Sexwale on a great mission

THOUGH the story of a minister who spent a night in a shack to understand the plight of the down-trodden sounds like a dream, it also marked a turning point in a country where government arrogance and failure to account to voters remained a stubborn stain on the fabric of the public service.

That’s how most South Africans reacted to Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale’s well-calculated public relations exercise of spending a night in a shack in Diepsloot recently.

Such an exercise showed an independence of thought from the minister, which was what most expected from a senior ANC politician whose stature needs no validation by President Jacob Zuma or the ruling clique at the ANC head office, Luthuli House. It showed Sexwale was his own man.

During the visit, Sexwale said: “I am here today on a listening campaign.
“I want to know who you are, what you’re doing here, what you want and what made you come here?”

His visits, which included the N2 Gateway in Cape Town, have defined the Zuma administration’s trump card so far – it’s willingness to account to the voters.
With a housing backlog of more than 2,1milllion and the pressure of the ANC’s recent pre-elections promises, Sexwale’s task is Herculean.

But Sexwale, one of the ANC bigwigs already mooted as potential successors to Zuma, is a man on a mission.

He has already urged banks and businesses to lend a hand in solving the country’s housing problem while rooting out corruption in the awarding of housing contracts and the allocation of houses in municipalities.

During the Human Settlements budget vote in June he told Parliament his department was serious about rooting out corruption within its ranks.
“To ensure we identify and act against criminals, we have strengthened our partnership with the special investigations unit (SIU) and taken stern action against offenders.”

He said his department had charged 772 public servants, of whom 554 have been convicted.Sub-standard work “More than 1600 acknowledgements of debt have been signed in respect of non-qualifying government employees with a total value of R19,8million and millions have already been collected by the SIU from non-qualifying illegal beneficiaries.”

Sexwale said his immediate mission would be hunting down building contractors and companies who continue to build defective RDP houses.

In a recent visit to municipalities in Eastern Cape, where more than 19000 defective houses have to be rebuilt, Sexwale said government had allocated R300million to rectify substandard work on houses in the country.
The Human Settlements Department has set itself the target of building 226000 houses a year.

In June he told Parliament expenditure on housing service delivery had increased from R4,8billion in the 2004-05 financial year to R10,9billion in the last financial year.

“Funds allocated to national pilot projects for this financial year include R400million for the N2 Gateway, R120million for Zanemvula Housing Project and R150million for disaster relief in KwaZulu-Natal.
“Nationally, more than 570 housing projects have been approved and a housing grant of R12,4billion has been allocated for this financial year.”

Sexwale also promised to build bigger and better quality houses.
But his ambitions may be frustrated by funding shortfalls that are likely to affect most government departments as the country battles the effects of recession.

“Though the housing grant allocation has been increased over the 2009 MTEF period, we remind you once again that the previous studies by the department concluded that continuing with the current trend in the housing budget would lead to a funding shortfall of R102billion in 2012, which could increase to R253billion by 2016. This is of great concern,” Sexwale said .

“ We also remain concerned about houses that are reportedly standing empty .”
Sexwale is not only Zuma’s political ally in the internecine struggle for power in the ANC, he is also his points- man on service delivery, which will be key to whether Zuma remains the man of the people at the end of his term. - Sowetan

Sharp slump in lower cost home loans

There has been a sharp slump in the number of home loans granted to South Africans in the under-R15 000 per month income bracket, the National Credit Regulator (NCR) said on Wednesday.

The total number of home loans granted in South Africa has almost halved in 2008 due to the global recession and ensuing financial crisis.

"There's been a huge contraction in credit granted - and the preliminary numbers for the March quarter indicate that the contraction is actually continuing," said NCR CEO Gabriel Davel. Fin 24

Residents raise stink with visiting mayor

Cape Town Mayor Dan Plato was greeted with smiling faces for some part and indifference from most as he went walk-about in Du Noon on Monday.

Plato's office had organised the event to listen to the "service delivery need" of a community which had often expressed its frustrations at poor living conditions through violent protests, blocking access to the busy Potsdam Road next to it.

Walking through waterlogged streets, Plato saw first-hand what some of Du Noon's residents had been complaining to him about.

Officials had to tread carefully, as Plato inspected several rows of toilets as private contractors emptied green rubbish containers.

Standing in leaking water, he asked residents whether they had complained to the city's relevant department and when they confirmed that they had, he made a promise that it would soon be fixed.

Peering at several illegal electricity connections, he joked that city would not be cutting them off as "there might be another riot".

Plato said: "Its not the city's problem, its Eskom's problem, they'll soon have to sort it out."

Khaya Mbunyuza, a resident, said he was happy Plato had come to Du Noon and that it might spur movement on development in the area.

"We've been made promises for years. People have been told that their problems can't be solved because they live in the wrong places - like Du Noon," said Mbunyuza.

Seated with some of the executive directors and senior officials, Plato had to answer questions from an angry community about the high crime rate in the area, poor waste management and lack of housing.

He said there were underlying issues that affected service delivery and that the city would not allow it to continue.

About complaints that the area did not have a multipurpose centre or a library, Plato asked for patience as these would take some time due to statutory requirements.

Residents also complained about Du Noon's sewerage system often being blocked.

Plato said some of the problems in the community stemmed from overcrowding and that a permanent solution would be to "de-densify" the area.

The meeting was told that some of shacks were built by people who had already received housing subsidies in other areas, but had moved to Du Noon for job opportunities.

- Cape Times

N2 Gateway tenants owing city

Only four percent of tenants at the government's flagship N2 Gateway flats are paying rent, with arrears almost topping R7-million.

Tenants have collectively paid only R600 000 of the R7,5-million owed in rentals over the past year.

Monthly rentals are from R500 to R1 200 a unit.

The Department of Human Settlement has admitted in a parliamentary reply that it has been unable to recover the outstanding rent, and that its rental collection dropped from 19 percent in July 2008 to four percent by the end of July 2009.

Democratic Alliance shadow Minister of Human Settlements Butch Steyn said the department had indicated that only R180 000 had been spent on maintenance during this time, despite residents withholding rent because of the shoddy conditions of the flats.

"The fact that the department seemingly has no interest in collecting rentals despite having a list of the names and addresses of the occupants, is an indication once again of the poor management of the N2 Gateway," said Steyn.

Read the full story in tomorrow's edition of Cape Times

'Illegal' paraffin stoves a safety risk

Thousands of "illegally imported" paraffin stoves are flooding the South African market, crippling the local metal industry and posing health risks in poorer communities.

The Paraffin Safety Association of South Africa (Pasasa) told the Weekend Argus that it has been visiting stores to assess the availability of legal paraffin appliances and discovered that out of the 141 stores visited, only one in 14 was selling legal appliances.

According to Pasasa there is an "influx of unapproved and hazardous" paraffin appliances, apparently making their way from China to South African ports.

"These dangerous stoves are being sold to underprivileged communities all over the country. They are mostly found in local Indian and Chinese shops," said Patrick Kulati, head of the association.

A South African stove manufacturing company, which is approved by the SABS, described the issue as a "hard blow" to the industry.

A senior manager, who asked not to be named or have the company named because she feared harassment from the illegal operators, said: "We continue to lose more money daily due to the illegal sale of the goods. Nowadays we sell less than we did previously."

The manufacturer said it struggled to compete with the illegal market and that "there are just too many of the cheap products for us to compete with".

The manager said the company was the only recognised stove manufacturer in the country.

She said they had been forced to retrench nearly 300 people in the last five years because the profit fall had been "massive". She blamed the unsafe imports

"Now a lot of people are unemployed because no money is coming in to continue operations, consumers are opting for the cheaper lot," she said.

The National Regulator for Compulsory Specifications (NRCS) said it was confiscating thousands of unapproved stoves daily across the country.

"Our inspectors have managed to seize quite a large number of stoves and none of them have the safety features required," said Thomas Madzivhe, NRCS senior manager.

In May this year, a Chinese shop owner and three others were arrested after the regulator seized 8 000 "non-compliant" stoves and heaters in the shop in Cape Town. The stoves violated a set of safety standards which state that the manufacturing, sale and use of environmentally friendly stoves should pose no health risk to the consumer.

The unapproved stoves are the ones being snapped up by people who want to save money, Pasasa said.

The association added the goods were exact counterfeits of the harmful ones previously made by the local company until the National Regulator presented a new set of safety standards.

The illegal importers "saw a gap in the market and decided to make the most of it and now the whole country is at huge risk".

