whole, is often unable to deliver services effectively and efficiently in all areas. Frequent political shuffles have made governance in the region unpredictable, policy priorities are often changed before programmes can be implemented," the Paris-based think tank said.

The forum said political stability and improved capacity building would help build a bureaucracy that would operate independently of political changes.

At a seminar on Tuesday to discuss the report's findings, representatives from the city and the province agreed that politics should be left out of future debates about the region's economic growth and sustainable development.

ANC MP Ivan Turok, of the African Centre for Cities at UCT, said the report, which highlighted the neglect of economies in the townships and growing poverty, was a "wake-up call".

The OECD said co-ordination efforts between the province and the municipalities in the region "could be improved".

Relatively few agreements seem to have been designed to address multilevel governance problems with respect to traffic, the environment, infrastructure and housing, the report said.

Deputy director-general in the Department of the Premier Laurine Platzky said the authors of the report were "diplomatic" about the region's politics. Their findings suggested that highly-politicised processes stunted the region's development. Looking forward, she said the debate about the future of the region had to be "elevated out of narrow politics".

Platzky said the provincial government had paid for the study, which was supported by then-premier Ebrahim Rasool. (who like many other premiers before him did not survive his term.)

Director of the African Centre for Cities at UCT Edgar Pieterse said that while the report was written before the provincial and national elections in April, it was still important to resolve the contradictory competencies of the government.

The city's executive director of economic, social development and tourism, Mansoor Mohamed, said political games and political institutions incapable of delivering would impede development.

Although the socio-economic conditions in the Cape Town City region are at their most favourable since 1994 and the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the region is 40 percent higher than the national average, unemployment is at 22 percent and nearly one-third of the population lives in poverty.

Between 25 to 30 percent of households live in informal settlements and 16 percent of the population suffers from HIV/Aids. The report said many sectors in the city region are short of skilled workers.

The city's "sprawling" and low-density expansion means that many informal settlements are cut off from economic opportunities.

The report found that Khayelitsha, which houses 12 percent of the total urban population, contributes less than one percent to Cape Town's GDP.

This isolation of the townships has created a "cycle of economic and social decline" which affects the whole region.

"As a result, Cape Town cannot take advantage of this large potential supply of labour, or benefit from future growth in consumption and productive activity within these areas."

The city's built environment policy has not created accessible and affordable neighbourhoods, the report said.

Land use planning is shaped by apartheid practices and cheap parcels of land on the urban edge are still used for social housing.

The OECD warned that the city region remained "highly segregated", with ageing infrastructure, maintenance backlogs with respect to water and sewerage, and a road and rail network that hindered further growth.

The provincial government had under-invested in road maintenance and this backlog was estimated at R2.5-billion in 2006.

Housing policies have not been able to meet the growing demand for housing. In addition, housing units are built in areas far away from employment opportunities.

The forum noted that land use regulations hampered housing delivery. The City of Cape Town owned much less land than the province and parastatals such as Transnet.

Land use also "suffers" from "unclear and contradictory plans", a multitude of building plans, conservation processes and provincial planning ordinances, each with different procedural requirements.

The OECD recommended the creation of a new regional planning authority to co-ordinate regional development planning. It would comprise representatives of the national, provincial and local government tiers.

- Cape Times

'I only have the clothes on my back'

Seven shacks were burnt to the ground, leaving 16 people homeless when a fire raged through the Thabo Mbeki informal settlement on the corner of Lansdowne Road and Symphony Way in Philippi.

Fire and Rescue officials battled for more than an hour on Monday afternoon to extinguish the fire, which community members believed started inside one of the wood and iron structures.

"Everything was burning. We immediately ran out two lines (hoses)," said Reginald Smidt, a Fire and Rescue official on the scene.

"We knew we had to extinguish the fire and prevent it from spreading."

Smidt said the cause of the fire was unknown.

"We really don't know what happened. When we got here the fire was very intense - it was quite hectic," he said.

One of the 16 residents left homeless, Sally Nyabaza, 43, shared her home with her father and three children.

Teary-eyed, she stood staring at all that was left of their lives.

"The fire came out of one house and burned the others down. All my groceries, the fridge, television, all my belongings, everything burned," said Nyabaza.

"I only have the clothes on my back," the distraught woman said.

Rita Dyushu, 45, another resident, said she was lucky that the fire, which had ravaged her neighbour's homes and destroyed their belongings, had been extinguished before it reached hers.

The owners of most of the affected shacks were at work when the fire broke out.

Dyushu said the community had tried its best to douse the flames with water and sand.

"We were crying. We called to them (the men) - fire, fire.

"They took sand and water and threw it on the fire," she said.

Metro officials barricaded Symphony Way after the fire broke out after 3pm.

Traffic down Lansdowne Road came to a complete halt as fire engines struggled to move through the congested strip to reach the fire.

Smidt had said two "elderly females" were transported to the Delft Day Hospital for treatment for smoke inhalation.

There were no other injuries.

- Cape Argus

Residents angered at housing initiative

RESIDENTS of Delft in the Western Cape have told The Times that the government’s pilot housing initiative, the N2 Gateway Project, is “kak and pathetic”.

They complained that they had been living in small one-bedroom steel units for more than a year.

The 1300 units at the Symphony Way temporary relocation area in Delft were meant to be the first step to proper housing.

Residents renamed it “Blikkiesdorp” because their homes are made only of corrugated iron.

The pilot housing project was launched in 2006 and is to be used as a benchmark for the rest of the country. But residents said service delivery at the location remained dismal.

Security officer Deno Koekemoer, his unemployed wife and nine- year-old son share an outside toilet and tap with three other households. It is the same for all other residents.

“We waited for more than a year for electricity. We only got it two weeks ago. We used candles, paraffin lamps, gas stoves and made fires,” said Koekemoer.

Koekemoer said the communal toilet’s tap had been stolen by “tik [methamphetamine] addicts” and its water pipes were leaking.

“The tik addicts stole the tap three months ago and I told the municipality. It’s still not fixed.

“They have a don’t-care attitude. They tell us: ‘Just be grateful because it’s free’,” Koekemoer said

“We applied for a house and then they gave us this. There is a lot of crime here because of drugs and gangsters.”

Dalene Peters, who has lived at Symphony Way for 16 months with her husband, a construction worker, and their toddlers, said the “houses are very cold”.

“We can’t always afford electricity because when it rains my husband doesn’t have work,” she said.

Many residents have complained about overcrowding.

- The Times

From Housing to Settlement

Service delivery protests are back, this time accompanied by violence. Where is the promised housing and "services" the protestors want to know. The recently re-elected ANC has rebranded the Department of Housing as the Department of Human Settlements having adopted the "concept of human settlements" at Polokwane.

