Toilets to be private at last

The City of Cape Town has to replace all the toilets it removed from Makhaza and this time residents will not have to cover up with blankets when they use them.

Yesterday, Cape Town High Court judge Nathan Erasmus granted an interim order forcing the city to re-install 65 toilets and enclose them with corrugated, galvanised-metal sheeting and wooden frames.

Erasmus went to see the toilets in the informal settlement of Khayelitsha last week.

Three Makhaza residents - ANC Youth League regional treasurer Andile Lili, Ntombentsha Beja and Andiswa Ncani - brought an urgent application to the court to compel the city to rebuild and enclose the toilets.

The city built more than 1300 toilets and claimed that residents had undertaken to enclose them.

Though most of the toilets were enclosed, several remained open to the elements because residents could not afford to enclose them.

In his affidavit to the court, Lili claimed the situation caused friction among residents.

"Those who could not afford [walls] would approach those who were able to enclose the toilets for use of their toilets. This resulted in community members fighting over use of toilet facilities," he said.

"Those who could not afford to enclose the toilets used blankets to cover themselves when they were relieving themselves. The sight of old women relieving themselves in public was simply indecent," he said.

The city tried to erect temporary structures around the toilets but they were destroyed by residents who wanted concrete walls.

In a statement issued yesterday, Cape Town welcomed the ruling: "The city has repeatedly made the offer to the community that it is willing to re-install and enclose the 65 toilets removed from the area.

"Furthermore, the city has extended its offer of assistance to the entire community who received individual toilets and enclosed them themselves, and this will be communicated shortly to the residents."

The case is to continue next year.

- Timeslive

Mandela Park house chaos

Beneficiaries of a Khayelitsha housing project have spoken out about alleged fraudulent sales and illegal occupations of their houses. The Mandela Park Housing Project 823 has been constructed in phases over the past eight years and is nearing its completion, but has been wracked by sporadic protests – often violent – by Mandela Park backyarders over the fact that beneficiaries are from Gugulethu informal settlements.

West Cape News established this week that backyarders have illegally occupied about ten state-subsidised houses in the housing project since the beginning of the month, moving in as soon as, and sometimes before, the contractor completed them.

Additionally, the locks on about 15 of the houses to be occupied by beneficiaries have been changed by people attempting to lock the beneficiaries out and claim the houses for themselves.

Backyard dweller LuvoVanyaza also this week claimed the houses are being sold illegally.

“We found out that more than ten houses have been sold illegally by the beneficiaries and the contractor involved. We all know it’s illegal to sell an RDP house and we want those houses to come to us as backyarders.” said Vanyaza.

He said the backyarders had proof of beneficiaries selling houses and going back to live in informal settlements.

Meanwhile, a beneficiary from Gugulethu who wished to remain anonymous said she went to the company contracted to build the houses, Chiware Construction, to find out if her house was completed.

She said she was shocked to discover her name had been taken off the list of beneficiaries.

She said a foreman offered to sell a house to her, explaining that they sold the houses for which beneficiaries had died or moved away from the city.

And Zanele Ngqukuvane, who became a beneficiary after her mother’s death recently, said when she tried to move into her house she found that her keys had been given to someone else who claimed to have bought the as-yet-unfinished house from the building contractor.

She said fortunately she had a title deed and was able to prove she was the rightful inheritor but the ‘purchaser’ kept returning to the house.

“I heard that she said she’s coming back to put burglar bars on the house so I may not get access,” said Ngqukuvane.

The Chiware Construction site manager, when interviewed, refused to give his name or comment on the allegations.

“We are contractors, our job is to build houses, that’s all,” he said.

Housing MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela’s spokesperson Zalisile Mbali said: “We’ve been asking people to come forward with the information, especially in Mandela Park.”

“We cannot do anything if the people are not coming forward with proof,” he said.

– West Cape News

Asheville area leads nation in hempcrete construction

When it comes to hemp building, business is booming.

[Except In South Africa where we have both the housing demand and raw product...]

“Western North Carolina essentially is the capital of hempcrete building in the United States right now,” said Gregory Flavall, the co-founder of Hemp Technologies, the Asheville-based company that supplies the hemp-based building material to contractors.

Two hemp-based homes have been completed in Asheville, one in West Asheville and another off Town Mountain Road, and another is going up in Haywood County near Lake Junaluska. Flavall says his company has dozens of projects lined up, both in WNC and throughout the country, including in Texas, Colorado and Hawaii.

Hemp construction undoubtedly got a nice boost, Flavall says, from an article in USA TODAY and a segment on CNN. Over the past six to eight months, interest has picked up domestically, as well as from overseas, with inquiries coming in form the Netherlands and Romania. Hemp Technologies has 38 projects in development, and Flavall said he and his business partner likely will add up to eight employees in the coming year or two to handle demand.

Asheville led the country into modern hemp building, with the Nauhaus Group, a collaborative of local companies, building the West Asheville hemp home at 67 Talmadge St. The other hemp structure, a 3,100-square-foot house on Town Mountain, belongs to former Asheville Mayor Russ Martin and his wife, Karen Corp, and was designed by local company Push Interior/Architectural Design + Build.

Versatile, efficient - but illegal to grow

The case for hemp building is simple — it offers tremendous insulation, pest-resistance, strength and malleability.

But, it's illegal to grow in the United States. Builders can import industrial hemp products like Tradical Hemcrete, which Flavall's company sells, but they can't buy hemp from local growers.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency still considers industrial hemp a “schedule I” illegal drug because it's a variety of the cannabis sativa plant that marijuana is derived from, a position that dates to a 1937 change in the law. Before that, farmers throughout the U.S. grew hemp for hundreds of products ranging from clothing to rope.

The industrial hemp plant contains very little of the active ingredient that gets people high, and it's completely impractical to smoke. Still, it's banned, so that leaves it up to people like Flavall to import it from Europe or Canada for building projects.

Often generically referred to as “hempcrete,” the mixture that's going into the Haywood County house starts with 55-pound bales of hemp shiv, or ground-up hemp plant stalks.

General contractor Vincent Cioffi and his crew mix it into a standard concrete mixer, four parts hemp, one part lime and one part water. The slurry mixture goes into small containers, and then they pack it between forms to make a wall.

In this house, the walls are 12-inches thick and will take about a day to dry and about two weeks before they're ready for exterior coatings of lime stucco. Inside, workers are installing magnesium oxide sheathing for walls, a product that breathes and is nontoxic, instead of conventional wall board.

While the hemp material breathes, it doesn't let water in. It's also mildew-resistant, and it has a lifespan runs 600-700 years.

“Eventually, if you don't want the house anymore, you can use the hemp as fertilizer,” Flavall said.

Worth the cost

Homeowner Roger Teuscher, a retired farmer and school superintendent from Florida, said the nonchemical nature of the material and its incredible insulation factor appeal to him. The 3,100-square-foot home has a traditional roof, but all the exterior walls are hemp construction.

“Cost-wise, it's a little more than regular construction, but not that much,” Teuscher said. “I had been to the other ones under construction in Asheville, and it looked very solid and secure. This material was used in houses in the time of Shakespeare, and most of those houses are still standing. They might've been knocked down, but not because the hemp failed.”

Generally, the hempcrete costs 10-15 percent more than traditional construction, but homeowners get that money back in reduced heating and cooling costs, as well as a reduction in homeowners' insurance because the hempcrete is not flammable.

Flavall and builders also note that the lime in the mixture is constantly taking in carbon, so the product is actually carbon-negative, not just carbon neutral.

A full-sized home requires about two acres worth of hemp.

Cioffi, whose Via Bella Development Inc. is building Teuscher's home, said he likes working with the product.

“We did have four laborers on this, so it's a little more labor-intensive compared to the conventional side,” Cioffi said, adding that the product is easier to handle, though.

On this house, Cioffi and his crew will use about 400 bales of hemp and 600 bags of the lime-based binding agent. He and Flavall estimate the cost of the hemp at $56,000.

“It's been touted as the most green, sustainable and renewable product out there,” Flavall said.

- Citizen Times

Department finds up to a third of RDP houses illegally occupied

Up to a third of all RDP houses in Philippi’s Samora Machel area could be illegally occupied, a recent report by the provincial Human Settlements Department has revealed.This follows a four month investigation by the department into the occupation of state-subsidised housing in Samora Machel and Mandela Park in Khayelitsha.

The department’s report, which was completed two weeks ago but released to West Cape News this week, noted that in Samora Machel 1457 out of 4139 (35%) houses were potentially illegally occupied.