"People in many communities are attempting to evade financial troubles and are seeking cheaper alternatives and unfortunately they are not always safe. The influx (of illegal stoves) has made matters worse.

"The effects have already been felt by most people. Fires mostly take place due to the use of these duds and because people are unaware of their hazardous nature they purchase them," said Kulati.

He added his organisation had discovered the importers' tactics. "They put on road shows in rural and township areas and sell their faulty goods to the people. They do this because there would be no paper trail for police to nab them."

It is alleged the appliances are smuggled into the country at habours in PE and Durban.

Customs officials are told that the goods are to be sent to neighbouring countries, but they are then dropped in South Africa.

But the National Regulator said although it did make inspections at ports countrywide, it could not confirm this, but would continue inspections.

And Pasasa said there were plans by the National Regulator to approach the Chinese and Indian embassies to try and work out a solution to the problem.

- Cape Argus

Sexwales' factifinding

HUNDREDS of Buffalo City residents living in informal settlements were given an opportunity to express their frustrations to Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale at the weekend. Sexwale was on a fact-finding mission in the province and on Saturday visited Sweetwaters outside King William’s Town, as well as Reeston, Duncan Village and Amalinda in East London. Residents welcomed the minister and used the opportunity to tell him about their problems...

“We appreciate the houses from government, but we need more jobs. We can’t even afford the electricity and water for these houses,” said Thabisa Dyabeni, a single mother from Thembalethu in Reeston.

Other concerns raised were houses with building defects.

Sexwale threatened that building contractors who continued to do shoddy work would be sued by the government. He said officials who offered contracts to such companies would also be held accountable for the huge amounts of taxpayers’ money lost through poor workmanship.

“The trip was invaluable in providing additional insight into conditions in some of the country’s largest informal settlements. We found the situation in Duncan Village to be similar to that in Diepsloot in Gauteng and Joe Slovo in the Western Cape, and there is no doubt that the upgrading of these areas needs to be prioritised,” Sexwale said.

- Daily Dispatch

X-Housing Minister Sisulu spends nights in luxury after defending her involvement in N2 Gateway

Two government ministers have splashed out on accommodation in an exclusive hotel, flying in the face of calls by President Jacob Zuma that officials tighten their belts in the economic crisis.

Minister of defence Lindiwe Sisulu and KwaZulu-Natal MEC for economic development and tourism Mike Mabuyakhulu stayed at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Umhlanga Rocks, north of Durban — a favourite of England’s Prince Harry and Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan.

The Beverly Hills boasts the province’s first butler service for VIP guests. Its cheapest rooms are more than R3000 a night, while suites cost more than R5000.

Their extravagance comes as the government moves to cut wasteful spending and address concerns that officials are “living large”.

According to the national Treasury, the government’s revenue shortfall is projected at R60-billion this year.

A ministerial task team was established this month to develop guidelines to slash big spending. It has already submitted a draft report to cabinet.

Sisulu’s spokesman Ndivhuwo Mabaya confirmed that she had stayed at the hotel on August 7 after being called to an urgent meeting with President Jacob Zuma.

“Accommodation had to be arranged at short notice. The Beverly Hills was the most suitable accommodation and by far the most cost effective as it charges us government rates, which makes it the cheapest in relation to the security requirements of any minister.”

Bheko Madlala, Mabuyakhulu’s spokesman, said the MEC had hosted a two-day conference at Sibaya Casino and Entertainment World outside Umhlanga on August 6 and 7. There are two hotels on the premises.

“On the first day , the MEC hosted a dinner which went well into midnight. Because of its proximity to the conference centre, the Beverly Hills was the only available accommodation on the day.”

Priya Naidoo from Southern Sun, which owns the Beverly Hills, would not disclose the group’s “specific” government rates.

But Gerhard Patzer, the Hilton’s general manager, said his and most hotels in Durban offered discounts to government officials.

Themba Godi, the chairman of the standing committee on public accounts, said it was unacceptable that ministers appeared to have ignored cheaper hotels where government had standing arrangements.

“Ministers should lead by example. President Zuma has made announcements that culture and attitudes should change,” he said.

More than R200 000 was spent on parliamentary committees meetings and workshops at luxury hotels in Cape Town rather than at parliament

# MPs also stayed overnight at these hotels;

# The North West education department spent about R90 000 to pamper 43 directors and chief directors at a day spa outside Pretoria;

# The Department of Police bought two new luxury BMWs for ministerial use, equipped with extras like reverse cameras and a navigation system, for R1.3-million.

Kuben Naidoo, the national Treasury’s budget head, who is working with the ministerial task team, said the Treasury would issue extensive cost-containment guidelines, including cellphone expenditure, car hire and hotels. Spending on travel in some departments was “over the top”, he said.

- Sunday Times

Gateway row: Scopa takes Sisulu to task

In your article “You’re blocking the Gateway!” , the former minister of housing, Lindiwe Sisulu, was extensively quoted disputing the findings contained in the auditor-general’s report on the embattled N2 Gateway Project.

Among other things, she claimed that the auditor-general failed to provide a “balanced audit report” on the project. She also said that the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) didn’t have sufficient knowledge of the project; thus its criticism of the project was ill-informed.

And she suggested that Scopa didn’t know what the auditor-general’s report was about (‘I get the feeling that if they knew, they might be concentrating on a different outcome.’)

We would have welcomed it if the minister had engaged with us directly for any clarification on the issues raised under her leadership of the department.

We will continue to execute our oversight work relentlessly in our quest for accountability, without yielding to undue political pressure from the executive.

Although it’s not usual for Scopa to account to anyone outside parliament for its activities, a few misstatements by the minister regarding our engagement with the department on the N2 Gateway project require some form of clarification.

Firstly, Scopa’s engagement with the department regarding the project was on the basis of what was contained in the auditor-general’s report.

Thus, the outcomes of the hearings reflected the information provided to the committee by officials from the three spheres tasked with the implementation of the project, including the director-general of the national department of human settlements.

Our criticism of the project was not of an extraordinary nature, but a reflection of the challenges faced by the department in implementing the project.

The key challenges identified by Scopa related to unsound procurement processes (including the appointment of Cyberia although it was ranked sixth in the list of companies which bid for the contract), poor financial planning, and a lack of co-operation between the three spheres of government in implementing the project.

Secondly, during our interaction with the department, the director-general, Itumeleng Kotsoane, and other officials present never disputed the findings of the auditor-general, but rather gave a thorough account of the structural, financial, leadership and other challenges facing the full implementation of the Gateway project.

It was clear from their submissions that there were incomprehensible disparities between the three spheres — so much so that the committee halted its hearing as Scopa was not satisfied with the level of responses given by officials in all three spheres during its initial hearing.

Thirdly, our mandate as a committee is to ensure that public funds are spent effectively and efficiently in a manner that contributes to greater service delivery.

‘We will continue to execute our oversight work relentlessly in our quest for accountability’

Ours is to get clarity on why things have gone wrong and to find solutions to challenges faced by departments appearing before us.

The report compiled by Judge Willem Heath might have assisted the minister in getting a “balanced audit” but that report was never presented to us before our engagement with the officials — nor did the officials mention it during their submissions.

In the quest to get the “balanced view” the minister referred to, we kindly request her to give us the opportunity to view the report, as it will assist us to enhance our resolutions on the matter.

We see her sentiments regarding our engagement with the auditor-general’s report on the N2 Gateway project as an illustration of the lack of proper representation by her former officials.

This misrepresentation highlights a trend that the committee has also noted: of certain directors-general who at times act on the instructions of ministers, not owning up to some of the decisions taken.

In its recent strategic workshop, Scopa resolved to revisit the norm of having only directors-general appearing before it.

We have decided that ministers should accompany their directors-general to the committee, because cabinet members bear ultimate political accountability for their departments.

While Scopa can’t comment on Sisulu’s statements regarding the findings of the auditor-general, we remain confident and appreciative of the work of the auditor-general in enhancing oversight and we will continue to strengthen our relations with him as he is one of the key stakeholders who enhances our mandate.

We believe in the integrity of the auditor-general, as opposed to Judge Heath, who falls outside our constitutional mandate in the oversight cycle.