“Housing is not just about building houses. It is also about transforming our residential areas and building communities with closer access to work and social amenities, including sports and recreation facilities,” - President Jacob Zuma

The enigmatic Tokyo Sexwale was duly appointed as Minister of Human Settlements:
"We lived in poverty and we were all subjected to the humiliation which the whites imposed upon the blacks. We lived in the same typical 'matchbox' houses; we were continually aware that there was not enough money available to meet our needs for food, clothing and education; and when we went into town and saw the relative luxury in which white people lived, this made an indelible impression on our young minds..."

The impression was indelible and Tokyo Sexwale proceeded to hog a massive slice of the BEE cake for himself. He arguably knows absolutely very little about the value for money. No other South African has spent R56 million on a single family home. Spending that much money on a house is evidence of losing touch with reality. No one else will say it: "The man got ripped off... the emperor has no clothes."

So how then are we going to house the shackdwelling millions? It turns out we are not! ("beyond Housing" in Engineering News)

Human Settlements Portfolio Committee chairperson Beauty Dambuza says that government is moving away from building houses to “building communities”. (Building communities involves the provision of services and public space, which should be part of any development regardless. The feel good factor and novelty of having facilities will hopefully placate the souls disappointed by not getting the house they were promised)

“A human settlement is a labour-based infrastructure development that can make an important contribution to measures to [deal with] unemployment. The integrated infrastructure provision also assists in driving rural, urban and human settlement development, facilitated by an enhanced strategy for land acquisition, including the acquisition of strategically located and developed sites in urban households, as well as in rural areas, through the disposal of State-owned land . . . and the Housing Development Agency has been established to acquire land for human settlements.” THERE YOU GO... EVERYTHING... AND NOTHING...

Protests are Mbeki’s fault, says Sexwale

Human settlements minister Tokyo Sexwale has blamed councillors elected during former President Thabo Mbeki’s administration for the latest wave of violent protests at service delivery.

Sexwale said people were not against President Jacob Zuma’s government, but against the municipalities aligned to the previous administration.

Sexwale said it was “inconceivable that people could revolt against Zuma’s government, which had been established just three months ago.

“There is a disconnect between us (leaders) and our people. This is quite clear. The people are not demonstrating against a three month-old government.

“They voted us into power three months ago. They are simply saying leaders in the past have done things wrong and they want to tell us.”

Sexwale did not mince his words, adding that “ this is a new administration, although we are a continuing government of the ANC. That is why Polokwane happened. We needed change”.

‘People are angry at municipalities aligned to former regime’

‘They are simply saying leaders in the past have done things wrong and they want to tell us’

‘(The) housing (department) has built 2.8 million houses. Housing is not a problem but poverty is’

He emphasised that people wanted the government to hear about the challenges they have had to face for a long time.

However, he warned the protesters that blockading roads, looting, and burning buildings “was not on and would not resolve the problems. It is not acceptable to use methods of violence to bring the message to us.”

He said he had been studying the situation in all areas where the violent protests had erupted, adding that many wanted jobs before houses.

“It is a fact that (the) housing (department) has built 2.8 million houses, whether good or bad. Housing is not a problem but poverty is.”

Sexwale said he visited Diepsloot informal settlement (in Gauteng) last week. “Most (of the people there) were clear that they did not want houses.”

There are 2000 informal settlements in the country and Sexwale said he intended to visit all of them.

“I want to go back to Diepsloot and sleep over with my officials to get to understand the problem. There has been a disconnect between them and the leaders, which has left our people at the hands of some unscrupulous mayors and councillors.”

Sexwale said that during his visit to Diepsloot, “a lot of people asked for jobs. People’s problems vary and are different. We cannot come with a one-size-fits-all strategy to resolve them.

“For instance, there is a man who runs a successful taxi business in Diepsloot who does not want to be moved but wants services like water, toilets and electricity in the area.”

Sexwale said other people had become landlords, owning about four shacks in their back yards and charging monthly rentals of R800.

“These are people who have to be moved because their houses are built on a sewage pipe but they are worried about their business. So do we destroy that economy or listen to them and plan accordingly?”

But he said human settlement was about more than housing. “The crisis now is about urbanisation, a challenge that was at some point going to catch up with the new South Africa. All metropolitan areas have had an influx of people looking for wealth.”

He explained that, as was the case worldwide, many people had left rural areas and settled in places where there was a lack of basic services because they wanted to live in urban areas and look for work.

Sexwale said the problem had been compounded by the global recession, when the economy needed 6% growth.

“The global downturn has put more pressure on us.”

- The Times

More service delivery protests in the Western Cape

Western Cape police officials have opened a case of public violence following protest action in Ashton.

An estimated 200 demonstrators burnt tyres on the outskirts of the Karoo town on Thursday.

Residents living in an informal settlement in the town are disgruntled about the lack of housing and slow delivery of basic services.

Police fired rubber bullets to disperse the protestors.

Meanwhile, the Knysna municipality says it will take longer than anticipated to address the housing backlog in the tourist town due to a lack of funds.

Residents of the Hlalani informal settlement have accused the council of failing them.

On Wednesday, they protested outside their local municipal offices, demanding houses and electricity.

Knysna Mayor Eleanore Bouw-Spies says they received R31 million for housing from the province this year.

“Whatever housing projects we undertake must come from that money, and what we do as the council is add a significant amount to that from our own coffers," says Bouw-Spies.

- Eyewitness News

The Outrage of South Africa's Poor Threatens Their President

South African President Jacob Zuma has a problem: the very underclass that swept him into office last April on his promise to deliver them a better life have run out of patience, and they're venting their outrage on the streets. Little more than a year after the country's impoverished black townships erupted in a wave of violence directed at migrants from neighboring African countries, tires are once again burning on the streets as crowds protesting the lack of resources in their communities clash with police in images sometimes reminiscent of the apartheid era. Recent weeks have seen a wave of angry and at times violent protests and strikes break out across the country. First, construction workers building stadiums for next year's FIFA Soccer World Cup — the world's most popular sporting event — walked off the job demanding higher wages. This week, it was the turn of those with no jobs, as unemployed people living in squatter camps went on a rampage, stoning vehicles, destroying buildings and looting stores to vent their anger over lack of jobs, houses and basic services like sanitation and electricity. (See TIME's look at the life of Nelson Mandela.)

As the global economic downturn drags South Africa into its first recession since the end of apartheid, such protests are likely to escalate, posing an acute dilemma for the President. Zuma catapulted himself into the leadership of the African National Congress (ANC) and then the presidency by championing the interests of those left behind by the market-friendly economic policies of his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki. Now those who elected Zuma are demanding that he deliver on his promises, as the trade unions that played a key role in his power play within the ANC demand payback, and the fury of the economically marginalized escalates. But the recession and South Africa's potentially vulnerable position in international capital markets give Zuma little room to stray from Mbeki's policies.