The breakdown of the figures revealed that officials were refused entry to 527 houses while the occupiers of 197 houses allowed officials in but refused to answer specific questions.

It was discovered that 235 houses were sold in violation of the national department’s pre-emptive rights clause forbidding the sale of state subsidized houses for the first eight years of their occupation, and the owners could not provide legally binding sales documents.

Furthermore, 498 houses remained unaccounted for as there was no-one home despite a minimum of three visits by officials.

The figures given by Human Settlements MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela’s spokesperson Zalisile Mbali showed that housing in Mandela Park was also in a parlous state.

Of the 1 385 RDP houses surveyed, 684 were legally occupied, with the status of a large number of the remaining 701 houses remaining unknown.

The occupants of 187 of the 701 remaining houses were supposedly renting, but could produce no documentation to back up their claim.

There was no-one home at 457 of the houses and six houses remained vacant.

Squatters had illegally moved into 51 of the Mandela Park houses.

Mbali said many of the people claiming to be renting their RDP house said the official owners were living in other cities such as Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth, or had moved back to villages in the Eastern Cape.

Some said the official owners had moved into shacks in Khayelitsha Site C and lived on the rental paid to them.

He said the survey revealed that a number of housing beneficiaries sold their houses in violation of the department’s pre-emptive rights clause.

The beneficiaries sold their houses for a number of reasons, he said, ranging from shoddy building work to needing cash for the funerals of deceased relatives.

Most of the people who claimed to have bought the RDP house they occupied had no title deeds proving their ownership although some had affidavits from the police.

However, Mbali said before making recommendations, the department wanted to engage with the relevant communities.

“The MEC has interrogated the information on the report and we will call the communities involved and tell them of the findings and discuss with them the way forward,” said Mbali.

“We are happy that the survey has been completed because now we know who we are dealing with and what we will need to do.”

Mandela Park backyarders Association coordinator Khaya Xintolo said they welcomed the conclusion of the study but were waiting for Madikizela to present it to them.

“We don’t know what is recommended in the findings and we want Madikizela to come here and tell us what the results mean for us, as backyarders,” said Xintolo.

This investigation comes after a Khayelitsha woman, 35, who is known to West Cape News, revealed that she was part of a syndicate illegally selling RDP houses to unsuspecting individuals.

The woman, who was a Sanco executive committee members at the time she sold the RDP houses, said the houses were sold from between R5 000 and R11 000 depending on the site and whether construction on the house was completed or not.

Ardiel Soeker, acting programme director for the Development Action Group (DAG), said the findings illustrate the inappropriateness of the formal tenure system for the low income housing market.

“The formal tenure system is inaccessible, financially burdensome and does not take into account the realities of the low income housing market where housing is frequently transacted through extra-legal means.

”The continuation of this formal, legally onerous process is based on the erroneous belief that building asset capital through the provision of title will deliver people from poverty. In reality, the opposite is happening,” said Soeker.

He said between the formal tenure system and reality on the ground needed to be addressed to ensure tenant security and reduce fraud and corruption.

– West Cape News

Talks on Hangberg eviction saga

Cape Town - The parties in the Hangberg eviction saga are talking to each other about the possibility of mediation, a spokesperson for the City of Cape Town said on Monday.

The matter was scheduled to appear on the Western Cape High Court roll again on Monday.

However Kylie Hatton, speaking for the city, said the parties had agreed to hold back another court appearance while they talked on the possibility of a mediated settlement.

"But the court remains an option for us if we don't succeed," she said.

The city is seeking the removal of some 50 shacks it says are built on a firebreak on the mountainside above the Hangberg settlement in Hout Bay.

In September police faced a barrage of rocks and petrol bombs when council workers demolished a number of unoccupied shacks in the area.

Some of the shacks are on SANParks land - the Table Mountain National Park - and some on council land.

SANParks, originally the first applicant in the eviction application, is now a respondent, along with the shack-dwellers.

- SAPA

‘No hope of saving them’

A Gugulethu mother is in hospital in a state of shock after learning that her husband, their three children and her brother-in-law died in a shack fire that destroyed 10 homes.

Mzoxolo Hlalayedwa, 34, his three children, Asoze Pomtala, 10, Onako, 8, and Esinako, 5, and his brother Siyabulela Saliti, 19, died in a fire that destroyed their shack in the Barcelona informal settlement on Friday night.

Neighbours say the fire started in the family’s shack.

Fire and Rescue spokesman Theo Layne said 10 shacks were destroyed in the blaze.

Four fire engines, three water tankers and a rescue vehicle were at the scene just after 1am and the fire took over an hour to extinguish.

Gugulethu mother Ncakiswa Pomtala was in the Eastern Cape at the time, having stayed behind after a family funeral. On receiving the news of her husband and children’s deaths yesterday, she went into shock and had to be admitted to hospital. She was unable to speak, said relatives.

Hlalayedwa’s sister, Nomathamsanqa Hlalayedwa, said she arrived at the shack to find it engulfed in flames.

“It was so hot. There was no hope of saving them.”

By the time the fire had been extinguished “the shack was finished”, she said.

Nomathamsanqa watched helplessly as her family’s bodies were removed from the burnt-out shack.

The fire follows at least three others in city’s informal settlements last week.

Residents of an informal settlement in lower Woodstock lost almost all their possessions in a blaze that broke out in the early hours of Thursday.

An elderly man was burnt to death and over 80 shacks were destroyed after the inferno left residents destitute.

On Tuesday morning one person burnt to death after a fire started among shacks in Masiphumelele and spread to surrounding formal houses. Forty-eight people were believed to have lost their homes.

That same day a man burned to death after his home, also in Barcelona, Gugulethu, caught alight, trapping him inside.

Last month the City of Cape Town’s Disaster Risk Management expressed concern over the increase in the death rate in informal settlement fires.

This was said after a mother and her 18-month-old baby boy burnt to death in a shack fire that left at least 40 people destitute in Phola Park informal settlement in Philippi.

Eight shacks were gutted and in each case the households lost all their possessions.

Spokesman Wilfred Solomons-Johannes said by last month at least 60 people had lost their lives in shack fires across the metropole this year.

He said this number could be higher as there were no statistics for the number of people who had died in hospital from shack fires.

In September six members of the Mzoboshe family, including four children under the age of five, died when their Khayelitsha shack was gutted by flames. The incident was one of many tragedies caused by a spate of fires which had taken 11 lives in just four days.

Two Steenberg children, a three-year-old and a 14-month-old baby, were killed when their Wendy house caught fire as they slept.

Despite the efforts of their father, Clint Atwood, the children could not be saved and were later found in the remains of the family home, burnt beyond recognition.

Hours after the Khayelitsha fire, a 15-month-old toddler died of smoke inhalation from a fire that broke out in a two-bedroom Belhar home.

The previous day a young boy had died in a shack fire in the Doornbach informal settlement near Milnerton.

- Weekend Argus

MEC to probe illegal selling of RDP houses

Western Cape Human Settlement MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela said his department is to probe how deeply rooted is the illegally selling of RDP houses in Samora Machel.

Recent investigations found around 230 homes were sold in violation of the national department’s pre-emptive clause, which prohibits the sale of state subsidy houses.

Madikizela said it also showed hundreds of residents are occupying homes illegally.

“Some of them have been living in those houses for a long time, I mean more than ten years but yet they are not in position of title deeds for those houses,” he said.

He revealed that they encountered a similar trend in surrounding townships.

“We have done a similar exercise in Mandela Park and also the investigation there revealed a number of cracks to us which we will have to tackle more or less the same way.”

- Eyewitness News

Many see red on wine farm plans

A Constantia wine farm once co-owned by the Minister of Human Settlements, Tokyo Sexwale, is at the centre of a dispute over plans to develop a luxury housing estate on it.

Constantia Uitsig applied last month for rezoning to allow it to build a 30-unit up-market housing estate on part of the 60ha property.

This would help to finance construction of a winery, the replanting of ageing vines and other improvements.

But scores of Constantia residents have objected to the company's request to convert part of the farm to housing. Lindsay Speirs, a consultant at the firm conducting the environmental impact study for the rezoning application, said it had received about 300 comments.

"Mostly, people aren't happy," she said. "They think the rural sense of place will change and it will be a precedent for other farms to go the same way."

Sexwale resigned from Mvelaphanda, a company with wide ranging business interests, after being appointed to the cabinet to avoid a conflict of interest.

A consortium led by Sexwale purchased a 50% stake in Constantia Uitsig in 2005.

Asked if Sexwale still had a stake in the wine farm, Sexwale's spokesman Chris Vick said all the ministers' business interests were held in a blind trust.