— Themba Godi, chairman of the standing committee on public accounts, parliament, Cape Town

- Sunday Times

‘Middle class’ swine flu eclipses frightening TB stats

As panic over swine flu continues to mount, health experts say TB is still the most serious threat facing the country. Although the respiratory disease claims an estimated 1000 lives per day in South Africa, doctors feel the media has neglected TB coverage and instead created a disproportionate anxiety over H1N1, responsible for fewer than 10 deaths over three months since it hit the country.

“The media is fuelling hysteria in the middle class group,” said professor of public health at the University of the Western Cape, David Sanders, of the swine flu coverage.

Sanders said “great awareness” had been created among the richer groups while the “sad truth” was that little was said of those who die every winter in the townships, where TB, HIV/Aids and diarrhoea are rife.

According to the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) Global TB Report South Africa currently ranks fourth in the world for TB infection, with an incidence rate of 940 cases per 100 000 people - a major increase from 338 per 100 000 population in 1998. The Western Cape health department confirmed there is an annual increase of TB cases, with 50 156 cases in the Western Cape in 2008. Of this figure 3.5% of those diagnosed with the disease, and 6% of those who had suffered from it previously, died.

About 234 XDR/MDR (Extreme Drug Resistant and Multi-Drug Resistant) patients were admitted to Brooklyn Chest Hospital between January 2009 and July 2009. The number of outpatients with MDR TB for this period was 606.

Meanwhile the latest statistics from the National Institute for Communicable Diseases revealed that 430 people in the Western Cape have tested positively for swine flu.

Spokesperson for the Treatment Action Campaign, Mandla Majola, said media had definitely put too much focus on swine flu than TB. He said this created the impression that the high rate of TB deaths in the country was neither as problematic nor as frightening as swine flu.

Majola said while it was important for the media to raise awareness, such focus had spread panic among people living in informal settlements too, who were particularly vulnerable due to lack of sanitation, water, housing, electricity and other basic needs. Moreover they seldom have access to private treatment or a healthy diet as a result of unemployment and poverty.

Dr Eric Goemaere of Medicines Sans Frontieres (MSF) said the country and media should concentrate more on what needed priority. He said at least 6% of people diagnosed with in Khayelitsha last year had a drug-resistant strain of the disease, and of those, three-quarters were also HIV-positive.

— West Cape News

R50m housing scam probed

The police commercial branch unit is investigating a R50-million housing scam in the Atlantis area of the Western Cape, police said on Friday.

Superintendent Jerome Hardenberg said Eugene Hendricks allegedly took deposits from victims, offering an attractive housing project.

He also offered a fixed payment system of R700 per month for 15 years to enable people to become home owners.

"According to our preliminary investigation there are... approximately 1500 victims from the residential areas of Atlantis, Eerste River and Scottsdene who fell prey to the housing scam," Hardenberg said.

He called on anyone who was a victim of the scam to register affidavits at the Atlantis police station next Wednesday or at the commercial branch offices on Thursday and Friday, during office hours.

- Sapa

Cape to ease housing problems

The City of Cape Town will need to triple its housing delivery to about 38,000 "housing opportunities" annually to keep pace with the growing demand for shelter, and this means it needs to build upwards.

The lack of available land for housing means the city will have to consider creating high-density "integrated towns" with 6,000 housing units of up to 14 storeys.

They would be built in "towns", and each would have necessary facilities such as schools.

The city council provided 10,000 housing opportunities this year, the city's manager of land and forward planning, Basil Davidson, said.

Housing opportunities are defined as dwelling places or serviced sites.

But with the number of people demanding shelter increasing by in-migration of between 18,000 and 20,000 each year, the city will need to accelerate its delivery.

Davidson said national government allocations for housing needed to reflect the impact of people moving to the Western Cape from other provinces.

"We are grappling with the impact of migration and the delivery (of houses)."

The Division of Revenue Bill uses a formula based on poverty levels to allocate funding to the provinces.

Davidson said that, while the Western Cape was not one of the poorer provinces, the large numbers of people migrating from other provinces meant that funding should be increased.

The city had a national government allocation of R663-million in 2009, which would increase to R900m in the next three years.

Davidson said the city's revised housing plan would include long-term strategies to improve housing.

The number of people waiting for houses increased from 117,000 in 2007 to 400,000 in 2009.

The demand for shelter would increase by 18,000 to 20,000 each year, Davidson said.

City housing director Hans Smit said the city's biggest challenge in dealing with the housing backlog was limited funding from the national government.

With an allocation of R1-million, the city could provide 40 serviced even at R25,000 an erf, 10 Breaking New Ground (the houses that have replaced RDP units) houses of 40m2 in size at a cost of R100,000 or eight community residential units or rental flats at a cost of R120,000.

The city was also being pressed to provide emergency housing opportunities because of natural factors, such as flooding. Davidson said the city was working on several land acquisitions for emergency housing, but would not name them for fear of land invasions.

"We need to deal with emergency."

- Cape Times

Emergency Effort Needed to Solve Western Cape Housing Crisis

It is good news that Tokyo Sexwale and Helen Zille have decided to bury the hatchet on the petty squabbling between the African National Congress (ANC) and Democratic Alliance (DA) (largely, let it be said, initiated by the ANC) over the N2 Gateway project and land allocation in the province.

The spat has hampered housing delivery in the province. We are now told “the three spheres of government are to sit around one table to decide on the future of the project.” (‘Sexwale, Zille and city to decide on N2 Gateway’, August 10).

But Sexwale, Zille, Dan Plato and their officials would be making a big mistake if they believed the future could be settled without involving beneficiary communities, through their representative committees, at the decision-making table.

Unlike his predecessor as housing minister, Sexwale has at least already gone on walkabouts in N2 Gateway Phase 1 and the Joe Slovo informal settlement. But walk-abouts are not the same as meaningful involvement in decision-making.

In the past “consultation” or “negotiation” for officials, meant merely informing beneficiaries of dogmatically set plans without any intention of altering them. What needs to happen is that the past needs to be rectified and the future of N2 Gateway planned with the beneficiaries rather than over their heads.

There is a crisis in housing nationally and in the Western Cape. In Cape Town alone, there is a backlog of 400,000 houses, which is increasing by 18-20,000 a year, with only 8-9,000 houses built a year.

On that basis, the housing backlog will never disappear.
It is time for some bold and imaginative thinking...

Read the full story Sangonet

Broken Homes - How the Eastern Cape's housing plan has failed the poor

“Bhisho is spending R360 million to fix nearly 20 000 broken homes in the province while the poor live in flimsy cardboard units and ghost towns emerge from the ruins of disastrous housing projects.” This equals an amount R18, 000 above the subsidy amount already paid.

- Broken Homes

W Cape: More floods to come

AT LEAST 300 shacks in Cape Town’s Masiphumelele township were submerged when heavy rains lashed Western Cape yesterday.

In less than seven hours, 50mm of rain fell on Cape Town and surrounding areas, flooding homes and roads.

By midday, Masiphumelele residents had called on the city’s disaster risk and management centre for assistance.

“Residents were given blankets and food. They have not yet been evacuated and are currently trying to mop up, though the rain continues,” said centre spokeswoman Charlotte Powell.

Disaster management closed parts of the N1 and M5 highways as debris from nearby construction sites was washed onto them.

Sandbags were placed on slopes in Hout Bay and Hangberg to prevent mudslides.

The SA Weather Service has reported that icy winds and heavy rain will continue in Western Cape until tomorrow, and snow is expected to fall on high ground overnight.

Forecaster Carlton Fillis said: “We have sent out a warning about flooding and we also want people to know that it is going to be very cold because of the wind.” - The Times

Mandela Park Backyarders Broker 50/50 Deal With MEC

Cape Town — After a battling for almost six months to get access to a new housing development in Khayelitsha's Mandela Park, backyarders finally brokered a 50/50 deal with new Housing MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela.

On April 19 this year, backyarders from Mandela Park prevented former MEC Whitey Jacobs from handing keys to beneficiaries of completed houses in the project and illegally occupied about 120 houses.

The Mandela Park Housing Project 823 is set to deliver 823 state subsidised houses, but backyarders were upset that residents on the housing waiting list from Khayelitsha Site C at least two kilometres away were being accommodated, while they still squatted behind other peoples' houses right next door to the new housing development.

But on Sunday, their plight was finally heard.

At a meeting to hear their complaints, called by Madikizela, an agreement was reached that 23 of the 57 remaining houses in the project currently under construction would go to backyarders living in the immediate area.

The backyarders blame their ward councillor, Mthwalo Mkhutswana, for not managing the process properly from the beginning, and boo-ed him when he tried to introduce Madikizela at Sunday's meeting.