The trade unions are certainly feeling empowered. After a weeklong work stoppage on facilities being built for the World Cup — a move which grabbed international headlines and frayed nerves in a country fearful of the consequences of falling short in its moment of global prestige as the first African country to host the tournament — construction workers negotiated a 12% wage increase. Their success is likely to spur unions in other key sectors of the economy to follow suit. Teachers, miners and doctors have also recently staged strikes, and retail workers are about to do the same. But for those suffering without jobs, wreaking havoc seems to be the only path to redress. (See pictures of South Africa, 15 years after apartheid.)

In the port city of Durban on July 22, 94 members of a group called the South African Unemployed People's Movement, most of them older women, were arrested after they stormed into supermarkets and grabbed food off the shelves. "This is just the tip of the iceberg, and I myself cannot stop the people, because they are angry," the movement's chairwoman, Nozipho Mteshane, told the Star newspaper. The next day, as similar protests continued in areas around Johannesburg, the Western Cape and the northeastern province of Mpumalanga, the government warned that it would not tolerate further violence. "We are not going to allow anybody to use illegal means to achieve their objectives," the national minister for local government, Sicelo Shiceka, told a radio station.

Protests over the lack of services are an ongoing phenomenon that periodically flare up on a larger scale, say analysts, who view them as a symptom of the widespread despair felt by those who remain mired in poverty 15 years after the formal end of apartheid. Last year's wave of xenophobic attacks, which left 62 people dead, were fueled by many of the same long-standing grievances over unemployment and lack of housing. While the ANC points to its record of building 3 million new houses and delivering electricity, water and sanitation to rural areas, unemployment — officially at 23.5%, though experts say it is actually much higher — is rising, and some 8 million people still live in shacks.

The mood among the poor hasn't been helped by the fact that wealthier South Africans have so far escaped the brunt of the recession. And the anger may have been fueled by the fact that many of the same politicians whose job it is to speed up delivery of services to the poor are conspicuously flaunting their own wealth. Two Cabinet ministers have drawn fire in Parliament this month for splurging on luxury cars at taxpayers' expense.

Many of those starting to take to the streets now voted for the ANC but feel they have been forgotten by a government indifferent to their plight. And the government has allowed such sentiment to fester too long without adequately addressing it, says Hennie van Vuuren, head of the governance and corruption program at the Institute for Security Studies in Cape Town. "If anything, it was Thabo Mbeki's government that turned its back on these protests and did not address them," he told TIME. "You have this massive alienation taking place at the local level. People are taking to the streets because they feel there is no other way to get their voices heard." (See how South Africa is preparing for the 2010 World Cup.)

"The African National Congress has responded to the new surge in popular protest with the same patrician incomprehension under Jacob Zuma as it did under Thabo Mbeki," wrote Richard Pithouse, a politics lecturer at Rhodes University, in the Business Day newspaper. "It has not understood that people do not take to the streets against a police force as habitually brutal as ours without good cause. Government statements about the virtues of law and order, empty rhetoric about its willingness to engage and threats to ensure zero tolerance of 'anarchy' only compound the distance between the state and the faction of its people engaged in open rebellion."

Where Mbeki suffered politically for maintaining the aloof bearing of a philosopher king, Zuma's man-of-the-people story and his common touch allowed him to trounce his rival — but it will take him only so far. "It will take real leadership to engage with the problems in these communities, and that has been sorely lacking," says Van Vuuren. "[Zuma] was the candidate who said he wanted to engage better with citizens, and that he is fundamentally pro-poor and a man of the people. This is the moment he needs to be doing it." But translating his promises into policies that can restore economic growth and deliver jobs and services to the millions who desperately need them will require a lot more than a common touch.

- TIME

South Africa discontent spreads

Violence in South Africa's townships has spread as residents protest about what they say is a lack of basic services, such as water and housing.

Police have fired rubber bullets at demonstrators in Johannesburg, the Western Cape and the north-eastern region of Mpumalanga.

In Mpumalanga, there were reports of foreign-owned businesses being looted as foreigners sought police protection.

More than 100 people have been arrested during the past week.

The rising tensions in the townships have revived memories of xenophobic attacks on foreigners last year in which more than 60 people died.

ANALYSIS Jonah Fisher BBC News, Johannesburg What we are seeing is a combination of a series of different factors. South Africa is in the grip of its first recession for 20 years. People in the townships, the poorest people in South Africa, complain that after 15 years of ANC rule they still don't have basic housing, electricity or water. Jacob Zuma put service delivery at the heart of his election campaign and that's in part why he won a big mandate. But a lot of people look at the local level ANC and say they need to start delivering, and they will be looking to Mr Zuma to root out the corruption and nepotism which have prevented service delivery being expanded throughout South Africa.

The latest protests over service delivery come less than 100 days after Jacob Zuma took office as president, following a resounding election victory for the governing African National Congress (ANC).

They are a reminder of the impatience felt in the most deprived areas of the country, says BBC world affairs correspondent Peter Biles.

On Tuesday, police cars were stoned in Thokoza near Johannesburg during a demonstration about living conditions that turned violent.

Nearby township Diepsloot saw cars and houses being burnt last week in protest at plans to tear down makeshift shacks to make way for a sewage pipe.

Poverty pledge

President Jacob Zuma promised to improve service delivery when he came to power in May, and said fighting poverty was his priority, highlighting the huge economic and social challenges facing South Africa.

However, South Africa announced in June that it was facing its worst recession in 17 years.

Fifteen years after the ANC won its first election, more than one million South Africans still live in shacks, many without access to electricity or running water.

Township reports Foreigners live in fear Zuma's challenges as president

The gap between rich and poor is also wider than it was 15 years ago, our correspondent says.

The slow provision of replacement housing has long been controversial - nearly three million have been built, but the allocation has been prone to nepotism and corruption.

In addition, the global economic climate has banished any hope of South Africa maintaining record levels of economic growth, and reducing unemployment.

In the midst of this latest unrest, Mr Zuma is embarking upon a tour of the country to thank voters for returning the ANC to power in the elections last April.

Our correspondent says he will now be under even greater pressure to explain how the ANC is going to meet its plethora of election promises.

- BBC

Don't shoot the protestors....

Do not shoot at unarmed service delivery protesters, KwaZulu-Natal local government minister Willies Mchunu warned police on Wednesday.

"Pictures of elderly women and men with injuries sustained as a result of the use of rubber bullets, and sometimes live ammunition, only serve to cast a negative perception on our young democracy," Mchunu said in a statement. (You are making us LOOK bad... It has nothing to do with the PAIN AND SUFFERRRRRING)

Mchunu said he would meet Minister of Police Nathi Mthethwa and KwaZulu-Natal community safety minister Bheki "BLUE LIGHT" Cele to draw up a memorandum of understanding detailing how law enforcers should deal with such scenarios.

"We view these service delivery protests as voices of exclusion, as opposed to the voices of dissent.

"Our people are increasingly on the streets, not because it is fashionable to do so, but as a result of their perception that their voices are not finding expression in the public policy at the local level."