Lawrie Mackintosh, chairman of the Constantia Uitsig company, said Sexwale was an occasional customer at the award-winning restaurants at Constantia Uitsig, but would never intervene in the rezoning application.

Mackintosh said the proposed development included the first land reform initiative for farmworkers in the valley.

He said the 12 families living and working on the farm would be offered a 35% equity stake in the wine operation, with the option of owning their own homes in a nearby suburb.

"We have an established farm, we have an established brand. The idea is to give the farmworkers a stake in that," he said.

Mackintosh acknowledged reaction from neighbours had been "mixed". "One of the residents' associations is notorious for not wanting any change to the so-called rural lifestyle," he said.

- Timeslive

Cover up feared in housing scandal

Cape Town - Irregularities concerning a Cape Town housing project are on the verge of being indefinitely covered up, the DA said on Friday.

MP Mark Steele said the Standing Committee on Public Accounts had adopted the report on the Auditor-General's special audit of the N2 Gateway housing project in February 2010, but ever since then since then the report "has sat on the National Assembly order paper".

"New and apparently more important reports kept filling up the parliamentary order paper and Scopa N2 Gateway report fell further and further down the list," Steele said.

"The National Assembly has now concluded its agenda for the year and the report will in all probability fall permanently off the order paper.

"The failure to debate and adopt the AG's resolutions means that the scandal surrounding the initial planning, tender award, construction and management of the project will be covered up in much the same way that the arms deal has been covered up by powerful political forces within the ANC."

Steele said the origins of the N2 project lay in the Presidential State of the Nation address of May 2004 and the ANC's determination to use its control of all three spheres of government in Cape Town and the Western Cape "to implement a dramatically different style of housing delivery project which could be used as an election showpiece".

Business plan incomplete

The problem was that key legislation was not in place at the time and the project commenced without proper timeframes for planning and implementation.

In his report, the Auditor-General found that the business plan for the construction of the N2 Gateway project had not been finalised and approved before the actual construction commenced.

The City Manager of the City of Cape Town confirmed that officials of the city advised the M3 - then Minister of Housing Lindiwe Sisulu, MEC for Housing Marius Fransman and City Mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo - that the deadline of six months to construct 22,000 units could not be met.

"In his words, 'The M3's view was that as the money was available, the six months deadline was not negotiable."

The tender process for the award of the project managers contained numerous irregularities, including the selection of the company originally ranked as 6th by the evaluation committee and which lacked the necessary specialist expertise to perform the various project management functions.

"The physical defects during the early construction phase, in particular at Joe Slovo Park, were clearly visible when Scopa went on a site inspection visit.

Millions wasted

"These included cracks in walls and floors, loose or non-existent fittings, uncovered drain pipes and blocked drains. It was clear that compliance certificates and building inspection procedures had been rushed through as even the certificate for completion of the contract was 'erroneously issued', according to the Auditor-General.

"At the end of the day the people living in informal settlements for whom the project was intended have never been able to occupy the units, which they simply can't afford.

"Only 871 units of the revised number of 16,735 were completed by May 2007, two years after the project commenced.

"Millions have been wasted in a project which was mainly about political window dressing by the ANC and little about actual delivery to those desperate for affordable housing in Cape Town."

- SAPA

Court to order interim toilets

THE Western Cape High Court will on Monday order the interim provision of toilets in Makhaza, Khayelitsha, but an applicant in the case is not happy.

“This is what we don’t want,” complained Andile Lili, local ANC Youth League treasurer, at the end of a site inspection yesterday.

Lili addressed his gripe to residents, advocates and lawyers in Makhaza for the inspection.

While Judge Nathan Erasmus was inspecting a structure offered to residents by the city – the same kind as those that the youth league and residents destroyed earlier in the year when the City of Cape Town tried to enclose open toilets – Lili said:

“It is better when you are just looking and not using. It is only for pigs like us.”

Sanitation in the Makhaza settlement was yesterday subjected to unprecedented scrutiny as a large contingent of lawyers, advocates and Judge Erasmus gathered information to be used in guiding interim relief, and as evidence during the case, which is likely to be argued early next year.

Lili and two other Makhaza residents are asking the court to order that more than 1 300 installed toilets be enclosed with concrete, and that the city’s actions in reaching an alleged agreement – that the residents enclose these themselves – be ruled unconstitutional.

Whichever way the ultimate ruling goes – and it has already been said that it will probably go all the way to the Constitutional Court – it is likely to influence future developments, and policy and budgetary provisions countrywide.

Toilets at most homes had been enclosed by residents, many with concrete, while pipes protruded from some erven where unenclosed toilets had been removed.

Just one open and apparently unused toilet remained in a yard, and was meticulously scrutinised for future reference.

During the inspection, one senior advocate remarked to the Cape Argus: “If (only) something good can come out of this for all communities.”

Makhaza’s unenclosed toilets became a matter of national interest when violent protests around the issue spilled on to the N2 and politicians from all parties entered the fray.

One neglected sanitation issue on which the spotlight is sure to fall is the plight of the disabled.

Mbuyiseli Vellem, an elderly man in a wheelchair, showed how difficult it was to get into his outside toilet, which led the judge to ask how sanitation was provided for the disabled.

Later, Judge Erasmus asked whether the parties wanted to return to the court to argue the provision of sanitation to the infirm and disabled, before he drew up a second draft order.

The parties declined, saying they would comment on the draft before Monday, when the judge is expected to hand down a final order for interim relief.

Although the inspection was purely a fact-finding mission, lawyers and affected parties could not resist the temptation of scoring a pre-emptive point or two.

Norman Arendse, the lawyer for the Makhaza applicants, disapprovingly pointed out a toilet enclosed with timber and plywood.

“The same material the house is made of,” replied city manager of new housing Herman Steyn.

At a row of locked communal toilets, the judge halted Lili’s complaints over the condition of the toilets, demanding an answer only to the original question of how residents accessed them.

- Cape Argus

Why no debate on SCOPA's N2 Gateway Report? - DA

The Standing Committee for Public Accounts (SCOPA) adopted its report on the Auditor-General's special audit of the N2 Gateway housing project in February 2010. Ever since then the report has sat on the National Assembly order paper. New and apparently more important reports kept filling up the parliamentary order paper and SCOPA's N2 Gateway report fell further and further down the list.

The National Assembly has now concluded its agenda for the year and the report will in all probability fall permanently off the order paper. This means it may never be debated in Parliament, and perhaps more importantly that the recommendations contained in the report will not be adopted as resolutions of the House.

The Democratic Alliance believes that the failure to debate and adopt these resolutions means that the whole scandal surrounding the initial planning, tender award, construction and management of the project will be covered up in much the same way that the arms deal has been covered up by powerful political forces within the ANC.

The deeply politicised nature of the project was never in dispute. Its origins lay in the Presidential State of the Nation address of May 2004 and the ANC's determination to use its control of all three spheres of government in Cape Town and the Western Cape to implement a dramatically different style of housing delivery project which could be used as an election showpiece in the upcoming 2006 local government election.

Key legislation was not in place at the time and the project commenced without proper timeframes for planning and implementation. The Auditor-General found: ‘The business plan for the construction of the N2 Gateway project had not been finalised and approved before the actual construction commenced, with the result that ... the executive committee of political office bearers (the so-called M3) and the three spheres of government failed to meet their responsibilities in terms of the Memorandum of Understanding'.

In 2006 control of the City of Cape Town passed to a DA-led coalition and subsequently in 2009 the DA took over government of the province of the Western Cape. The consequences and costs of the bad planning, tender irregularities, shoddy construction and poor management of the project have thus had to be dealt with by new administrations and not those originally responsible. Political accountability has never been apportioned and the ANC has protected those involved from the proper public scrutiny.

SCOPA's recommendations covered the three main areas of concern uncovered by the Auditor General. The first related to defects in the initial planning phase, and specifically warns that professional advice from the appropriate housing officials must be followed and that the ‘risks associated with the project's proposed timeframes must not be compromised'. The City Manager of the City of Cape Town confirmed that officials of the City advised the M3 (then Minister of Housing Lindiwe Sisulu, MEC for Housing Marius Fransman and City Mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo) that the deadline of six months to construct 22,000 units could not be met and that, in his words, ‘the M3's view was that as the money was available, the six months deadline was not negotiable'.

This ‘non-negotiable deadline' suggested that massive political pressures were exerted on officials to make the project happen and the DA members of SCOPA were determined to bring the members of the then M3 before the Committee to establish their role in the process. Crucially this request in the form of a formal resolution put to SCOPA by the DA was defeated by the ANC majority on the committee, who were joined in the vote by every other opposition party represented on SCOPA.