Addressing the crowd of 300 backyarders, Madikizela said: "The process of handing out houses was not well managed by your leaders. I have been following this project and updating myself before I met with you and I heard there are people in houses where they are not suppose to be. For different reasons, which include corruption by leaders.

"We must separate development from politics because it is for everyone, irrespective of which party you belong to."

On the issue of people illegally occupying the completed houses, provincial housing department spokesperson Zalisile Mbali said: "The department is currently busy with the on-site evaluation to establish how many houses are occupied illegally and how many have been built in total."

Backyarders group organiser Sbongile Mhlahla said: "He (Madikizela) promised to give us 50% but didn't say on which project, and he also said of the 57 houses that are standing at the moment, backyarders will get 23. So we're going to sit down with him and talk about those too."

Mhlahla said the MEC was not able to respond to all their concerns as he was pressed for time.

"But he promised to meet with us again this week so we can put everything into detail."

Another leader of the backyarders group, Loyiso Mfuku, said they would now deal directly with Madikizela and not go through the councillor or Sanco as they had done in the past.

But Mkhutswana said: "It won't happen that I'm sidelined in the proceedings of my ward. I even told the MEC that he can't let the backyarders deal directly with him because Mandela Park is still under my ward. He also agreed that I should be part of everything that happens in my ward."

"They will never sideline me, the ward belongs to me."

- West Cape News

Cars stoned - cop assaulted by angry residents

An off-duty policeman who was attacked and beaten over the head with a large rock by protesting Khayelitsha residents is in a serious but stable condition in hospital, police said this morning.

The officer, whose name police have declined to release, was attacked when he tried to drive through a barricade erected by residents of BT Section, Site C, Khayelitsha on Sunday.

He is stationed in Stellenbosch, and was off-duty and not in uniform at the time.

'Violence and other forms of intimidation would not be tolerated.'

Police used rubber bullets to disperse protesters late last week, but angry residents took to the streets again at the weekend.

Residents in BT Section started protesting on Thursday night.

Street committee spokesperson Nosisa Mgoduka said the residents were angry with mayor Dan Plato.

She said Plato had promised to move the community to a piece of land where there were services.

"On (last) Monday he said there was no place for us. He said that he would look for a place for us in the next six months." "That is what angered people. Police have also said that they are going to kill us if we keep protesting."

"We would rather be killed by police while protesting than live in this place. It's not safe here. We want a better place," said Mgoduka.

Yesterday the section of busy Lansdowne Road that runs through the area was barricaded with an empty shipping container and strewn with litter.

Stoned passing cars

Protesters stoned passing cars and dug trenches in the road. Rocks and cardboard were used to make barricades.

Tempers flared when the off-duty officer, driving a Fiat Cento, tried to drive through part of the barricade. He lost control of the car and crashed into the pavement.

Residents surrounded the car while the policeman and his passenger, who has not been identified, tried to start it.

Angry words were exchanged, and the policeman pulled out a gun. This made the residents back off at first, but then they raced back to confront him again. A struggle ensued, and the police officer was knocked unconscious.

Residents started assaulting the man and his gun was taken away.

As he regained consciousness and tried to get up off the ground, one resident picked up a rock and slammed it into the policeman's head and upper back.

He collapsed again. His companion, bleeding from the forehead after also being attacked by protesters, fled into an alleyway between nearby houses.

Police who were stationed nearby managed to get to the unconscious officer, who was taken away from the area in an ambulance.

Plato said this morning that "violence and other forms of intimidation" would not be tolerated.

He said residents of BT Section should use the city council's "existing political structures" - such as ward councillors and ward forums - to air their concerns.

The area was quiet this morning.

- Cape Argus

Gateway never had a chance

Cape Town's disastrous N2 Gateway project began without a funded budget and was starved of agreed funding by the National Housing Department, according to a confidential report by independent forensic auditors, which was leaked to the Mail & Guardian.

Envisaged as a model solution to South Africa's housing backlog, the Gateway project was to be delivered by the three spheres of government, which, in the Western Cape, were all run by the ANC at the time.

In January 2005 Lindiwe Sisulu, then minister of housing, publicly declared that 22 000 houses would be built in six months. Two years later the project had delivered only 821 units.

The new DA-led Cape Town council asked independent forensic auditors SizweNtsaluba Forensics to conduct an investigation and the company's report was handed to the auditor general for use in his special audit of the N2 Gateway. The project is being scrutinised by the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa).

The auditors found that the National Housing Department failed to facilitate funding for the project and the Western Cape government had to "reprioritise" its funding to help meet the shortfall.

It provided about R294,6-million -- far below the R2,3-billion budget.

"Numerous attempts were made by the City to procure funding commitment from the National Department of Housing, but to no avail," says the report. "This is contrary to the stipulation of the MOU [memorandum of understanding], which required the National Department of Housing and province to facilitate funding."

The project made use of funding from the upgrading of informal settlement programme (UISP), the housing subsidy and the emergency housing programme.

While the UISP funded a portion of the units built, the auditors found no evidence that beneficiaries were identified or that the intended beneficiary community qualified for housing subsidies.

The MOU stipulated that the National Housing Department was required to ensure that the project complied with national legislation, to facilitate policy and to channel financial support to the city.

Mziwonke Dlabantu, deputy director general of the Department of Housing, said the Gateway project was conceived by the Cape Town council before Sisulu became housing minister.

When the MOU was signed it was recognised that the National Department of Housing had already allocated funding to the province for housing development, Dlabantu said, which included some precincts seen as part of the Gateway project.

"The role of the national department was then to solicit funding, over and above that which could be allocated by the province from the funds which the national department had already allocated to it in terms of the Division of Revenue Act," he said.

"As the business plan was developed, discussions with treasury on the project were then initiated and these took place until allocations were made in subsequent years."

The government's "breaking-new-ground" designs for the housing specified that units should be no smaller than 40m2. The price hike made them unaffordable by backyarders and shack-dwellers who had been moved off land to make way for the project.

Under the existing subsidy, of about R36 900 a unit, there was a national government-funding shortfall of R44 000 a unit.

SizweNtsaluba found that a statutory separate operating account (SOA) at the City was used as a funding mechanism for the first phase of the project. The account is subject to statutory audit, but the report recommends that internal procedures and policies be developed to ensure "transparency and accountability" in the use of its funds.

"The City was responsible for the SOA and the only requirement for the use of funds from the SOA is that the expenditure is used for an approved housing project," the report states. "The SOA does not form part of the council's budget and can be used for unplanned expenditure without conforming to the City's budget processes."

Last month hundreds of angry Gateway residents marched on the Western Cape government to complain about structural defects and plumbing problems.

Residents also complained that they were originally told they would be renting with an option to buy, but that the purchase option seemed to have disappeared.

Sisulu has moved up the ministerial hierarchy, becoming minister of defence in President Jacob Zuma's Cabinet.

- M&G

‘You’re blocking the Gateway!’

Minister rounds on those she accuses of stalling flagship R4.5-billion project to house thousands in Cape Town

Minister of defence Lindiwe Sisulu has come out with guns blazing to roundly criticise those she blames for holding up Cape Town’s stalled R4.5-billion N2 Gateway housing project.

Sisulu made the rare move of defending her former portfolio, department of housing, this week when she accused the auditor-general, Terence Nombembe, of failing to provide what she called a balanced audit report on the project.

She also lashed out at the City of Cape Town , and took a swipe at parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) for criticising her former ministry without sufficient knowledge of the project.

Sisulu commissioned the auditor-general’s “value-for-money audit” into the Gateway project following allegations of irregularities in the awarding of a project management tender to Cyberia .

Unhappy with the auditor-general’s report, she asked for a second opinion from a consultancy firm headed by Judge Willem Heath.

Sisulu told the Sunday Times this week that she agreed with Heath, who criticised the auditor-general’s conclusion that millions of rands spent on the project were “fruitless and wasteful”.

This related, in part, to reports that Cyberia had been paid R12-million — after winning a tender for R5-million.

Although Heath did not refute the auditor-general’s findings, he said: “It appears that the auditor-general may not have meticulously and exhaustively investigated the facts, which led him to the conclusion that in some instances, the expenditures were fruitless and wasteful.

“If he had conducted an exhaustive investigation of such expenses, he may have arrived at the conclusion that the three spheres of government may have fallen victim to fraudulent conduct by private sector institutions or that some of the expenses related to necessary testing of policy.”