"I appeal to all those who are languishing in perpetual guilt for the way they have abused taxpayers' money to desist" -Mail and Guardian

Cope members being evicted and downgraded

Minister of Public Works Geoff Doidge was granted an order in the Cape High Court yesterday to serve notices on two Cope parliamentarians living in the Pelican Park parliamentary village to inform them that he intends evicting them from their homes.

After the court granted the order, Dennis Bloem and Bishop Lekoba Tolo were served notices by the Wynberg sheriff's office informing them that Doidge would go to court next month to get them evicted from the complex near Zeekoevlei.

They would be moved from their three-bedroomed houses, called Flamingo and Harrier, to smaller two-bedroomed houses, numbers 87 and 85 Pelican Park.

The reason they are to be evicted is because they resigned from the ANC.

Yesterday Bloem was defiant: "They informed me and Bishop Tolo that we were living here illegally, but we are still parliamentarians so we will challenge that eviction."

Bloem has lived in Pelican Park as an MP for 15 years. The village, he said, was originally built in the apartheid era to house the "Indian MPs" in the old tricameral parliament.

Court papers said when Bloem and Tolo had resigned from the ANC, they had lost their membership of the national assembly in March. They had also lost all the rights and privileges that went with that office, including the right to occupy houses in the Pelican Park parliamentary village. - from IOL

Delivery protests growing more political

SERVICE delivery protests have accelerated since April, in what may be an indication of growing impatience not long after the making of election campaign promises.

Winter has always been the peak protest season in SA. “Perhaps it’s because that’s when people are most uncomfortable,” says Karen Reese, an economist and co-founder of Municipal IQ, which monitors service delivery across municipalities.

Cape winters are particularly uncomfortable, accompanied by rain and misery, especially for shack dwellers. However, Anti-Privatisation Forum spokesman Dale McKinley feels it is wrong to believe that all protests are over lack of service, or that they come and go.

“Every single protest has been grouped under service delivery and that’s not true,” he says.

Some protests, he argues, may best be classified as “political protests” since they represent a demand for representation and accountability among local leaders.

“It’s not just about the delivery of an RDP house but goes deeper than that; it’s about who has a voice in this country,” McKinley says.

Problems may also occur when the state, in a desire to provide services quickly, neglects to consult widely enough, says Richard Pithouse, a politics lecturer at Rhodes University. Protests are complex and each must be treated on its merit.

In the past three months, demonstrations have broken out in settlements from Du Noon in Cape Town, Zeerust in the North West and Orange Farm in Gauteng.

Yesterday, police fired rubber bullets to disperse about 200 hostel dwellers in Thokoza on the East Rand. Unhappy with hostel renovations in particular, they threw stones, damaging several hostels. At least 17 people were arrested.

Reese believes that, unlike previous years, protests have become much more generalised. “Previously, service delivery protests were around specific issues, although you still have that and it often acts as the trigger,” she says.

Protests also seem to have become more violent, including looting and the stoning of cars . “It is of late an accelerating trend; it’s picking up momentum,” she says.

Earlier this month, two people died in Mpumalanga when marauding residents set fire to three councillors’ homes, including the home of Piet Retief mayor Mary Khumalo.

McKinley says violence is not about people going out “pro-actively” to destroy something. Instead, it normally reflects authorities’ hostility towards protesters’ grievances as well as a failure of policing.

“We must bear in mind that the state has also become more violent,” says Pithouse, arguing that in a democracy it is unacceptable for a demonstrator to die.

Municipal IQ says just over halfway through the year, 13 % of the major service delivery protests recorded since 2004 took place last year . It suggests that should the trend continue, the number of protests this year will exceed those of 2007 and last year and come close to the 2005 peak when 35 protests were recorded countrywide.

Rooted in SA’s struggle against apartheid, protests are hardly mindless outpourings of anger, says McKinley. “It’s an understanding of how power works,” he says. The poor, recognising their limitations in using democratic processes, rely on their collective strength.

McKinley says what the poor are demanding is quality leadership, something unlikely to happen until there is a serious political movement coming from the left. “What’s lacking is an organised voice of the poor and the working class,” he says.

Recent demonstrations appear to have been encouraged by the change of guard in the government, which portrayed itself as a champion of the poor. Pithouse says people take past promises very seriously.

“They see them as a contract between themselves and the state.”

Reese ascribes the protests to relative deprivation inherent when one municipal ward is better off than the neighbouring areas. Service protests are also an urban phenomenon, although Municipal IQ says there is a trend towards non-metro areas.

Last week, Co-operative Government and Traditional Affairs Minister Sicelo Shiceka blamed the South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco) for the latest protests in Mpumalanga and Diepsloot.

But Reese does not make much of the third force theory, suggesting instead a widening gap between expectations and capacity.

“If there is a third force, it is acting on valid concerns,” she says.

- BusinessDay - News worth Knowing

In 2005; I met with the NIA (National Intelligence Agency) who was investigating a 3rd force.

The housing situation is a glaring failure. The '3rd force' thing is a tired as the race card.

If matchbox houses propelled Tokyo Sexwale into political activism and guerrilla terrorism - what do you think living in a flooded or burning shack would do?

'Meet our service delivery demands, Plato'

Disgruntled informal settlement residents have given mayor Dan Plato two weeks to respond to their service delivery demands.

The residents, drawn from various communities in Khayelitsha and Macassar Village, on Monday marched from Keizersgracht Street to the City of Cape Town to demand, among other things, relocation to higher ground, as well as better housing and serviced land.

The march follows several service delivery protests which have flared across the Western Cape since April's general elections.

In song and dance, the protesters denounced the government and major political parties for ignoring their plight.

Council official Andile Mhlanga accepted memoranda on Plato's behalf as the mayor was busy.

"We live in flooding squatter camps. We struggle to survive. We have no toilets," said Mzwanele Biko, 25, of TT section in Khayelitsha.

He said he had migrated from the Eastern Cape 10 years ago hoping to "improve my life... But nothing has happened, I have no job."

Another TT section resident, Zandile Maliwa, 45, a father of four, said: "Rubbish is not collected. The whole community share two water taps."

Vuyani Ntontela, 42, who lives in UT section in Khayelitsha, said there were no tar roads which made it difficult for emergency vehicles to gain access to the area.

"We also use the bucket system. We want the flush system," said Ntontela.

Housing activist Mzonke Poni, who led the march, said residents did not want to be violent when demanding services, "but it it's the only language that the government understands better". - from IOL

These protestors have obviously not been in contact with the Gugulethu toilet burning protestors!!!!????

Residents set toilets on fire

A new range of bucket toilets has caused a stink among Gugulethu residents, who set them alight in the street to underline their demands for better sanitation.

The toilets were introduced into the Tambo Square informal settlement community almost two months ago.

Ward councillor Belinda Landingwe of the ANC said the toilets were intended "for the betterment of the community", which had previously used larger black buckets in a long-drop - toilets referred to as the black bucket system.