The tender process for the award of the project managers contained numerous irregularities, including the selection of the company originally ranked as 6th by the evaluation committee, a company moreover which lacked the necessary specialist expertise to perform the various project management functions. Funds lost or wastefully spent may never now be recovered.

The physical defects during the early construction phase, in particular at Joe Slovo Park, were clearly visible when SCOPA went on a site inspection visit. These included cracks in walls and floors, loose or non-existent fittings, uncovered drain pipes and blocked drains. It was clear that compliance certificates and building inspection procedures had been rushed through as even the certificate for completion of the contract was ‘erroneously issued', according to the Auditor-General.

At the end of the day the people living in informal settlements for whom the project was intended have never been able to occupy the units, which they simply can't afford. Only 871 units of the revised number of 16 735 were completed by May 2007, two years after the project commenced.

Millions have been wasted in a project which was mainly about political window dressing by the ANC and little about actual delivery to those desperate for affordable housing in Cape Town. Showpiece projects which consume massive public resources are used for political and not service delivery purposes, and those who should be held accountable have been protected by their party structures.

Statement issued by Mark Steele, MP, Democratic Alliance spokesperson on Public Accounts Committee, November 26 2010

- Politicsweb

Playing with people's lives

SO THE promised houses will not be delivered - at least not anytime soon. While this is not surprising, given the pattern of service delivery in this country, it is nonetheless devastating.

If we put ourselves in the shoes of those men, women and children who have been homeless and destitute, yet full of hope and patience, the announcement that they will not be getting their long-awaited homes is sad news indeed.

They have been let down in ways that are indescribable.

The fault, according to the Minister of Human Settlement Tokyo Sexwale, lies with "a lack of proper planning ... and bulk infrastructure".

Another name for this is incompetence, lack of urgency, absence of compassion and playing with people's lives!

Earlier this week, he informed the nation that more than 60,000 families, who are supposed to get houses from the government will not see this dream realised.

He announced that various housing projects in Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo and in the south of Johannesburg have almost come to a standstill.

And we are told the situation is even worse in rural areas that have virtually no services at all.

In some instances housing units have been built but the roll-out is being hampered by the lack of infrastructure to provide basic services.

"There can be no viable human settlements without the urgent roll-out of large-scale electrification projects and the construction of new water treatment and sewage procession lines, including pipelines," he said.

While the minister also mentioned a lack of integrated planning, he should have gone further and called a spade a spade.

It is the responsibility of municipalities to provide the infrastructure and services and they have failed to do so. Pure and simple.

And this nonsense about a "lack of capacity" must stop. It is another fancy term the government uses so lavishly for incompetence.

Why do they never tell us why there is "no capacity"? I'll tell you why.

There is no capacity because some municipal offices are occupied by people who don't know what they are doing and do not have the grace to admit it.

Sexwale and his department should be commended for being honest and candid.

He could have hidden the facts and continued making promises that cannot be kept.

I guess we are so used to being let down and consistently lied to that when a minister speaks the truth and does not use big words and jargon as smokescreens, we notice.

So, well done Mr Sexwale, on that score. On that score only.

Granted, Sexwale has only been a minister in this portfolio for a year and a half and his predecessor, Lindiwe Sisulu, was said to be doing her best under the circumstances.

It is also evident that providing housing depends on other factors that might be beyond the scope of the housing ministry - like water, electricity, roads and so on.

But I would like to know why promises are made when plans have not been finalised?

Surely the strategy should be to deal with the nuts and bolts first, ensure that the infrastructure is being rolled out, lay the foundation and then make grand promises.

If the promises were made after agreements were reached with all other relevant departments and municipalities and these then subsequently reneged on their part, then heads must roll.

If there are people who did not do what they committed to do, what they are required by law to do, then it is not enough to simply tell the nation "sorry we can't deliver".

This is another example of the fundamental ingredient that is missing in South African politics and society - respect.

Those municipal authorities and government officials who sit at meetings or don't report for duty, steal from the public purse and don't deliver services because they have no respect for South Africans.

They do not care that somewhere a desperate family that has been waiting decades for its turn to live a normal life has now had its dreams crushed.

- Sowetan

Hemp House

CO2 negative for the construction and result in a healthy breathable energy saving home. This 42 sq meter building is to be used as office space.

Atlantis residents reject city shack plans

Atlantis residents have for the second time rebuffed the city’s efforts to relocate over 300 families squatting at the Vissershok landfill site to open land next to the Atlantis industrial area.In October last year residents of Atlantis’s middle class Avondale suburb were up in arms over the city’s proposal to set up a Temporary Relocation Area for the Vissershok squatters on vacant land east of the industrial area bordering on the western edge of the suburb.

The city retreated and has now identified three possible sites for the squatters, one of which is now on the south side of the Atlantis industrial area.

But Atlantis residents are adamant they do not want a TRA in their area and have submitted a petition with 3,000 signatories to the city objecting to the plan.

Initially, Avondale residents were concerned a TRA adjacent to their suburb would devalue their properties but of additional concern is that the high rate of unemployment in the area means already overcrowded state facilities would be further burdened and an influx of more unemployed people could increase the high levels of crime and drug and alcohol abuse in the area.

The city is under pressure to relocate the 312 families at the Frankdale informal settlement at the Vissershok landfill site near the N7 as the landfill site has reached capacity and the Frankdale families are living within a 50 metre hazard zone around the dumping site.

Koeberg Sub-Council Chair Claude Ipser said in 2008 the city planned to move the squatters to Van Schoorsdrift off the N7 but that was strongly opposed by farmers in the area.

Then “out of the blue” in 2009 the city advertised for comments on a newly identified site next to the Atlantis Avondale suburb, said Ipser.

“Some official, when asked to look for a suitable site, in his wisdom came up with the Avondale site. When I heard of it I sent an email to the director of housing and planning saying that this was lunacy and they must immediately withdraw it,” said Ipser.

He admitted that the city made a mistake in attempting to set up a TRA next to Avondale and that on both occasions identifying only one potential site.

“It was a disaster. It caused a lot of harm. It was a waste of time and money,” he said, “the person who came up with the site had very little sense of (community) dynamics.”

Regarding the newly identified possible site in Atlantis, resident and former ANC MP Danny Olifant said the city advertised for comment on a new TRA site in March this year.

He said a petition with “over three thousand signatories” objecting to the TRA was submitted to the City last month.

“Why can’t the city relocate those people to white areas? Last year in October (Cape Town Executive Mayor Dan) Plato and (Premier Helen) Zille promised that no structures would be erected in Atlantis after hearing our objections,” said Olifant.

He said the people they wanted to relocate to Atlantis were from an informal settlement and unemployed, meaning they would compete for the already scarce job opportunities in Atlantis.

State services such as the Atlantis Day Hospital was supposed to cater for 20,000 but had to deal with about five times that number, he said.

He said residents would fight the establishment of a TRA in their area “all the way to the Constitutional Court” if necessary.

Coordinator of the Atlantis Concerned Residents Forum, Melanie Andrews said schools in Atlantis were already overcrowded.

“Why can’t they build the shacks in white areas? Why Atlantis?” she asked.

Ipser said the relocation of the Frankdale residents was “urgent”.

He said the city had applied to the province to approve three sites currently zoned for agricultural purposes.

The sites were along the old Malmesbury road, south of the Atlantis industrial area and at the Morning Star small holdings area.

Although all three pieces of the land were owned by the city, the rezoning approval was required from the province, he said.

— West Cape News

Migration makes planning difficult for Sexwale

A number of MPs on the human settlements portfolio committee rushed to ask questions about housing and bulk service delivery when Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale appeared before the committee yesterday.

One after the other spoke about villages in their constituencies or near their own homes where there were houses built without services. One village near Tarkastad did not have electricity supply, complained one MP. Another complained about lack of services in his village in KwaZulu-Natal. Each one seemed to have a tale to tell.

Good-humouredly Sexwale said he was pleased that Butch Steyn – a Gauteng-based MP – did not raise the matter of poor delivery at any village nearby to where he lived. Steyn complained instead about the fact that there was “fiscal dumping” – spending by delivery departments, including housing, at the end of their financial years. This was suspicious as houses took a long time to build and there was something dubious about a sudden rush of spending at the end of each financial year.

Sexwale acknowledged that difficulties supplying services to rural areas was not only a South African problem. All developing countries had a push of the population to the urban areas. It meant there was “a scattering” of people living in little towns and villages all over the country. Pipelines had to be dug for “thousands of kilometres” to provide people with services. It was expensive – and probably unsustainable – to provide certain services to little communities of 150 people or fewer.