Controversially, Heath said: “It is however, generally not the legislative function of the auditor-general to investigate fraud and other similar irregularities.”

Sisulu said Heath’s report gave more insight to the project, and she was inclined to agree with it: “It does indicate in detail what processes were wrong and what processes could be improved, and it evaluates the project.”

The Gateway project, intended to upgrade informal settlements on Cape Town’s N2 highway, was launched in 2005 as a national pilot project to fast-track housing delivery.

It aimed to build 23000 low-cost housing units within six months.

Rocked by political tensions between the three spheres of government, allegations of irregularities and a lack of funds, it has so far delivered only 4862 units.

Sisulu lashed out at the Democratic Alliance, which runs the City of Cape Town, for being a “nasty fly in the ointment” for questioning the project’s viability and labelling the houses “expensive”.

“We said, what makes you think that black people, by virtue of being black, would want to live in accommodation that is less than what is required? ” she told the Sunday Times.

The City of Cape Town is a ‘nasty fly in the ointment’ for questioning the N2 Gateway project’s viability

She said her frustrations with the stumbling blocks put in the project’s way by the City of Cape Town, including a failure to release land for the project, had turned her to a “vociferous campaigner” for co-operative governance laws that would ensure that provinces and municipalities comply with national government demands.

Sisulu did not spare Scopa, which has been questioning government officials based on the auditor-general’s report .

“I don’t know if Scopa knows what the auditor-general’s report is about.

“I get a feeling that if they knew, then they might be concentrating on a different outcome.

“What they are finding are the things which we ourselves did find and have tried to correct,” she said.

She cited an investigation she commissioned in 2005 from law firm Cheadle Thompson & Haysom , which found no evidence of “inappropriate behaviour” on Cyberia’s part, although it concluded that the company had no prior expertise in managing projects as large as N2 Gateway.

Cyberia was replaced by Thubelisha Homes, which also struggled to manage the project.

Scopa’s chairman, Themba Godi, demanded in the most recent hearing on the matter, two weeks ago, that action be taken against those involved in “fruitless expenditure”

Department of Human Settlements director-general Itumeleng Kotsoane conceded that the project was mired in political tension between the three spheres of government, who are supposed to co-operate through a steering committee.

He said that Cape Town city officials did not attend meetings of the committee.

- Sunday Times

Cop fires on Cape Argus team

Gallery: Khayelitsha service delivery protest

A policeman fired a rubber bullet at a Cape Argus news team during a service delivery protest in Khayelitsha's Site C - despite the reporter having identified himself as a journalist.

The reporter and photographer ran for cover when police opened fire at about 9pm last night on a small group of protesters burning tyres, clothing and furniture along Lansdowne Road.

'We want decent housing and electricity and all the other things he promised'

Police had closed the road and started firing, allegedly without warning. Everyone in the area, including the Cape Argus news team, ran for cover, finding refuge in a near-by shack. There they and two residents were approached by a policeman and asked to raise their hands.

The Cape Argus reporter complied, with his notebook still in one hand, and identified himself as a media member.

Soon after the policeman lowered his gun, a colleague ran in. Ignoring the first policeman's warnings that the group was media, the second policeman fired a rubber bullet into the shack without warning.

Earlier the photographer had been shot in the leg by a rubber bullet that had ricocheted off a nearby dustbin.

The team was on the scene to cover renewed service delivery protests in the area, the first of which took place about three weeks ago, with people demanding action from Cape Town mayor Dan Plato.

He met the residents at the time, promising them that he would address their grievances in two weeks. The angry residents at the scene said last night that they had waited long enough for the mayor.

Resident Xolani Ngcube said they were sick of empty promises.

"The mayor said he would deal with our problems in two weeks. That was three weeks ago. We want decent housing and electricity and all the other things he promised," he said.

Children were among the crowd of protesters when police opened fire with rubber bullets, prompting residents to question their use of force.

Resident Thandi Mswai said she could no longer trust the police.

Police were still patrolling by late last night and the only signs of the protest were the fires still burning on the roadside. The police were unable to respond before the Cape Argus went to print today.

- Cape Argus

Cut the stunts and do something real

MINISTER of human Settlements Tokyo Sexwale spent one night with the Diepsloot poor – then he wrote a blow-by-blow account for the newspapers. Apparently he is now armed with the views and concerns of that communities’ poor and will be handing in a report to the cabinet.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at this comical political posturing.

The minister undertook this act of experiencing poverty for one night in full view of the admiring media. He endured, he reports, a night of untold discomfort.

Impressive indeed!

The ministers dramatics remind me of my shock and outrage at my first experience of Parliament. I was there to make a submission for an amendment of farmworkers’ laws to give them a little more protection.

I was struck by how black parliamentarians demanded facts and “scientific” evidence that farmworkers in South Africa were living under conditions of semi-slavery. I wondered what could have induced this amnesia in people, some of whom had experienced farm life directly.

We used to joke that once you get a big job in government or become a politician they give you an amnesia pill. What did Tokyo Sexwale think he could discover from shack life that is not already known by every black person his age?

The one-night forays of the minister into the dangerous battlefield of Diepsloot sounds and feels like a huge publicity stunt. This comes down to turning our political and developmental challenges into a soap opera to amuse the masses and keep them hoping.

But it also shows up the disingenuousness of politicians.

• Sexwale forgets it was matchbox houses that made him politically active in the first place.
  

• Sexwale forgets completely that most people in Diepsloot were dumped there by the ANC government with promises of a better life for all.
• In fact, the minister has already blamed the “previous regime” for the service delivery protests we are witnessing right now.
• By previous regime he doesn’t mean the apartheid government but the ANC under Thabo Mbeki.

Sexwale has even forgotten that he was once the premier of Gauteng and so belongs to the “previous regime” himself.

The Sunday Times reported that Sexwale is buying a whole island in Mozambique – yet the people he represents, and in whose interests he had gone into exile and to jail, continue to live precarious lives in shacks and in poverty.

Is this not the simple reality that must make us question what it means to be free? Hasn’t our freedom been sold under the tables of BEE deals?

The housing question is a problem inherited by the post-1994 government.

It needs a fundamentally different and democratic means to solve it. This solution must be related to other developmental challenges, such as income generation and livelihoods for the people.

Building houses is not rocket science. But instead of empowering communities we have surrendered this area to white construction monopolies that have made shocking profits.

A few examples since 2004: Aveng Group profits have grown by 1 854 percent from R170m in 2004 to R3,3bn in 2008, Murray and Roberts is up by 516 percent from R415m to R2,6bn and WBHO is up by 745 percent from R128m to just over R1bn.

It’s embarrassing but true that the matchbox houses built in the apartheid era are of a higher standard than most RDP houses our government has built.

We need to cut out the spectacles and get down to doing the simplest things.

- Sowetan

Backyard dwellers demand change

Angry backyard dwellers in Khayelitsha's Mandela Park - who burnt tyres in the streets of their neighbourhood - have given the provincial housing department a week to address their concerns or they will illegally occupy empty housing units in the area.

The residents, who protested there on Monday as police and private security guards kept a close watch, say they are at their wits' end and want action now.

Their leader, Loyiso Mfuku, said the residents had previously written to the department about their issues, but had received no response.

And he said that if the department did not resolve their grievances soon, they would illegally occupy the 53 empty units in their community.

The backyarders said they were "fed up" with their ANC ward councillor, Ryder Mkutswana, who they accused of failing them on service delivery.

During their protest on Monday, the backyard dwellers charged that Mkutswana and SA National Civics Organisation leaders in the area were "parcelling out" or selling unoccupied RDP houses to their "friends, relatives and girlfriends".

"The registration process for the houses is shady. They (leaders) are giving their friends and girlfriends first preference when filling out forms for the houses," one protester alleged.

Another said: "We want a fresh councillor. We are fed up with Mkutswana. He is not concerned about us. There is no development in our area.

"We are sick and tired of fraud and corruption."

Yet another, showing off alleged receipts, complained of having bought an RDP house for R1 500 from a then community leader in 2006, which, he said, he had never received.

"I want my money back," he complained, alleging that the seller was now working in the provincial housing department.

The residents also expressed unhappiness over "outsiders from Gugulethu and Site C" getting "first preference" in the allocation of housing units in Mandela Park, "while we are getting nothing".

"Our children should occupy these houses," said a mother of three, a backyarder there for about 20 years.