But the system has not met with everyone"s approval in the community, and yesterday afternoon police had to be called in to monitor the situation as angry residents confronted Landingwe.

As the residents sang and danced in front of the burning toilets, the overwhelming stench of burning faeces filled the air.

- Cape Argus

Cape on alert for waterborne diseases

With 20 000 flood victims and nearly 6 500 homes still affected, the City is trying to prevent an outbreak of waterborne diseases by draining stagnating water.

Charlotte Powell, spokesperson for the City of Cape Town Disaster Management Team said more than 60 informal settlements have been damaged by flooding and the City's Disaster Relief Team was conducting ongoing water checks in all communities, especially ones at risk of stagnant water.

The City's Disaster Management Team has alerted health authorities in the informal settlements.

All clinics in the settlements have been placed on high alert and advised to do regular checks of people and the surrounding environment, said Greg Pillay, Head of Cape Town's Disaster Risk Management Centre.

They check stagnant water for waterborne diseases.
Stagnant water can be contaminated by many sources including sewage, said Ivan Bromfield, Executive Director of City Health.

"The longer the water is stagnant, the greater the risk of contamination," he said.

Diarrheal waterborne diseases such as E.coli are the greatest risk, and settlement residents have been advised not to drink, walk or play in standing water, he said.

- Cape Times

Stones and rubber bullets fly on Cape peak

Police fired rubber bullets at about 100 stone-throwing people who were demonstrating against the auction of a mountain peak in Hout Bay on Wednesday morning.

Inspector Tanya Lesh said the protest started at 10am when the group gathered on top of the Sentinel mountain peak above Hout Bay.

"The group of about 100 people moved down the mountain to a nearby hotel and started throwing stones at the police," Lesh said. "The police retaliated by firing rubber bullets."

No injuries were reported and no arrests were made. Two privately owned cars were damaged during the incident.

The protesters had dispersed by Wednesday afternoon.

A recent report in the Sunday Times said the 321m-high Cape Town landmark in Hout Bay had come to the attention of a short list of celebrities and tycoons, including Oprah Winfrey, Sol Kerzner, Donald Trump Junior as well as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The new owners could, if they wished, be able to name the peak after themselves as "Sentinel" is not a registered trademark.

Auctioneers have reportedly turned down two offers, including one for R15-million, after buying the property for only R60 000 in 2005.

The protesters say the mountain belongs to the indigenous people of South Africa and cannot belong to a private owner.

The auction was cancelled after the protest. - Sapa

Who's Mountain is it anyways?

Uproar as Hout Bay’s famous Sentinel peak is put on the market

One of Cape Town’s iconic mountain peaks is up for sale — but so far nobody has been brave enough to buy it.

Touted as a dream investment, Sentinel mountain, overlooking Hout Bay, is at the centre of an escalating property row involving local government officials, conservationists, and a landless community on the mountain slopes.

The 11ha sweep of indigenous fynbos and towering rock with postcard views of the Cape Peninsula is on the market for R12-million — about the price of a bungalow along the Atlantic seaboard a few kilometers away. It is owned by a close corporation, G and R Marine.

Phumeza Mgxashe of SANParks said the current landowner had purchased the property in 2005 for just R60000 — a realistic value for undeveloped conservation land. (from The Times)

Cape's bad weather displaces 20 000

The number of people displaced after heavy rains hammered the Cape Peninsula on Sunday has climbed to about 20,000.

The City of Cape Town has appealed to residents to donate generously to organisations providing relief to those worst affected by the storms.

Gallery: Cape Town Floods

The city's Disaster Risk Management department is mopping up areas affected by the rains and subsequent flooding. At least 63 informal settlements across Cape Town have been badly affected.

The department's Charlotte Powell said last night that the number of residents who were driven out of their waterlogged homes in informal settlements had climbed to 20,000.

She said with the "growing need for aid" the department was appealing to all Capetonians to donate to the NGOs proving relief.

The list of NGOs is HDI Support, 7 Transvaal Street, Paarden Island; Mustadafin Foundation, 18 Belgravia Road, Athlone; The Salvation Army, Western Cape Division, 85 Maynard Road, Wynberg; The SA Red Cross Society Western Cape, 21 Broad Road, Wynberg; The SA National Zakah Fund, 22 Cornflower Street, Bridgetown; and Masibambani, 323 Mongezi Road, Section C, Khayelitsha.

Meanwhile, the weather office has warned that cold and wet conditions were expected to persist.

Weather forecaster Carlton Fillis said while the rain was expected to clear by tonight very cold conditions were still expected to batter the Cape Peninsula for the next few days.

Although the wild weather has exacted a heavy human toll, there's a lighter side, too.

Some excited families from Cape Town took radio reports about snow lining the streets of Ceres very seriously yesterday, driving all the way to the little town only to discover it was not yet a white winter wonderland.

The Ceres Tourism Bureau said it had received more than 130 phone calls from people trying to confirm radio reports about snowfall in the town.

Most of them were directed to the Matroosberg Private Nature Reserve about 30 minutes outside of Ceres, because snow had fallen on the mountain ranges there since Sunday.

- Cape Argus

Rocks thrown at buses filled with people

Khayelitsha was rocked by violent service delivery protests last night as residents and police clashed after the residents had burned tyres and rubbish and hurled rocks through the windows of buses filled with people.

Police fired rubber bullets to disperse the residents.

Both Samora Machel, near Philippi, and Du Noon near Milnerton were also the scenes of service delivery protests yesterday.

- Cape Argus

‘We want houses, not food’ - Residents

AS MOPPING-UP operations continued in Western Cape yesterday after heavy rains displaced about 10,000 people, residents of Cape Town’s Kosovo township protested about the lack of housing.

Flooding in Cape Town (slide-show)

Rows of burning rubbish lined two streets in the township as a heavy police contingent watched residents chanting ‘‘We are not afraid. Give us houses”.

Nelly Skosana told The Times that she was forced to bail out 20cm of water in her shack after Sunday’s storms in Cape Town.

She demanded that President Jacob Zuma visit her shack.

“I want Zuma to come here. Why does he not fulfil his promises? Don’t they [government officials] think about how we stay? Are they skelms?” she asked .

“They just want us to vote for them and then they treat us like rubbish. We need houses. I have two children and they are sick.”

Patisa Bani said the people of Kosovo did not want “juice and bread” from Cape Town’s disaster management service.

“We need houses. We decided to make this fire because they don’t listen to our voices. This is a call. They will listen when it is burning,” said Bani.

Superintendent Andre Traut, spokesman for the Western Cape police, said the protest was not violent and no one was arrested.

Charlotte Powell, spokeswoman for the city’s disaster management service, said protests also broke out at the Du Noon informal settlement yesterday.

“[Protests] are not new. People tell us they don’t want food or hot meals. They want a house ,” she said.