The push to the cities was something governments could do little about. Noting that he was very pleased to interact with the oversight committee – as he could “escape from cabinet”, which met yesterday – he said it was difficult to plan when there was constant migration from rural to urban areas. “The majority will move to the urban areas… unless there is a dictatorship.” That probably means that people will not be forced to stay in places – at gunpoint – where the services have been provided in rural areas.

Eskom

Eskom was a bearer of good news this week – something uncommon in the company over the past two years.

First, it reported impressive results for the six months through September, in which it recorded a R9.5 billion net profit.

Second, it announced that it had solved its R50bn funding shortfall by either securing or identifying funding sources.

Third, it has begun signing up some independent power producers (IPPs) who will deliver 277 megawatts of power. The parastatal is working on more contracts with IPPs and other mechanisms of securing power supply over the next three years.

Brian Dames, the chief executive at Eskom, also happily announced that the utility had not only kept the lights on during the World Cup, but there had not been any load shedding since April 2008.

And not only is the company financially stable but it has filled critical executive positions within a short period of time.

Dames said Eskom realised it also needed to eventually get to a point where it would not rely on state financial assistance and “thereby allow the government to free up resources that are needed elsewhere in the country”.

Since Eskom would now be able to fund all its capital investment commitments up to 2017, Dames said it was up to it to deliver – the company has no more excuses.

Dames also went on about how the power utility had done an introspection that produced six imperatives that would make it a better firm.

Malusi Gigaba, the newly appointed Minister of Public Enterprises, said he was delighted to be welcomed into the portfolio in this fashion. He was referring to the interim results.

So, it looks like there is hope at the end of the tunnel. One just hopes Eskom will maintain the momentum and not drag the country back to darkness.

Cape Town tourism

Hosting the Fifa World Cup seems to be paying off already for Cape Town – at least in terms of tourism from overseas, even if other parts of the country are not yet benefiting to the same extent.

After the initial disappointment that the event was not followed up by tourism arrivals in early spring – leading to forecasts that the hoped for boom would not happen until late next year – both the Cape branch of the Federated Hospitality Association of Southern Africa (Fedhasa) and the regional tourism authority Cape Town Routes Unlimited report an encouraging start to the tourism season.

The numbers are arriving, mostly from the UK, Germany and Holland at this stage. They are not spending as freely as in past years, but this is not surprising. At least they are here.

However, the pleasure felt in Cape Town by the tourism arrivals has been dampened by news that the UN’s 17th Conference of Parties (COP 17) on combating global warming, to be held in December next year, will be held in Durban and not in the Mother City.

Dirk Elzinga, the Cape chairman of Fedhasa, described this as a “terrible disappointment” in view of the campaign to make Cape Town a green city and the fact that the Western Cape had the only wind farm in South Africa providing renewable energy. He pointed out that the conference would attract about 30 000 people and Cape Town – which currently has 18 five-star hotels in addition to others of a high standard – was better able than Durban to accommodate the delegates and other arrivals.

In view of this, he suggested that the decision to have it in Durban was a political one. But Elzinga – who until recently was managing director of the Cape Town International Convention Centre, which is run on very “green” lines, saving electricity and water and recycling waste – added that although COP 17 would not come to the city, 40 other international conferences would be held there next year.

-IOL

Switch of housing grants mooted

HUMAN Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale yesterday threw down the gauntlet and told MPs his department may need to transfer grants from underspending provinces to other provinces .

Addressing the portfolio committee on human settlements in Parliament, Mr Sexwale said it was a concern that most provinces were not spending all their human settlements grants .

According to a Treasury report earlier this month, the Free State, KwaZulu-Natal and Western Cape have spent less than 35% of their human settlements grant midway through the financial year. The Eastern Cape, Gauteng, Mpumalanga and North West have spent less than 45% of their allocation.

Mr Sexwale said the transfer of grants to provinces that can spend the money would be in the interests of service delivery.

"We do envisage that, in the interests of overall delivery in the sector, there may be a need for the transfer of funds from some provinces to better-performing ones," he said.

The provision of bulk infrastructure such as water, sanitation and electricity were slowing down the government’s housing delivery programmes, Mr Sexwale said.

There could be no viable, let alone sustainable, human settlements without the urgent roll-out of large-scale electrification projects, the construction of new water treatment and sewage processing plants, including pipelines "to bring fresh and clean water to the people".

"The provision of these infrastructural projects after top structures have already been built brings about massive additional costs. The cart cannot be put before the horse," he told the committee.

The government has been struggling to meet its housing targets since the dawn of democracy. It recently estimated that 2,1-million new houses were needed to address the current housing backlog. In 1994 the figure was 1,5-million.

Mr Sexwale cited what he called "living examples" of challenges caused by the lack of bulk infrastructure.

"Human settlements developments south of Johannesburg have almost come to a standstill due, essentially, to the lack of a sewage plant — the estimated cost of which would be beyond R3bn," he said.

"KwaZulu-Natal’s largest new major project, Kornubia, where 50000 houses are planned, is hamstrung by the lack of bulk infrastructure."

But despite the challenges, "the department was on top of the situation", Mr Sexwale said.

His department was working very hard to ensure that by the end of the financial year, no roll-overs should be experienced because of capacity problems, he said.

Housing expert Prof Titos Khalo, a senior lecturer in public management at the Tshwane University of Technology, said by admitting these challenges and indicating what steps needed to be "energised" to heighten housing service delivery in SA, Mr Sexwale appeared to be "on top of the situation".

- BusinessDay - NEWS WORTH KNOWING

’Fresh approach is needed to deal with housing backlog’

MPs have instructed Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale and his officials to get creative in order to tackle the country’s housing backlog.

The Minister briefed Parliament’s Housing Portfolio Committee on Wednesday, when the Western Cape was identified as one of the worst under-spenders.

MPs believe a fresh approach is vital in dealing with the country’s housing problems.

South Africa currently has 2,700 informal housing settlements nationwide.

Committee member Butch Steyn said, “We need to start thinking out of the box. We need to do exactly what they are doing in Limpopo; we need to start thinking of developing new cities.”

Minister Sexwale agreed that there are challenges, including rural South Africans’ growing attraction to cities.

“Everybody wants to come to Johannesburg, Cape Town... [The] biggest headache is urbanisation,” he said.

However he said about 8,000 housing projects are currently under construction in an attempt to deal with the situation.

- Eyewitness News

Sexwale pressures MECs to account for housing backlogs

Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale on Wednesday said he will be meeting with his senior management officials to study reports from the nine provincial MECs on how they plan to deal with the housing backlog.

The Free State, KwaZulu-Natal and Western Cape have been named as the biggest under-spenders on housing developments.

Sexwale earlier briefed MPs on the issue. He said that with 2,700 informal settlements in the country, under-spending cannot be allowed.

The minister has demanded to see turn-around strategies from all the MECs.

“There are those which are leading; there are those which are in the middle like Gauteng and so on and there are those which are lagging behind, which is Free State and the Western Cape."

He added that they have demanded to know what each of the provinces’ recovery plans are.

- Eyewitness News

Infrastructure problems slowing housing provision: Sexwale

FUNDAMENTAL problems in providing bulk infrastructure, such as water, sanitation and electricity, are slowing down government’s housing delivery programmes, Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale said today (November 24).

“There is cause for concern,” he told the National Assembly’s human settlements committee.

Sexwale cited a Treasury report -- issued by Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan on November 18 -- which raised “disquiet” at under-spending by provinces on capital spending.

Gordhan said, in aggregate, provinces had spent 33% of their combined capital budgets -- a decline of 23.5% compared to the same period in 2009/10.

Sexwale said within this context, human settlements in particular was experiencing varying degrees of under-spending in provinces.

Two provinces in particular -- Limpopo and the Northern Cape -- were “ahead of the curve” midway through the financial year.

“But there is cause for concern in respect of others and room for improvement,” he said.

According to Gordhan’s report, three provinces -- Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, and Western Cape -- had spent less than 35% of their human settlements grant midway through the financial year.

The Eastern Cape, Gauteng, Mpumalanga and North-West had spent less than 45% of their allocation.

Sexwale said the main risk to meeting delivery targets “is the challenge of providing bulk infrastructure to human settlements projects”.

“There can be no viable, let alone sustainable, human settlements without the urgent rollout of large-scale electrification projects, the construction of new water treatment, and sewage processing plants, including pipelines to bring fresh and clean water to the people.

“We cannot continue to dot the landscape with top structures without providing bulk services below the ground,” he said.
In addition, there was the added need to provide roads, storm-water drainage and streetlights.