The residents dispersed only after government official Mbongi Gubuza, from the housing department, addressed them briefly.

He said Housing MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela was scheduled to address them next Sunday.

Meanwhile, Mkutswana denied any wrongdoing, saying that those who alleged that he was corrupt should "bring the proof".

He was "hands on" in his constituency, he said, and the "issue of backyarders is at the top of my list". He said he would ensure that local backyarders were catered for when the empty units were handed to their new occupants.

Mkutswana alleged that there was "someone" behind the protest, accusing the residents of "toyi-toying because they see these things on TV".

- Cape Argus

Cape Town housing: City spinning its wheels?

The vast majority of people still on the City of Cape Town's housing waiting list after 30 or more years are there because they don't want to move to drug and crime-infested areas such as Manenberg and Hanover Park.

Daphne King, communications manager for the City of Cape Town's housing directorate, said the older people, especially, were very specific about where they were prepared to live. The more sought-after suburbs were Kew Town, Bridgetown, Retreat and Grassy Park.

King said people would rather linger on the waiting list than move to remote areas far from economic activity.

'A flat in Kew Town is preferable to a house in Delft'

"A flat in Kew Town is preferable to a house in Delft, for example," she said.

There are more than 300,000 applicants on the housing database, and an estimated 100,000 more who need housing but haven't registered yet.

King said that every month about 1 700 people were added to this list, which added up to 20,400 a year.

Last year the city was able to supply just over 9,000 units - nowhere near enough to make even a dent in the backlog.

"Sometimes it feels like we are wiping up under a dripping tap," King said.

'In many instances the contact details have changed'

She said the city had started buying up land and "banking it", but the release of land was a problem, as it was scarce and expensive.

Many applicants have also remained on the list, termed the Housing Need Database, for long periods of time because they had not updated their contact information. The city's existing housing policy - drawn up in 2004 - shows that an onus was placed on people who applied for housing to "inform council of any change to personal particulars and circumstances".

The policy refers to "dated information" on the database. "In many instances the contact details have changed, while in others the applicant's circumstances have changed, which may mean they no longer qualify for a subsidy."

The housing policy proposes "an ongoing registration process" to update information that was submitted in an original application.

The database that now forms the city's housing list has a long and complicated past due to differing policies within various local authorities and the fact that separate lists were not combined until recently.

The first waiting lists to be computerised were processed by the former Divisional Council of the Cape between 1983 and 1984 and contained about 10,000 applications.

A database that combined the various lists in existence was not established until June 2006. This is now controlled by Brian Shelton, the head of "Housing Information" at the city, and currently holds 322 619 applications for housing.

This figure has often been reported as "400,000" because this includes officials' estimate of 100,000 people living in informal settlements who have a "need" for housing but are not registered on the database.

The housing policy passed by the city to Weekend Argus has also allowed a partial clarification of the application process that has been in place for five years, but has appeared to many as unclear.

According to the document, to qualify for rental housing, "applicants cannot be the current owners of any property and their gross monthly income may not exceed R7 ,000 a month. They must be at least 18 years of age and able to legally contract."

The document states that to qualify for subsidised housing, applicants must meet guidelines set by the National Department of Housing, which stipulates that applicants "must be married or have other dependents"; neither applicants nor their partners may have owned a house before; and their combined income must not exceed R3 500 a month.

"The Provincial Housing Board" receives a list of new registrations every three months so it can confirm the eligibility of applicants. If someone is not eligible, then the province will inform both the individual concerned and the city, so that a note can be placed on the database.

The application for a particular housing project is a separate process to registration. Based on an indication from the province that they qualify for inclusion on the list, the city will send out confirmation to newly-registered individuals that they are on the database.

For each new housing project an "Initial Project List" is drawn up which comprises names of those who existed on the database. Anyone on the city's list who qualifies for subsidised housing may apply for a house, and the council is required to notify all those on the list who have requested housing in the geographical area of the project. Applications for this list will then be "taken on a first-come first-served basis".

This list will then be approved by the province once it again checks that all applicants are eligible and that the process was "fair and transparent". The province then forwards the approved list to the MEC responsible for housing, who will award the relevant subsidies.

"A full screening" is also conducted by government bodies, including the Deeds Office - to check property ownership - and the National Department of Home Affairs - to check marital status and identification numbers.

The policy also noted that an updated National Housing policy required a contribution of R2 479 from people applying for subsidised housing. Therefore, "those who save fastest are served first".

Housing officials said a "revised policy" had been drawn up and was waiting approval from the council.

- Cape Argus

Sexwale's Slumber parties fail to impress NGOs and Cynical residents

Residents of Diepsloot were less than starry-eyed this week after a visit by Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale. Diepsloot is one of many areas where service delivery failures have provoked incensed community members to take to the streets in protest.

Sexwale confidently made his way through the smelly sludge in narrow alleyways in Diepsloot on Monday.

Attended mostly by members of his department, local councillors and journalists, he said government officials need to expose themselves to the conditions in which poor people live. "I am here today on a listening campaign," he said. "I want to know, who are you, what are you doing here, what do you want and what made you come here?"

He was embarking on a "journey" to assure residents that the government wants to put an end to informal settlements, he said.

Most residents felt that it was just another political campaign.

Even the minister's three-hour nap in one of Diepsloot's cold, windowless shacks failed to impress residents.

"I don't buy into this publicity stunt," said Tshediso Kesi (30), a shack dweller who has lived in Diepsloot since 2000. Kesi said Sexwale's visit and sleeping in a shack was a joke and very patronising.

"Look, the minister only wanted to calm us down after the protest. He is not the first top politician to visit Diepsloot and he is not the last. He thinks sleeping in a shack makes a difference ... we have been sleeping in them for years."

Thamaga Masekoameng (24), who is unemployed, thought the minister sounded genuine and that his visit showed that he is concerned. But "that's how all politicians operate", he said. "We have heard it all before and unfortunately we will continue hearing these empty promises."

Masekoameng and his mother, Mmamoshibudi, settled in their one-room shack in the mid-1990s and said they have applied for RDP housing more than five times.

Said Masekoameng: "When we asked Tokyo about houses, he did not give us a clear answer ... he only gave us a lecture on government budgets and history. He only came here to console us.

"He is fooling us ... there's no way that this matter is going to be solved now. We'll just wait for the next elections."

Political analysts NGOs and service delivery experts agree with Diepsloot & Joe Slovo residents.

"Indeed, it was a PR campaign," said Dr Ubesh Pillay, a service delivery specialist at the Human Sciences Research Council.

"Since communities feel that conventional mechanisms of dealing with local government have failed, some form of higher-level intervention is necessary."

Pillay said that after Sexwale's visit to Diepsloot, Joe Slovo, Langa, Guguethu, Delft and President Jacob Zuma's to Balfour, residents will expect follow-through. Without that, perceptions will strengthen that the visits are no more than PR exercises.

Pillay said building houses in Diepsloot and other informal settlements is not a solution.

"Many communities would like their informal dwellings and shacks upgraded.

"In some cases residents prefer this to formal housing, as an informal settlement may be closer to economic opportunities."

To deal effectively with poor service delivery, a short-term improvement plan in the most affected areas is necessary in addition to more ambitious national goals.

Aubrey Matshiqi , an independent political observer, said the PR aspect of Sexwale's visit does not mean the government is unconcerned about the problems poor people were facing.

"The visit shows that the minister cares -- but it should not suggest that the residents' problems will be solved any time soon," he said.

Sexwale and his team will visit other townships across the country where there have been reports of poor service delivery, including the N2 Gateway in Cape Town and some townships in the Buffalo City, Mangaung and Durban areas.

- M&G

Clinton visits housing projects in Cape Flats

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rounded off the South African leg of her African tour on Saturday with a visit to housing projects on the Cape Flats.

At the Victoria Mxenge project at Philippi, a marimba choir welcomed her with a rousing version of "Daar kom die Alibama", a song about the arrival of a Confederate raider in Table Bay during the American Civil War.

Clinton laid a symbolic brick for one of the project houses during a previous visit in 1998, with her husband former president Bill Clinton.

The Mxenge project, named after an assassinated anti-apartheid activist, consists of self-help housing erected mostly by women under the auspices of the South African Homeless People's Federation.

The US government has contributed $300 000 to the project.

Clinton was accompanied by two members of congress, Donald Payne and Nita Lowey, Assistant Secretary of State Johnnie Carson, and ambassador-designate to South Africa Donald Gips.