Powell said the situation has improved for most of the 9350 people affected by the flooding of 20 settlements.

She said s ome people were housed at community halls because their shacks were still flooded.

She said the city’s housing department had provided flood kits that “include plastic sheeting and nails so people can fix their shacks”.

- The Times

Du Noon residents demand better service

Service delivery protests broke out at the Du Noon informal settlement near Milnerton on Tuesday morning, with residents burning tyres and blockading roads, Western Cape police said.

Inspector Daphne Dell said residents set tyres on fire at about 5am.

"Even though it is a bit peaceful now, there is a possibility that the violence could spread to nearby site 5," Dell said.

When Sapa contacted Dell, she was still trying to make her way through the blocked roads entering the area.

Residents are said to be unhappy with services provided by the local municipality. - Sapa

Thousands homeless as storms hit Mother City

Charlotte Powell, a spokesperson for Cape Town's disaster and emergency management, said around 9,000 people from 2,500 shacks had been affected by the floods.

No injuries had been reported.

"We are mopping up across the city," she said. "We have 20 informal settlements that have been affected. They are mostly on the Cape Flats."

Emergency sheltering was being provided for the affected people in community halls. Powell said the Lourens River in Strand and Liesbeek River outside the city had burst their banks.

She said floods had also hit suburbs such as Newlands, Rondebosch, Claremont, Athlone and Somerset West.

Disaster management services were trying to unblock stormwater drains.

Gail Linnow, client liaison officer for South African Weather Service Cape Town, said the weather office at Cape Town International Airport recorded the second-highest rainfall for a 24-hour period in July since recording started in 1957.

"The station recorded 55.2mm for the 24 hours from 8am on Sunday to 8am today (Monday). The highest figure recorded for a 24-hour period in July was 61mm in 1985," she said.

The record for a 24-hour period was 93.7mm, recorded at the airport in April 1993.

Linnow said figures from an automatic weather station in the Elgin-Grabouw area showed 148.2mm had fallen in the district between 8am Sunday and 8am Monday. This was the highest recorded since the station was established, in 2004.

Rian Smit, a SAWS forecaster at Cape Town Weather Office, said the severe weather would continue in the Western Cape on Monday.

"Snow is forecast for the Western Cape mountains today (Monday)," he said.

"The freezing level is at 5 000 feet, and while this will not close the (road) passes, it will definitely put some snow on the peaks.

"The weather is set to improve tomorrow. A weak weather system will pass over the Cape on Wednesday, but the forecast for Thursday and Friday is sunny weather."

At Matroosberg nature reserve, snow was reported to have fallen on the second highest peak in the Western Cape.

"There is small crack in the cloud and we can just about see that it has snowed on top of the mountain," said Mietdie Jasper, who works at the reserve. - Sapa

Cape flooded as rivers spill over

Hundreds of residents, mostly in informal settlements, had to be evacuated as heavy showers wreaked chaos throughout the city on Sunday, flooding homes and roads as rivers burst their banks.

Once again, poor Capetonians have been hardest hit. Hundreds had to be evacuated from shacks in low lying areas. Others spent the night cold and wet.

Swamped with calls, the city's disaster services could not give the extent of the damage last night, but said at least 1 000 people in informal areas were flooded out.

And there is more bad weather to come. The SA weather office has warned that very cold, wet and windy conditions, as well as snowfalls, are expected in high-lying areas today and tomorrow.

Both the Liesbeeck and Black rivers burst their banks yesterday, flooding parts of Rondebosch, Newlands and Observatory. Homes were flooded and cars submerged.

On the banks of the Liesbeeck, River Club owner Dewald Swanepoel waded waist deep with his umbrella.

"The entire parking lot is under water," said restaurant manager Andre Kalenda. They had evacuated all patrons when the river was near to bursting its banks, but several buildings were flooded.

A flooded M5 freeway had to be closed.

Meanwhile, torrents of water sent boulders and sediment tumbling down Camps Bay Drive last night, and a landslide blocked the outgoing lane at Kloof Nek.

Above Newlands Avenue, Albert Vianello's wall was pushed over as a stream grew to a flood.

"The tributary couldn't take it. With all the pressure against the vibrocrete wall, the water pushed it over and it gushed down over people's houses.

"You know, we're living on the mountain. So we're competing with nature here," he said.

"There has been widespread flooding across the city and it's very difficult to tell the extent of the damage at this stage," said Greg Pillay, head of the city's Disaster Risk Management Centre. "A lot of rivers and canals are going over their banks."

About 200 people were evacuated from shacks in Ocean View and taken in at a community centre, disaster spokesperson Charlotte Powell said.

Nearby Masiphumelele was also flooded. Many areas across the Cape Flats were hard hit, Powell said.

Another 800 people affected by flooding in Gugulethu were given hot meals and blankets by the Red Cross and NGO Mustadafin while 50 homes were flooded in Hanover Park.

"There's a lot of water in these houses," said Thembisile Qhapha, a resident of Taiwan in Site C, Khayelitsha. Taiwan is without drainage and prone to flooding in winter.

Qhapha said 24 homes were flooded.

At the Egoli informal settlement near Ottery, Nikki Schwartz said homes of about 200 people were flooded and community leaders tried to find alternative accommodation.

At the Blikkiesdorp informal settlement in Delft, community leader Beverly Jacobs said she and her three children were forced to spend the night in their flooded home.

"Some of the houses are flooding with water. It's about ankle deep. Some people are staying at other people's houses, but many don't have alternatives."

Traffic spokesperson Merle Lourens reported rockfalls on Faure Marine Drive between Gordon's Bay and Rooi Els.

Overberg disaster manager Reinhard Geldenhuys said parts of Grabouw and nearby informal settlements were flooding last night. "We're busy investigating reports of dwellings flooding, but so far there's heavy water in the town. The municipality and fire services are on site and they're putting sandbags down."

He said there had been no reports of flooding in the Overstrand area.

Last night, there were also no reports of flooding in the Winelands district and Eden (George) municipalities.

The weather service predicted colder conditions in the city today with a 60 percent chance of showers, but the rain was not expected to be as heavy as yesterday.

Rainfall was predicted to continue on Wednesday with a sunny respite later in the week.

- Cape Times

24 held after housing protests

Twenty-four people were due to appear in the Muizenberg Magistrate's Court on Friday morning after Thursday night's running battles between police, Neighbourhood Watch members and angry Masiphumelele residents.

Weeks of unhappiness and tension about a housing development in the area spilled over into Masiphumelele's streets as about 300 residents armed themselves with sticks and knobkieries and staged a sit-in at the busy Blackhill Road intersection at 7pm on Thursday night.

At the same time, another 200 people gathered at the entrance to Masiphumelele in Pokela Road and burned tyres.

Police spokeswoman Captain Cesley Olivier said the police had asked residents to disperse because they were a hazard to motorists and to themselves.