The provision of these infrastructural projects after top structures had already been built brought about massive additional costs.

Human settlements developments south of Johannesburg had almost come to a standstill due essentially to the lack of a sewage plant -- the estimated cost of which would be beyond R3-billion, he said.

KwaZulu-Natal’s largest new major project, Kornubia, where 50000 houses were planned, was hamstrung by the lack of bulk infrastructure.

In the Eastern Cape, a 5000-unit project in Port Alfred was at risk.

Some 500 units had been completed and were due to be handed over in two weeks’ time.

A lack of bulk services -- in this case, major waterworks, such as a desalination plant to treat sea water, a plant to clean river water, or construction of a new dam -- was delaying the rollout of the remaining 4500 homes.

“What is even more onerous is the mandates for the rollout of these critical large-scale bulk infrastructure projects do not lie with the human settlements ministry.”

Thus the need for a more integrated, planned and co-ordinated approach across relevant national departments.
However, Sexwale reassured the committee his ministry was “on top of the situation”.

“We are working very hard to ensure by the end of the financial year, and also by the end of this term, no rollovers should be experienced because of capacity problems.

“Nonetheless, we do envisage in the interests of overall delivery in the sector, there may be a need for the transfer of funds from some provinces to better-performing ones,” he said.

– Sapa

MEC refuses to speak to 'silly' backyarders

In a heated meeting at the weekend, Zalisile Mbali, spokesperson for human settlements MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela, said Madikizela would no longer talk to the "Backyarders" because he saw them as "silly".

"What is the point of entertaining silly people," Mbali said.

The MEC's tough stance is sure to worsen the situation in an area where locals protested last week after 100 people from other communities took over a newly-built housing development. The Mandela Park Backyarders Association later distanced itself from a fracas that erupted on the site where houses were vandalised. At the meeting angry residents accused two people of being spies for the DA.

"These iimpuku (mice) traitors are here armed with their recording cellphones to give Madikizela insight into our social movement. We know them and they are here now," some residents claimed.

Backyarders chairperson Loyiso Mfuku slammed Madikizela, saying "even though the Backyarders distanced themselves from the violence employed by certain residents of Mandela Park, Madikizela still treats us as criminals, refusing to meet us to defuse the situation and intimidating our children [at a crèche]".

Mbali said not everyone living at Mandela Park should expect to be given a house.

"Some people did not want to divulge how they got into Mandela Park. Now that the audit has been completed the MEC will see how to allocate houses to the needy."

- Sowetan

Locals resist outsiders

Beneficiaries of a housing project in Eerste River will have to wait a little longer for their house keys after a group of residents opposed to having “outsiders” from Gugulethu prevented them from moving in at the weekend.

On Thursday, residents went on the rampage, throwing bottles and stones in clashes with police over the housing project in Beverly Road.

They were reacting to the Western Cape Department of Housing’s decision to give houses from the Our Pride project in Eerste River to beneficiaries from Gugulethu.

Security guards said the people from Gugulethu were supposed to be moving in yesterday, but no one had arrived by the time the Cape Times visited the area.

They said the people were turned away when they arrived with their furniture.

An armoured police vehicle was parked at the entrance of the complex in case more violence flared up.

“They are housing people from other places here and there are people who have been waiting for houses for a long time. It doesn’t make sense to have people from Gugulethu,” resident Colin Lawerlot said.

He said scores of backyarders had been desperately waiting for a house in Eerste River. “They are all living in wendy houses in backyards.”

Corrine Meyer, who lives in front of the housing project, said they would protest until the problem of homes had been resolved by the housing authorities.

“We are protesting because we don’t want people from Gugulethu, people from Mitchell’s Plain. There are people who live in backyards,” Meyer said, adding that they were monitoring the area to see if people moved in.

“People are sitting through the night to see (whether) the people are moving in. People even came here with their furniture.

“On Thursday people were throwing stones. I was also shot at. I have been on the waiting list for 32 or 33 years, but you will find a 22-year-old gets a house. How is that possible?” Meyer asked.

Another resident, Sandra Botha, said she had been on the housing waiting list for 20 years and could not sit around and watch “outsiders” benefit.

Housing MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela said the 300 beneficiaries from Gugulethu would move in “come hell or high water”.

“There are no outsiders here – these are people from South Africa. If people think Eerste River is an island, we are going to use force. If you go to Gugulethu, you will see that there are no prospects of development. There aren’t any big enough sites. Those people are going to move in. We are not going to create a race class. We’re talking about integration,” Madikizela said.

- IOL

Residents cry foul as houses fall apart

RESIDENTS of the Newfields Village housing project in Hanover Park, Cape Town, want a building contractor who is hired by the government fired because it allegedly sold them shoddy homes.

Auditor-general Terrence Nombembe last week sent inspectors to the 2300 homes - built by the Cape Town Community Housing Company (CTCHC) - to look at their cracked walls, exposed electrical cables, damp and toilets that continuously break.

The AG's inspectors would not comment to the media except to say that Nombembe would release a report to Parliament soon.

Gary Hartzenberg, of the Newfields Village Community Representative Committee, said he had been battling with the CTCHC since he moved into his house in 2002.

He said they were initially told they would have to pay R350 a month for five years and would then own their homes.

Earlier this year they were told to pay a R1 200 monthly "rent".

He still does not own the house he lives in.

"They have built us the worst houses in history. There is no cement between the bricks. The floors have cracks."

Fungai Mudimu, chief executive of the CTCHC, said they were taking legal action "against those that are not honouring their instalment obligations".

Mudimu said residents initially agreed to pay R850 a month. But that agreement had been cancelled earlier this year "when clients were in breach of their contracts".

"Had they honoured their monthly instalments they would have owned the houses after five years.

"Since the houses were built, more than 1000 purchasers have taken ownership of their houses," Mudimu said.

- Sowetan

Lack of services remains the core of ongoing Khayelitsha protests

Four Golden Arrow buses, a government car carrying matric exam answers, private cars and trucks are among vehicles set ablaze over the last two weeks.

Last weekend a bus transporting children to a camp was also stoned, slightly injuring two children, and a pre-school was badly vandalized because the owner would not let residents hold a community meeting there. The streets in and around the TR Section Bongani informal are strewn with rubbish, rocks and burnt debris.

While the protests may have been sparked by shack dwellers movement Abahlali baseMjondolo’s call for a month of service delivery protests over October, TR Section continues to burn.

As to who’s responsible, fingers seem to be pointed in all directions but it appears that while there are indications of political opportunism, the 2 500 residents of the informal settlement are genuinely frustrated over years of what they perceive as broken promises, and they have had enough.

Following the burning of three vehicles in TR Section on Tuesday November 11, ABM Western Cape chairperson Mzonke Poni released a statement blaming the ANC Youth League.

Poni said the ANCYL represented the “interests of the predatory elite within the ANC” and were aattempting to “hi-jack the legitimate struggles of the poor in Cape Town in an attempt to win back power from the DA”.

Co-ordinater for the ANC Youth League Dullah Omar region, Loyiso Nkohla, denied stoking the protest action.

While some TR Section residents say ANC and ANC Youth League leaders do regularly address protest planning meetings and are looking to put the DA-led council in an unfavourable light ahead of next year’s local government elections, these seem to be acts of political opportunism riding on a genuine way of frustration over lack of housing, electricity and water.

Some residents, such as Nowinile Mbaxa, 42, said ahead of the protests called by ABM in October, some ANC branch executive members spread rumours that the DA municipality would switch off water to the area.

Additionally, said Mbaxa, ANC leaders were saying that the municipality was deliberately not fixing broken and blocked drains in the area.

“The protests are as a result of ANC branch leaders conveying wrong messages about the DA led municipality,” said Mbaxa.

However, accusations of opportunism on the ANC’s part would also play into the hands of the DA who could lay the blame on political game-playing rather than on the lack of housing and services.

And an equal number of residents disagreed that politics played a part in the matter, and all expressed frustration at a lack of services.

A member of the TR Section residents committee who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the protests were apolitical and stemmed from long-standing frustration over the non-delivery of housing promised by the provincial government.

He said a succession of MECs and ward councillors had since 1995 made promises that housing would be provided for them.

The latest promise, made in 2008, was that 900 families would be moved to a new provincial housing development called Nievebegen in Kuils River.

‘We have conducted countless meetings negotiating with local government and municipality officials. We signed lots of agreement documents but nothing shows that we’re moving forward. In one of the previous meetings Provincial Human Settlement Department told us they are waiting for municipality to grade the area. But when we met with the mayor, Dan Plato, in September 2009, he told us they have never been requested as municipality to grade Nievebegen land housing. We then realized that someone out there is fooling us.”