Their bus was met by dancing women in traditional Xhosa dress, accompanied by the T Ngwenya Gospel Brass Band.

After a brief meeting with Western Cape housing MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela, Clinton spoke to Vayithi Mkhize, owner of the house she helped with in 1998, who showed her the completed dwelling as well as the Zama Zama spaza shop and a garage he had built on to it.

Clinton also posed with the choir for media photos and television footage, joining in their dancing.

From Philippi she and her entourage went on to another federation project, at Site C in Khayelitsha. She was scheduled to hold a closed meeting with former president FW de Klerk at a city hotel later Saturday afternoon.

Clinton is on an 11-day trip to the continent. She has already visited Kenya and after South Africa will travel to Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Liberia and Cape Verde.

- Sapa

Sexwale puts eviction to Delft on hold

Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale has promised the residents of Joe Slovo informal settlement a reprieve, saying they will not be removed from the area to Delft.

"You don't come to people brandishing a judgment and saying move."

Sexwale said he was not defying a court decision, but that his own decision was to say "hold on, but I cannot implement the ruling now. I'm not moving my people until I've worked with them".

"we want to make this thing as humane and sensitive as possible," he said adding that the court ruling was an "activism judgment" and sensitive to the feelings and desires of the people.

He said the government wanted to correct its mistakes, and do the right thing.

Sexwale spent the the whole day interacting with residents, from Langa, Guguethu and Delft. At each visit, he was bombarded with a barrage of complaints, ranging from long waiting lists to defectd in government-provided houses, and corruption.

Read the full story in the Cape Argus

Why are there so many shacks today?

Understanding the problem is often a big part of the problem. It's an injustice that there are so many poor people living in shacks today. The phenomenon of renting the shack to be miserable and landless in adds injury to the insult. While some backyarders' shacks are on private land, most of the shacks where the poor are being unlawfully milked is someone else's abandoned private land or state land.

The “shacklords” are effectively unjustly enriching themselves at the expense of the private landowner or, worse still, the state. This is not a hand up, it's a foot on the back. The iniquity of having to pay some “shacklord” to live in a shack without a proper toilet, electricity and water is doubled by the fact that it's the poor and refugees who are being exploited in such an ugly fashion.

I too would stand in the road burning tyres and throwing rocks if I were being exploited like this.

Being poor and standing on the bottom rung of society should at least be free. As long as people are collecting rent from shacks and there is money to be made in this way more shacks will be constructed in double quick time.

Tackling the problem of shacklords will not be easy. Acknowledging that it is a problem would be a start. Minister Sexwale met a “landlord” in Diepsloot who has 4 shacks and is worried about his “business”. That this “business” adds directly to the “service delivery” problem did not occur to the minister is a real pity.

Minister Sexwale is talking houses that rock, but failed to tell the “landlord” to supply the water, electricity and toilet to the tenants!

I ask you:

"Should it not be illegal to rent out “accommodation” without a proper toilet, water and electricity?"

Sexwale wants 'a win-win situation'

Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale is confident a meeting on Friday with "his sister", DA leader Helen Zille, can resolve a dispute over large tracts of land the then ANC provincial government handed to the national Housing Development Agency the day before the April elections it looked set to lose.

"What we want is a win-win solution. At the end of the day this land belongs to the Republic of South Africa - not to Tokyo Sexwale or my sister Helen Zille or the MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela. It belongs to the country."

"From my side as the minister, I have the money and the dispute should be resolved so that the (homeless) people are not delayed, so that they don't suffer," he said on a visit to N2 Gateway housing projects on Thursday.

"We'll have open, frank and candid discussions (with) no baggage, all of us, so that at the end of the day the people must benefit. I think all of us want to solve the problem."

When the DA took control of the province from the ANC after winning the election outright, it uncovered the huge transfer.

Zille cried foul, saying it was an ANC conspiracy to prevent her party from delivering houses to the poor.

About 1 050 hectares, worth R500-million and enough for 100 000 houses, was transferred to the Housing Development Agency the day before the April 22 elections.

Another 350ha, large enough for 35 000 houses, was also transferred.

Zille's predecessor as premier, Lynne Brown, rejected the allegation and said the land transfers, initiated in 2008, were in terms of an agreement between the then-housing MEC Marius Fransman of the ANC and Sexwale's predecessor, Lindiwe Sisulu.

Sexwale said the dispute should be resolved speedily because the housing need was huge.

Madikizela agreed, saying the province was committed to working in unison with other spheres of government to ensure housing challenges were confronted.

Sexwale said his visit was to gather information about people's experiences of the N2 Gateway project.

He said there were about 2 000 informal settlements in the country and, while the government had delivered about 2,8 million houses in recent years, the national housing backlog was about 2,2 million.

About 10 million people did not have houses, he said.

Sexwale said that due to the global economic recession, he doubted the country would reach the goal of eradicating all informal settlements by 2014.

- Cape Times

N2 officials asked to return money or else

At least two former top City of Cape Town officials involved in authorising a R12-million contract for an IT company to manage the N2 Gateway project could be prosecuted for their "negligence" and "wasteful expenditure" - three years after leaving the city council.

The contracts were approved by former city manager Wallace Mgoqi and his chief financial officer Ike Nxedlana.

City manager Achmat Ebrahim on Thursday told Parliament's Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) that he had legal advice from Ashley Binns-Ward SC that the "entire N2 Gateway project was done in a statutory vacuum" and that there was evidence of financial negligence by Nxedlana.

Mgoqi, who signed off Cyberia's payments, also authorised the irregular expenditure of R9m for a consultant for the Jewellery City project that never got off the ground.

Ebrahim said the legal opinion, received this week, indicated the city could take action against the former senior employees.

The nature of this action still had to be decided and Ebrahim said the legal opinion would be referred to the council in the next two months.

The Scopa said those involved had to be brought to book.

"Someone has to go to jail," said Inkatha Freedom Party MP Narend Singh.

Democratic Alliance MP Mark Steele said the Cyberia contract, because of the irregularities, could be null and void.

"We are looking for the recovery (of money) or prosecution."

Scopa chair Themba Godi said: "Action does need to be taken against anyone who played a role in this fruitless expenditure."

But Nxedlana, now with the Richard's Bay Industrial Development Zone, said on Thursday the allegations made in Scopa were "a joke". "I have a track record of keeping my hands clean. I have never misspent a penny." He said he would consider taking legal action to clear his name if necessary.

Mgoqi could not be reached for comment and former mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo's cellphone was off.

In response to questions by the Scopa following the release of a special audit on the N2 Gateway project, Ebrahim explained that a technical evaluation team had ranked Cyberia sixth of 11 bidders.

This recommendation should have been sent to the external Goods, Services and Property Advisory Board (GSPAB), but instead it was sent to Mgoqi and Mfeketo for an "emergency decision".

Instead of signing off the recommendation, they referred it to the GSPAB. The board convened an unscheduled meeting on December 17, 2004 with only four of seven members present. The recommendation for Cyberia was then sent to the city's Supply Chain Management Committee.

An independent forensic audit commissioned by the city found the board acted outside of its mandate by performing its own evaluation.

Nxedlana approved the appointment of Cyberia that same day, without first establishing whether there was a business plan or funding. Ebrahim said Cyberia had expertise in information technology, not construction. He said officials asked Mgoqi to do an audit of the adjudication, but the city manager said he did not want to interfere with Nxedlana's decision.

The city conducted a forensic audit of Cyberia's contract in 2006 when the DA administration took over.

Those findings were given to the Auditor- General for investigation.

Richardson said a paper trail proved some officials had voiced concerns about payments to Cyberia, but were over-ruled by former chief operations officer Rushj Lehutso and Mgoqi.

Ebrahim said the senior officials implicated in the Cyberia tender irregularity had left the city council. Mthuthuzeli Swartz, who was head of the executive management when he was suspended because of involvement in the Jewellery City tender, was part of the GSPAB that recommended Cyberia.

He later resigned, as did Lehutso who, with Mgoqi, extended Cyberia's contract without a competitive procurement process.

The other member of the GSPAB was Bulumko Msengana, who is currently executive director of utility services.

Housing director-general Itumelang Kotsoane admitted the national Housing Department allocated funding for N2 Gateway without a proper plan.

City service delivery integration executive director Mike Marsden said officials on the N2 Gateway steering committee had told political leaders the target of building 22,000 houses in six months was unrealistic.