From about 8pm, all roads leading to Masiphumelele were blocked off by police and Neighbourhood Watch members.

Many people returning home from work were unable to get to their houses.

Just over an hour later, police dispersed the crowd gathered at Blackhill Road with rubber bullets. The group broke up into small groups, and some scattered through Sun Valley.

Neighbourhood Watch members claimed that the various groups were running rampant through the area, smashing cars and damaging property. The patrols were set up at several entry points bordering the township. Neighbourhood Watch members were informed that a group had jumped over the wall and smashed windows at the Sun Valley Caravan Park.

As police and volunteers searched the perimeter of the fence, a group of five men emerged from the nearby bushes.

"Here we are, and we're very sorry. We jumped over the wall because were just trying to get home," said one of the men. They came out with their hands raised and asked if they could go home.

They were, however, put in the back of a police van.

On the other side of the property, screaming and crying could be heard. A man with his hands tied behind his back emerged from the dark. His face and head was dripping with blood.

A few youths armed with sticks dragged two more men toward the police.

"Ons sal julle almal vrek maak, hoor jy?" (We'll kill all of you, do you hear me?), said a youth.

It is unclear if he was with the Neighbourhood Watch members or if he lived on the property. After the three men were loaded in the van, police caught another woman and also put her in the van.

By 10pm, the roads had been opened. The main road was full of dirt, broken glass, huge rocks and the remnants of burnt tyres.

Police carried out foot patrols inside a very tense Masiphumelele, but stuck to the main road. According to Olivier, residents had continued to stone police vehicles. They maintained a heavy police presence on Kommetjie Road, just outside the township.

She said 24 people had been arrested and detained at Muizenberg police station. They were all due to face charges of public violence in the Muizenberg Magistrates' Court on Friday.

Several protests over housing have taken place in the area over the last few weeks.

Many backyard dwellers are unhappy about the Amakhaya Ngoku housing development in the area.

- Cape Argus

N2 Gateway builders 'bankrupt'

National government housing agency Thubelisha Homes never had a mandate from the cabinet to manage the N2 Gateway housing project.

This was why Thubelisha "got into financial difficulties", said the company's chief operations officer, Mano Pillay, on Tuesday at Parliament's human settlements' portfolio committee.

Pillay said the National Treasury declined to approve the Section 21 company's budgetary requests as its mandate, given by former housing minister Lindiwe Sisulu, was never approved by the cabinet.

Thubelisha declared itself technically insolvent in 2008.

The company will cease operation from July 31.

Pillay said the company had assumed when given the mandate by Sisulu that all the legalities would be met by the national Housing Department.

Desperate to perform, Thubelisha "went into projects no one else would touch with a barge pole".

But Morris Mngombzulu of the national Housing Department said Sisulu had asked the cabinet to approve a mandate for emergency housing and that Thubelisha would be authorised to build them.

"When cabinet approved the emergency housing we assumed it was a blanket approval for all projects. It's a question of interpretation."

He said at an official level, it should have been mentioned that Thubelisha would be responsible for megaprojects such as the N2 Gateway.

Pillay said Thubelisha would be getting funding of R6,3-million for the 2009/10 financial year, but that this would contribute to operational costs.

The company survived on the interest of income from the provinces, about R2m a month.

Arron Steyn, of the Democratic Alliance, asked how the then housing minister could expect Thubelisha to produce 22 000 housing units for the N2 Gateway when the company only managed to build 13 000 houses in the past few years.

Mngombzulu said the National Treasury gave Thubelisha R50m to increase its capacity when the emergency housing mandate was approved.

Mngombzulu added that, when the N2 Gateway project was started, the City of Cape Town, provincial and national governments were involved.

"You all know what happened when there was a change of government (from ANC to DA)," he said.

"The project was the flagship of the minister and government. Government wanted it to succeed. We thought we would overcome the difficulties."

Pillay said the company struggled with "serious governance flaws" before the CEO resigned in 2006.

Mngombzulu said the N2 Gateway was a lesson for the national Department of Housing and that the National Housing Agency would fare better.

- Cape Times

Western Cape Housing ’not’ sending squatters to flood area

The Western Cape Housing Department has denied claims by shack-dwellers near Fish Hoek that it is forcing them to move to an area which is prone to flooding.

More than 150 residents from Masiphumelele informal settlement are refusing to move from the land which is earmarked for 350 housing apartments.

They say before they move from the area, authorities must provide them with a permanent piece of land with basic services.

Last week, they rejected a proposal by the department to move them to another site, claiming it was prone to flooding.

The department’s Zalisile Mbali says the claims do not have any substance.

“It is not true because the land we are relocating people to is actually earmarked for construction and it used to be the school and so it is impossible that we could be relocating people to a flooding area.”

Mbali says the department does not understand why the people are unhappy because the City of Cape Town and the residents have held fruitful meetings in the past.

- Eyewitness News

Another delay for District Six

District Six's redevelopment may be delayed yet again, because a crucial business plan cannot be completed due to bungling by the Department of Human Settlements.

The department, formerly known as the Department of Land Affairs, has appointed a contractor, but the department failed to finalise the spatial plan, or development framework, on which the business plan had to be based.

A private development, seen as a pilot project, is under way after several hiccups, but now the project itself may be delayed, because the Auditor-General has recommended that no project should be launched before a proper business plan has been drawn up.

The business plan, which will form the basis for future development and which was due this month, will at best take several more months to materialise, it has emerged.

Willem Nero of the Western Cape Regional Land Claims Commission confirmed on Monday that although the commission had appointed contractor Target Projects to draw up the business plan at the end of last year, a development framework to inform the business plan has yet to be completed.

The development framework, which details proposed roads, parks and built structures, is essential to determine particulars such as the cost of building claimant homes and the share of development which will need to go towards commercial enterprises.

Premier Helen Zille slammed the delay, saying that despite assurances by the department and the contractor that the plan would be completed by July, it was nowhere near ready.

"We have now discovered that Land Affairs only tendered for the business plan, even though it was warned that the spatial plan had to be done first," she said.

She said another tender now had to be issued for a spatial plan.

"The plan must then be completed. And only then can the business plan proceed. All in all, this will mean at least another year of delays," she said.

Nero estimated that the spatial plan would be completed within three months.

He said the commission was in the process of appointing people to draw up the framework, that the spatial and business plans would be completed concurrently and that an agreement had been reached with Target that no penalties would be incurred as a result of the delay.

Terence Smith of Target Projects said that for now, the company would proceed with the business plan until it reached the point where it needed the input from the development framework.

Smith confirmed there were currently no penalties as a result of the delay and also that Target would not be bidding for the contract to complete the development framework.

"It simply means that once we get to a point where we can't proceed, we have to wait," he said.

Progress had previously been delayed for more than a year because of disagreement between the city council, the District Six Trust and the commission over the tenders for the development framework and the business plan.