Housing MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela’s spokesperson Zalisile Mbali said the building of 900 houses for TR Section Bongani residents had been delayed due to “technical problems”, but now “everything will be sorted out”.

“We will start preparing the land by the end of this month in Nievebegen next to Kuilsriver and the infra-structure will be done in May next year,” he said.

The City of Cape Town says so far the protests have resulted in about R1.5million in damages from destruction to roads, traffic lights and city property.

Golden Arrow spokesperson Bronwen Dyke said it would cost in excess of R5,6 million to replace four buses that have been set alight.

– West Cape News

Zille: Join the dots to find the culprit

Protests paralysing parts of Cape Town's Khayelitsha township are about local government elections next year and not about services, Western Cape Premier Helen Zille said.

"Building a following and a public profile through protest action is certainly one way of promoting your candidacy," she wrote on the Democratic Alliance website.

She said the ANC was out to create an illusion of spontaneous protest, but was actually associating itself with the burning, stone-throwing and destruction that is disrupting the lives of thousands in the area.

"Last week, three vehicles were burnt during a so-called 'service delivery' protest in Khayelitsha. Ironically, each of these vehicles was busy delivering a service to the community," Zille said.

"One was delivering matric exam scripts to the marking centre. Another was fetching disabled people (for whom the city provides a subsidised transport system). A third was transporting children to a camp for abused children. The fourth vehicle escaped the blaze, but was stoned. It was an ambulance responding to an emergency call in the community," she said.

Abahlali base Mjondolo, a non-party group that has been driving protests in the area, disowned the burnings and blamed them on the ANC Youth League.

The league in turn acknowledged that it was backing the protests to highlight what local ANCYL leader Andile Lili called Zille's broken promises.

Zille said photographs of the protests often included evidence in the background of service delivery ranging from refuse collection to construction.

"It is beyond irony that services are destroyed in the name of service delivery protests," she said.

Citing Lili's confirmation of the ANCYL's support for the protests, she castigated media for failing to report what she said was the obvious truth.

"Is anyone out there joining the dots?" she wrote.

- Timeslive

Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale signed delivery agreements with all nine human settlements MECs in Polokwane.

"These agreements are a contract amongst us to demonstrate that we are together in our pursuit of providing our people with proper settlements...," said Sexwale.

"The signing of these agreements, will ensure they remain accountable to the nation... We are all accountable to our people and the government, we cannot fail, we should not fail."

The signing of the province-specific agreements is part of the overall human settlements delivery agreement Sexwale signed with President Jacob Zuma in April this year.

The minister's spokeswoman, Mandulo Maphumulo, said the agreements are based on the government's 12 priority outcomes in which human settlements is outcome number eight.

The outcome puts emphasis on sustainable human settlements and improved quality of household life achievable through a number of interventions.

Limpopo premier, Cassel Mathale, also attended the meeting and called for a central blacklisting database of contractors who "defraud government [and] in the process deny many [people] housing opportunities".

- Timeslive

ANCYL admits to role in Cape protest

The African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) has openly thrown its weight behind continuing service delivery protests in Khayelitsha township, which turned violent when vehicles were stoned and a City of Cape Town bus for the physically disabled was ­petrol-bombed.

While there was initial confusion about who was involved, Andile Lili, the treasurer of the ANCYL in the Dullah Omar region, said residents had invited the league to take part in the protests, which took to the streets last weekend.

The barricading of roads in Mew Way in the township's TR section has disrupted traffic and there have been growing reports of stone-throwing and torching of vehicles.

School children en route to a year-end camp in Villiersdorp were pelted with rocks last Sunday, injuring two.

The ANCYL has come under fire for piggybacking on the protests to weaken the Democratic Alliance's hold on the Western Cape.

The violence follows last month's five-day protest against living conditions in townships, including Khayelitsha, organised by social movement Abahlali baseMjondolo. But Msonke Poni, Abahlali’s regional chairperson, said he was concerned about the continuation of the protests and the fact that they were becoming violent.

"The ANC Youth League is behind the protests. We know it is directly involved," said Poni. "The ANC is simply playing its political hand in the area. We believe it is behind the protests at a regional level."

But Lili insisted the league’s involvement was not part of the ANC's campaign for next year's municipal elections. "We haven't even started campaigning. We're leading the people because they have hope in us and we have the energy to fight for them," he said. "People from formal and informal settlements are joining in because they've just had enough of the lack of service delivery and broken promises by the Western Cape government."

Lili lashed out at Western Cape premier and DA leader Helen Zille, saying it was propaganda that she had been chosen World Mayor in 2008. She was selected because she was white, he said.

'Better service delivery under the apartheid government'

"We had better service delivery under the apartheid government," said Lili. "At least it built our people covered toilets. Now, we're given open-air toilets and a new bucket system. We’re going backwards."

Lili insisted that the league did not approve of the violence, which arose from anger. A meeting this week would decide whether the protests would continue non-stop for 14 days, he said. In spite of Lili's open admission of the ANCYL's role, Luvuyo Hebe, the ANC chairperson in Khayelitsha's ward 190, denied that the party was involved in organising the protests.

Residents had simply had enough of appalling living conditions, he said. Hebe said he was arrested last week after being wrongly accused of damaging the Khayelitsha community hall. "There was no case against me as I haven't been involved in the protests," he said.

However, he did say that the ANC supported the aims of the protest. "The premier is not helping the African people," he said.

Cape Town mayor Dan Plato agreed that parts of the township stood on sodden, low-lying areas that were not habitable, but he said residents had not heeded council advice to erect shacks on solid ground.

Plato said he had recently met top local leaders, including the Khayelitsha development forum and all ward councillors. "I was told these protests had nothing to do with service delivery, that it was about vigilantism, hooliganism and barbarianism," he said.

"I was told the metro police and the South African Police Service were not doing enough about the violence."

Plato said many ward councillors were "living in the shadow of death threats. A créche was closed by the protests the other day. And now a Dial-A-Ride bus for the physically disabled has been burned. How long can the police tolerate it when people throw stones and petrol bombs?"

The Western Cape minister of community safety, the DA’s Albert Fritz, said two people had been arrested on public violence charges and would appear in court shortly.

Zille says protests are ANC election tactics

Service delivery protests on the Cape Flats are partly the result of an African National Congress (ANC) campaign aimed at giving the impression that the Democratic Alliance (DA) does not care about the poor, DA leader Helen Zille said on Friday.

Zille said service delivery in Khayelitsha, where council vehicles were set alight last week, was bedevilled by conflict within communities about "who should benefit, who should move to make way for installation of underground services, who should get to work on the project, etc".

"But in the present situation there is an additional dimension," she wrote in her weekly newsletter SA Today.

"Local government elections are due in about six months, and hundreds of local activists are competing with each other be the chosen candidate for their ward, or to secure a place on the list."

'Protest action is the ANC's way of unseating the DA'
She said leading protest action had therefore become a way for would-be candidates to build a profile.

"In the ANC-dominated wards of Cape Town, there is yet another dimension at play because the ANC is determined to do whatever it takes to unseat the DA-led coalition in the city.

"Their agenda is to create the illusion of spontaneous community anger at lack of service delivery to reinforce the lie that the DA does not care about the poor."

Zille conceded that service delivery in Khayelitsha is "by no means perfect".

"But one thing is certain: there would be far more of it if it weren't for service delivery protests," she said.

"It is beyond irony that services are destroyed in the name of service delivery protests," she said.

- M&G

'Don't give houses to outsiders'

Eerste River - Beer bottles and stones came flying from one direction while teargas and rubber bullets came from the other direction on Thursday when residents of Eerste River and police clashed over a housing project.

The community was reacting to the Western Cape department of housing's decision to give houses from the Our Pride project in Eerste River to beneficiaries from Gugulethu.

According to police spokesperson Warrant Officer Annacletta Mothoala, community members became rowdy when they were informed of the decision.

"People on Wednesday night went to illegally occupy the houses so that Gugulethu residents would not be able to move in on Saturday. Some of the doors were kicked in."

She said stones and empty beer bottles were thrown at police when they wanted to remove the trespassers from the premises. A policeman was slightly injured.

Two women and five men were arrested for trespassing and for taking part in an illegal march.

They were expected to appear in the Blue Downs Magistrate's Court on Friday.

Houses being guarded

Police on Thursday afternoon stood guard in front of the houses and monitored the situation. They earlier had to drive away rowdy residents with rubber bullets and teargas.

Zalisile Mbali, spokesperson for Western Cape housing MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela, said the incident had taken them by surprise.