"We were told the construction of the 22 000 units was non-negotiable," Marsden said.

- Cape Times

Billions wasted in Gateway housing project

The national Department of Housing has come under fire on the N2 Gateway programme for failing to ensure that social housing legislation was implemented ahead of beginning the massive housing project, according to auditor-general Terence Nombembe's report.

Nombembe revealed a four-year trail of mismanagement, irregular procedures and waste in the state housing project in Cape Town, which Parliament's standing committee on public accounts suggested could have involved fruitless expenditure to the tune of
R2 billion.

While Nombembe was careful to point out that his investigation "does not express an opinion on the legal effect of the facts or the guilt or innocence of any person or party", he said he had provided an objective evaluation complying with the request for an investigation he had received from the department.

The watchdog parliamentary committee asked the city what action it would take to recover the money.

The city's chief financial officer, Mike Richardson, said yesterday that this figure was probably in the region of a much lower R90 million, but in any case the city had had no contractual arrangement with Thubelisha Homes, which was the project manager from early 2006. It is being replaced by the state Housing Development Agency.

Nombembe reported that Thubelisha, a section 21 company, had been appointed by the province without a proper procurement process and therefore "it cannot be concluded whether a proper assessment of their capacity to manage a project of this size and complexity had been performed".

He reported that, although a contract was entered into between the Western Cape provincial government and Thubelisha, it was cancelled by the province in September 2006 due to a breach of contract. However, a meeting in September 2006 of the national housing minister - Lindiwe Sisulu at the time - and provincial ministers agreed that the project was still the responsibility of Thubelisha.

Nombembe said it operated thereafter without a contract "or specific terms of reference". In addition, the Department of Housing should have ensured the Social Housing Act was promulgated before the Gateway project began, he said.

The director-general of human settlements, Itumeleng Kotsoane, Western Cape human settlements and local government department head Dave Daniels and Cape Town city manager Achmat Ebrahim reported that there was no evidence of formal resolutions why the city of Cape Town - by early 2006 in opposition party control - had been removed as implementing agent.

Nombembe also reported that funding to complete the project was not secured before it began, as required by law. In July 2007, only R2.5bn of the projected cost of R4.2bn had been budgeted for.

He said R3.4bn was needed to finish the project this year. It has provided 16 737 units, whereas 22 000 units were meant to have been built in six months during 2005. Nombembe said there was a shortfall of R1.7bn, the bulk of which was meant to be paid for by the national Housing Department.

- Business Report

Former Cape Town mayors face off

A sequel in the battle for political control over the City of Cape Town began yesterday before Parliament's standing committee on public accounts (Scopa). Fingers were pointed at two former mayors - one ANC and the other DA - for allegedly meddling in the government's N2 Gateway housing project .

MPs, mainly from the ANC, asked why action had not been taken against city officials, including former city manager Wallace Mgoqi, who, together with former mayor and now ANC MP Nomaindia Mfeketo, apparently rammed through a decision by an advisory board to overturn a bid committee's recommendation over appointment of a management team for the housing project.

A black empowerment company, Cyberia Technologies, was recommended for appointment by the goods, services and property advisory board, overturning a bid committee decision recommending a company called Africon. Although a top city official tried to convince Mfeketo not to follow the board's recommendation, Mgoqi signed it off.

Cyberia - whose directors were Achmad Fuad Udemans, Taherah Matthews and Brian Shamrock - was paid R12.6 million before the contract was ended in January 2006. This included an amount of R5m paid at the end of 2004 and other payments of R3m and R4.6m. The city told Scopa that Mgoqi twice extended the contract.

ANC MP Roy Ainslie accused Mfeketo's successor, Helen Zille, now Western Cape premier, of "sabotaging" the N2 Gateway project. As mayor, he claimed, she instructed city officials not to attend the project's steering committee meetings, which included the provincial and national departments of housing. Zille, the DA leader, served as mayor from March 2006 until April this year.

DA MP Mark Steele objected to the inference, noting that city involvement had been removed - by the central government - from the housing project ahead of the March 2006 election when the DA coalition took power from the ANC.

It emerged that recently the city took the decision to participate again, but failed to attend a recent meeting. - Business Report

Sexwale tours CT townships

Cape Town - Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale has begun meeting with communities in various informal settlements in Cape Town on the second leg of his "fact-finding" mission.

Sexwale made headlines when he spent Monday night in a shack in Diepsloot to experience disgruntled residents' problems firsthand.

Now the former mining magnate is bringing his listening ear to the opposition-led city of Cape Town, and is also reportedly planning visits to informal settlements in Bloemfontein and Durban.

"It's a listening exercise - but we also want to see how government's money is being spent," special advisor to the minister, Chris Vick, told News24.

He noted that R12bn was being spent on provinces.

Sexwale, who himself was born in Orlando West informal settlement in Soweto,

may also spend the night in a shack in Cape Town...

View the informal settlements of Cape Town.

View in Google Earth * View in Google Maps

Walk-about

On Thursday morning, he met with Joe Slovo informal settlement community leaders and the local MEC for housing.

A walk-about was planned for the shack areas in Joe Slovo as well as rental flats built by government.

The community has long been protesting their forced removal to make way for government's flagship N2 gateway housing project - which has been beset by problems and protests under former ministers.

Vick said the new model of renting flats may not work because of a lacking "culture of payment for rentals".

He said the department wanted to assess the situation on the ground ahead of budgeting and strategic planning for the next five years of Sexwale's term in office.

The charismatic leader, who starred in South Africa's version of The Apprentice, was also due to visit Delft later on Thursday.

- News24

'Unrealistic' expectations for N2 housing

Politicians placed "intense pressure" on officials to build an "unrealistic" 22,000 houses for Cape Town's troubled multi billion rand N2 Gateway Project, city officials said in Parliament on Thursday.

City manager Achmat Ebrahim said in a written reply to questions from Parliaments Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) that municipal, provincial and national politicians involved in the project had ignored concerns raised by city officials.

"The N2GP was intensely driven from a political level that totally ignored all protests from the administration," Ebrahim said.

The aim of the N2GP was to provide housing adjacent to the N2 Highway between Bhunga Avenue near Langa and Boys Town in Crossroads.

'The city attempted to do what was possible.'

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

Concerns of city officials included the unrealistic timeframe of six months to build 22,000 houses, a lack of funding, land availability and resources and an "unacceptable policy background".

"It normally takes 28 months to commence such a project," Ebrahim said.

"There were a number of technical aspects that needed to be considered such as a feasibility study incorporating land, services and geo-technical aspects."

Ebrahim had been informed by officials involved in the project that they felt that they were left with only two options, either "resign" or "do your best".

'Somebody needs to go to jail.'

"They were of the opinion that once the project managers were appointed it would become clear that the political expectations were unreasonable and that there was no money," he said.

Mike Marsden, Cape Town's executive director of service delivery integration, told the committee that the politicians involved in the project were told "on a number of occasions" that the time frame for the project "was not achievable".

"The situation -- to provide 22,000 houses in six months -- was explained to politicians as not being realistic," Marsden said.

Despite this, it was indicated that the delivery of 22,000 houses was "not negotiable".

"The contention that we failed is against an unrealistic benchmark," Marsden said after a Scopa official accused the city of "failing" in the project and indulging in "fruitless" and "wasteful" expenditure.

"The city attempted to do what was possible."

Committee chairman Themba Godi said it was clear that decision on the project had been made at a political level.

"I am aware that when Cabinet approves something, it was brought to them by the Minister of Housing (at the time Lindiwe Sisulu)."

"The officials can't give us answers because the decisions were taken at a political level."

Committee member Mark Steele said if political pressure had been brought on the city it was necessary to bring the politicians who had approved the project before the committee.

Officials involved in the N2GP were also questioned on the decision to appoint an information technology company, Cyberia, to project manage N2GP.

Cyberia, which has since been removed from the project, had no experience in the construction industry and was initially listed as sixth on the list of recommended tenders.

It was selected after its tender was rescored by four members of The Goods Services and Property Advisory Board (GSPAB).

"Cyberia was experienced in IT and business skills which were not needed in this instance and therefore it is not understood why armed with this knowledge the GSPAB changed the score," Ebrahim said.

Cyberia, which was paid out around R12 million, was removed from the project in 20005 after it was felt that it was not doing the job.

Scopa member Narend Singh said somebody needed to be "brought to book" on the matter.

"That contract should not have been awarded," he said.

"Somebody needs to go to jail." - Sapa