An estimated 2 000 claimants are waiting to be returned to District Six, which has seen only 24 homes completed since the restitution drive was launched in the early days of democratic South Africa.

- Cape Argus

Cape protests 'about leadership'

Violent protests this week at Happy Valley shack settlement on the Cape Flats were sparked by a leadership struggle, not delivery, the councillor for the area said on Tuesday.

Ward councillor Bert van Dalen said about 200 residents erected burning barricades and burned toilets in Wimbledon Road on Monday morning.

The protesters left when police arrived,

Van Dalen said the unrest was allegedly around housing, but this did not make sense as the community was aware that the city would soon start building 1300 houses at Happy Valley.

'The underlying cause seems to be a leadership struggle among a small clique'

"The underlying cause seems to be a leadership struggle among a small clique," he said.

Years ago, the majority of the 5000-strong community had elected an executive to represent them.

This body had been co-operating responsibly with the city and local welfare organisations.

"The entire community cannot be held to ransom by a small minority of rabble rousers," he said. - Sapa

MPs probe N2 Gateway problems

The N2 Gateway housing project has been fraught with political, rather than administrative, challenges, the national Department of Housing has said.

And the City of Cape Town - three years after it was removed from the project because of political differences with the provincial and national governments - has again been included in discussions about the management of the N2 Gateway.

A new intergovernmental agreement for the project could be on the table by September.

"After the 2006 local elections, there were issues around the project," housing director-general Itumeleng Kotsoane said.

"The (city's DA) leadership indicated they were not interested in the project. The political atmosphere affected the functioning of the project.

"Thubelisha Homes (a Section 21 company) was asked (to take over management of the N2 Gateway) more because of the political challenges than administrative challenges."

Kotsoane said work was being done to revise the original agreement signed in 2005 by the three spheres of government, and a final agreement would be ready in two months.

The acknowledgement of political influence came during yesterday's parliamentary hearing on the Auditor-General's blistering report on mismanagement and irregularities in the N2 Gateway project.

Former MEC for housing and local government Richard Dyantyi was present, but not as a member of the provincial delegation.

The standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) grilled the delegation about the decision to appoint Cyberia Technologies to manage the housing project.

The Auditor-General's office reported that the city council had begun a forensic investigation of Cyberia's contract when it came into power in 2006, but the investigation had not been completed because of a lack of documentation.

Scopa chairman Themba Godi said it was evident the final decision to appoint Cyberia Technologies - which had a low score in the bid adjudication - had been made by the then-city manager Wallace Mgoqi.

Cyberia was awarded a R5-million contract, but cost the city R12-million.

The committee raised several concerns, including whether the council had been removed from the project in 2006 or had withdrawn voluntarily.

City executive director of housing Hans Smit said: "The city was removed because of certain disagreements."

Godi asked whether, after the city council had been removed, changes were made to the memorandum of understanding signed by the three spheres of government in February 2005 and defining their roles and responsibilities.

Kotsoane said the political atmosphere after March 2006 affected the functioning of the project.

It was decided that Thubelisha take over the project.

The Auditor-General's report noted that the N2 Gateway steering committee did not meet after May 2006, but Aaref Osman, of the national Department of Human Settlements, said it had met regularly.

The meetings "were not in the same form", but there was "engagement" with the province, he said.

The Auditor-General's office noted none of these discussions had been minuted.

Smit confirmed the city had not taken part in steering committee meetings after May 2006.

After two hours of discussion, Godi postponed the meeting to August 5.

He said Scopa wanted answers to questions about what steps had been taken against those responsible for the mismanagement of the project.

"We are dealing with public funds that have been used in an unsatisfactory way."

- Cape Times

No MPs evicted from parliamentary villages

Acting public works department director-general Solly Malebye on Tuesday refuted media reports that former MPs still living in parliamentary villages in Cape Town were refusing to move out. (IOL)

Malebye also rejected reports that the former MPs had been served with eviction notices.

"Six [former] MPs have asked for an extension and two MPs who have changed political parties leading up to the elections are required to move out of their current houses and move to those allocated for their new political party," he said.

Malebye said the matter was being blown out of proportion as the department was receiving co-operation from all people concerned.

Nothing to see here folks... Move right along...There is no way that the ANC would ever be so rude as to treat it's MPs like regular citizens and actually evict them. The former MPs (let's call them what they really are) are now staying on the perogative of the minister of public works while the MPs waiting for those homes are racking up a hotel bill. It has been important to stop the rot early. We are finding out that it can be very expensive when "people" stay at the state's expense. Mr Aristide costs the South African government a mere R5million a year!

Scopa halts hearing on Cape housing project

Parliament's Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) postponed a hearing on a damning report into a Cape Town housing project on Tuesday after an "incoherent" response from the officials responsible for the project.

"There is a great deal of dissatisfaction at the way members of the committee are getting feedback," committee chairperson Themba Godi told representatives from the City of Cape Town and the provincial and national departments of human settlements.

"There is a lack of coherence of information, yet this was a project by the three spheres of government."

The aim of the multi-billion rand N2 Gateway Housing Project (N2GP) was to provide housing adjacent to the N2 Highway between Bhunga Avenue near Langa and Boys Town in Crossroads.

'There is a lack of coherence of information'

The report, released in June last year, found a number of irregularities in the project, which had been dogged by protests and a series of court challenges over evictions from the informal settlements it was supposed to replace, since its launch.

It said the business plan for the construction of the N2GP had not been finalised and approved before the actual construction commenced.

'Millions irregularly spent'

An interim business plan for the project had indicated that R3,42-billion was required to complete N2GP by 2009/10. This resulted in an overall shortfall of approximately R1,7-billion, of which the national department of housing (NDOH) would have to provide R1,68-billion.

"The NDOH could not indicate how they would pay the said amount," the report said.

The report said the project's business plan had indicated that the average income of households in the region was R1 200 per month. The income of 99 percent of the current tenants however, ranged from R1 500 to R7 500.

"Consequently affordable housing was not provided for the target market concerned."

Geotechnical surveys on soil problems were not completed prior to the commencement of the project. This resulted in costly improvements having to be made to the soil conditions and "delayed the delivery of the programme at critical stages".

The report found that the time frame of six months in which interested parties had to deliver the initial 22 000 planned units was insufficient.

It said work had commenced on certain sites prior to individual project approval from the Western Cape provincial government, resulting in irregular expenditure of R71,8-million.

Last week hundreds of residents from the N2 Gateway housing project marched through central Cape Town to protest against structural defects and plumbing problems. The 704 units in the complex were also said to be becoming havens for drug dealers.

"Everything is just wrong in that complex," chairperson of the residents' committee Luthando Ndabamba said.

The units that the protesters lived in were erected on land formerly occupied by shack-dwellers, many of whom had been relocated to more distant areas of the Cape Flats.

Scopa will next meet the City of Cape Town and the provincial and national departments of human settlements on August 5. - Sapa