"We spoke to the people from the beginning and resolved disputes. They were informed that 300 of the houses would go to people from Eerste River while the other 300 would be given to families in Gugulethu," he explained.

He added it was unacceptable that people who had not applied for housing had occupied the houses.

"These houses have already been assigned to beneficiaries. There are people who waited patiently for their homes."

An Eerste River resident, Martha Wilson, said: "Our own people in Eerste River don't have houses. The people are all staying in shacks."

In the background there was being yelled: "It's our community. We will show you."

A resident, who wanted to remain anonymous, warned that they would burn down the houses.

"Rather give the houses to black people from Eerste River. I don't want people from Gugulethu here," she said.

- Die Burger

Man stoned to death in vigilante action

After being accused of theft, a Khayelitsha man was stoned to death by a mob of about 200 residents in Bongani area in TR Section on Monday afternoon.The man, Ayanda Mabheka, 27, died in the street in the informal settlement after having stones and half-bricks thrown at him and a concrete slabs dropped repeatedly on his body and head.

Resident Majola Buli said the story he heard was that on Saturday Mabheka visited another resident in the area. The man who was being visited left his shack for about half-an-hour to attend to some business, leaving Mabheka inside. When he returned, his tv, DVD and cellphone were gone and Mabheka was nowhere to be found.

When Mabheka was spotted in the area on Monday, residents apprehended him, said Buli.

He said from what he knew, when Mabheka could not produce the goods he allegedly stole, residents attacked him.

A resident passing Mabheka’s lifeless body on Monday afternoon was overheard saying: “Minus one problem. This is what we do to the criminals in this area. Even him, he knew that he was going to die.”

Buli said residents took advantage of the fact that most of the residents’ committee members were attending a court case that afternoon.

“We came back around two o’clock when they were beating him. They stopped when they saw us, but we could not do anything because the man was dying.”

Residents’ committee member Luvuyo Hebe said: “I was in court when the incident happened. The time we came-back he was lying on the road, dead.”

A resident who did not want to be named said the police had been called “but they never came”.

She said Mabheka’s body lay in the street for five hours.

“I decided to use my blanket to cover his body from the sun, because the police are taking long to come.”

Lingelethu police station spokesperson Siphokazi Mawisa said a murder case had been opened but no arrests had been made because residents refused to speak to the police.

– West Cape News

The House that Hemp Built – Construction Phase 1

Read all about the exciting developments see the pictures

Housing subsidy exceeded to give Kwana residents ‘dignity’

BITOU Municipality has been warned that its average over-expenditure of R40,000 per RDP house built in KwaNokuthula could become an R80-million debt.

In a report to the town council, consultant Stewart Scott said the provincial subsidy of R74,000 was being exceeded by R40,000 per RDP house across Bitou’s 2000-unit housing project in KwaNokuthula, “meaning that Bitou Municipality should provide approximately R80-million top-up funding”.

Scott said if the municipality was not in a position to contribute the R80-million, cost cutting measures on the civil engineering aspects of the project could be implemented, such as narrowing the township roads and tarring only major roads, leaving the minor roads gravel.

To cut costs back to the R74,000 per unit subsidy provided by the Western Cape housing department, a number of “nice to haves” could also be omitted from the KwaNokuthula RDP houses, including roof tiles, painted inside walls and covered patios.

The builders could also revert to construction of square houses, such as the RDP units put up in Qolweni. “The more square the house, the more cost efficient it will be,” Scott said.

Mayor Lulama Mvimbi however said local government’s commitment should be to provide residents with a decent quality of life, while at the same time remaining mindful that council had to watch its spending.

“Consultant reports can be misleading. We must remember that people live in these houses and need to feel like human beings.”

Mvimbi said in KwaNokuthula, couples who moved into their new houses could for the first time in their life sleep in a room separate from their children. “It has given them dignity,” he said.

Bitou has taken the lead in building low-cost houses that exceed RDP standards, which provides for a top structure with only one bedroom, a basin and a kitchen sink.

Municipal housing head Mark Fourie said the RDP standards were “terrible”, and pointed out that the provincial government subsidy had not been increased in two years while building costs continued to climb.

Community Services manager Monde Stratu said Scott’s report painted a bleak picture, but while the municipality had no intention of bankrupting itself or being reckless with town funds, it also wanted to exceed the poor RDP standards.

DA councillor Johann Brummer said the over expenditure was apparently the result of accepting tenders way in excess of the subsidy amounts, even though contractors had proved that “top class units” could be provided “well within the subsidy amount”.

Brummer proposed that council investigate how the “unauthorised expenditure” had been approved and who was responsible, but Mvimbi complained that council “does not have time to listen to all his (Brummer’s) rubbish”, and the DA proposal was rejected by the ANC majority.

Council did resolve to use an increased provincial allocation of R28-million for 288 houses in KwaNokuthula and to service 230 erven in Kurland. Council would “augment the shortfall on the housing subsidies as and when required”.

By contrast, about R5.5-million was saved on the RDP housing project in Bossiesgif/Qolweni, which could be used to fence the homes and plant fruit trees.

Council also resolved that small, medium and micro enterprises should be given opportunities to participate in large housing contracts.

- CXpress

W. Cape MEC slams vandalism of RDP houses

Western Cape Human Settlements MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela has labelled the vandalism of state-funded homes in Khayelitsha as acts of "hooliganism."

Disgruntled people from Mandela Park invaded RDP homes earlier this week, before they attempted to petrol bomb one unit.

They accused the authorities of sidelining them, by allocating 100 units to outsiders.

Madikizela said the housing allocation was done some years ago.

“Beneficiaries were identified years ago but because of the delays in the construction of their houses by Thubelitsha, we find ourselves in the situation where there’s a group claiming entitlement,” he said.

- Eyewitness News

Backyard dwellers vandalise houses

THE Western Cape housing department has clashed with backyard dwellers in Mandela Park, Khayelitsha, putting a housing handover on the line.

On Monday the department moved six families from Gugulethu to housing units in a controversial housing project in Mandela Park.

This sparked outrage among backyard dwellers who have for long have argued that they wanted 50percent of the units to be occupied by locals.

According to housing MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela's spokesperson, Zalisile Mbali, once the families had moved in at about 6pm the backyarders started vandalising windows and doors of the new neighbours' houses, forcing the families with their belongings out of their new houses.

This happened despite his department having discussed and prepared security measures for the families with the local Harare police station, he said.

The families were later helped by neighbours in the community and at the local Solomon Mahlangu Hall.

The backyarders said that they meant to organise a "peaceful protest" on Monday but a few others spoiled that and vandalised houses.

They said the government would have to provide houses for the impoverished Mandela Park residents.

"Things are about to explode here in Mandela Park. This is another Hangberg in the making. Until Madikizela comes to Mandela Park the entire community will be ungovernable. The anger of the poor can go in many directions and we might not be able to control it," the backyarders said.

Mbali said despite the resistance 94 families from outside Khayelitsha would be moved into the new houses.

Harare police station spokesperson Nosiphiwo Mtengwane said the "situation is under control".

- Sowetan

Summit addresses housing

The Integrated Network for Human Settlement in the Western Cape held a housing summit this weekend to obtain clarity on housing issues and future plans from the City of Cape Town and the Western Cape Government. According to the Mayoral Committee member for Housing, Councillor Shehaam Sims, backyarders are on the waiting list for housing as well as those living in overcrowded rental units.

“The City has records of 334,000 families who have indicated that they have a need for housing and half a million need housing in the province, as well as 180,000 families in the 223 informal settlements across the city,” she said.

Sims said that the housing summit had been called to discuss general issues such as the new housing plans and budgets for future financial allocation policy as well as for informal settlements.

“We had the intention of presenting common and actual information, but we found that there is fierce competition between informal settlements residents and backyarders, backyarders are claiming that those living in informal settlements are getting priority treatment to that of backyarders,” she said.

“There is a great deal of land owned by National government and we are looking at ways for it to be released to local government in order for us to build more houses for those who need it urgently.”

Sims said meetings will be held to determine the correct role-players in order to widen the scope and input on certain subject matters such as tenure options and housing opportunities.

“We are aware of the individuals who have been provided with rental units and are no longer using them and have now decided to rent these homes out to others… this is an unacceptable practice which we have to deal with. They cannot use this as an economic opportunity for themselves. We have to remain as fair as possible when it comes to housing,” she urged.

Sims also said the City is also aware of some residents who have managed to jump the housing list in Mitchell’s Plain. However details have not been made public knowledge as yet and will be divulged as soon as the situation has been investigated further.

- VOC