Cape loses open-toilet battle

The construction of unenclosed toilets at the Makhaza informal settlement on the Cape Flats meant that the City of Cape Town had lost sight of the constitutional rights and needs of the poor, the Western Cape High Court ruled on Friday.

In a judgment that lasted longer than three hours, Judge Nathan Erasmus declared the provision of unenclosed toilets at the settlement to be a violation of the residents' constitutional rights to dignity.

He ruled that an agreement concluded between the then mayor of Cape Town and the City of Cape Town itself for the provision of unenclosed toilets, was unreasonable, unlawful and inconsistent with the mayor and City of Cape town's constitutional duties to provide for the basic needs of the poor.

The judge ordered the City of Cape Town to enclose the 1 316 toilets that form part of the Silvertown upgrade projects which included the unenclosed toilets at Makhaza.

The DA-led City of Cape Town was taken to court by the ANC Youth League who accused it of violating residents' right to human dignity after 51 toilets were erected without enclosures in Makhaza, Khayelitsha in December 2009.

The ANCYL, on behalf of community members, lodged a complaint about the open toilets with the SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) in January last year.

The SAHRC recommended to the City that it reinstall the 51 toilets, but the city appealed against the SAHRC finding. - Sapa

Eastern Cape pioneering new fibre processing possibilities

Eastern Cape natural fibre cluster is likely to lead the country's initiatives in natural fibre processing, says Eastern Cape Development Corporation (ECDC) chief executive Sitembele Mase.

ECDC, together with the provincial Department of Economic Development and Environmental Affairs (DEDEA), the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and Cacadu District Municipality, are part of the team leading fibre development initiatives in the province. 

"Already R21 million has been invested in research and product development of these fibres.  Two hundred and six jobs have been created; 33 jobs in a hemp commercial pilot project and 173 jobs in the cashmere sector," says Mase.

There is a potential to establish a niche natural fibre cluster around the province's cashmere, hemp and flax, pineapple agave Americana and wool and mohair industries. The cluster works with partners in research, agriculture, industry, government and higher education with a view for beneficiation and addressing socio-economic issues, Mase says.

"The purpose is to map out the value chains for products in each industry and plan with stakeholders. That will help us identify solutions to gaps in the value chains. Part of the process is identifying gaps in technology and also those related to social and economic issues."

ECDC project manager and the cluster chairman Ken Bern says that while traditional fibres like mohair and wool industries have a century-old history in the province; crops such as pineapples are fast gaining ground.

The pineapple industry has already made inroads towards developing natural fibre, Bern says.

"Pineapples, as a crop, are not unfamiliar to the province. It has been around for over 100 years but the industry has been reenergized by opportunities as a result of a restructured process and a subsequent zero waste beneficiation strategy," says Bern.

This pineapple project has been funded to the tune of R60 million by the Eastern Cape Department of Agriculture and ECDC, together with additional investments coming from the farmers. This has resulted in increased plantings, the acquisition by Ndlambe Natural Industrial Products (NNIP) of a majority stake in fruit processor Summerpride Foods, a workers trust holding 26% equity in NNIP and a successful dietary fibre pilot project.

Numerous other opportunities are being investigated including various other fibres which can be extracted from the pineapple.

Recently the pineapple industry announced it had received its first commercial order for dietary fibre which brings to a close the first phase of the project. The fibre from the fruit is seen as a healthy additive to a wide variety of food, including, but not necessarily limited to bread, cakes and processed meat products. 

"The second focus area of the project will look at the possibilities of fruit's microcrystalline cellulose opportunities for use in the dietary fibre and pharmaceutical industries. This project has the potential to create between 400 and 600 jobs in Bathurst," explains Bern.

Successful beneficiation has also been achieved in the cashmere stream, which should take two to three years to come to fruition and has already generated 173 jobs.

The province is home to three million indigenous goats. The development of the cashmere industry is a key programme in the Industry Policy Action Plan (IPAP) for the clothing, textiles, leather and footwear sector.

In mohair, the project team is awaiting the Mohair Board which is waiting for the finalisation of a 50% stake by farmers from the Klipplaat, Steylterville and Jansenville area.  The project will take up to three years to become fully operational.

"Five black farmers recently graduated from skills transfer programme with the Mohair Growers Association," says Bern. To complement this activity, the Ikwezi Local Municipality, ECDC and CSIR are involved in establishing a one-stop shop which produces and sells mohair craft products in Jansenville, he adds.

Jansenville is located between Uitenhage and Graaff-Reinet. The initiative is a drive to transform the South African mohair industry, says CSIR scientist, Sunshine Blouw.

"Ikwezi Local Municipality is the world's mohair capital, but when you drive through there, you don't find economic activity to suggest (that is it the world's mohair capital). The industry is historically white so this is a transformational agenda," Blouw says. In the hemp project, yarn producer House of Hemp and the national department of social development, are collaborating in a six ha trial in East London. The crop has the potential to produce up to seven tons of hemp straw per hectare. The National Hemp Foundation of SA, an entity representing both the public and private sector parties interested in hemp, is the driver of the hemp initiative.

The national Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) directorate for plant production is responsible for coordinating efforts to submit amendments to current legislation to allow for commercial cultivation of hemp.  

Agave Americana is being investigated by the CSIR for its suitability as a dietary fibre (fructans). Primary research on its extraction and the development of other products such as textiles and handmade paper from by-product of leaf material has been completed.

"Our fibre research in the province has caught the attention of the Department of Trade and Industry, which together with a number of other fibres, has been listed in the country's industrial policy action plan for use in the textile, aerospace, construction and automotive sectors," ends Mase.

Natural fibre cluster fact file

Currently, five areas have been identified where there is a potential to establish a niche natural fibre linked industry

• Cashmere: The combed hair from the three million goats in the province will be used to spin into luxury yarns in the manufacture of garments.
•  Hemp and flax: Using crops new to South Africa and with established uses in other countries, hemp and flax could help revitalise the textile industry and be used as a source of seeds and oils.
• Agave Americana: The sisal plant, which grows in the Karoo and which has been used to make a tequila-type liquor, could help develop markets particularly as a raw material for several industrial uses.
• Pineapple: Having learnt from the innovative projects which make commercial use of the leaves, stems and roots of the pineapple plant, there are fibre opportunities for a plant which already has a solid base in plantations and has the involvement of black commercial farmers.
• Mohair and wool: New opportunities are being investigated for an old industry that will involve people previously (and currently) excluded from direct benefit in the beneficiation of the Eastern Cape‘s extraordinary resources of mohair and wool.

 

Goal: Create more jobs in the region by using the natural fibres produced locally as raw material inputs

- ECDC

Residents march to demand toilets

Instead of celebrating 17 years of freedom on Wednesday, about 2,000 Khayelitsha residents marched through the city centre demanding toilets and decent sanitation.

In recent months, the local government has come under attack in what has been dubbed the “toilet saga”, as thousands of Khayelitsha residents do not have proper toilet and sanitation services.

Residents say up to 15 families have to queue to use one toilet, which also exposes them to hygiene problems and crime.

On Wednesday, the Social Justice Coalition, based in Khayelitsha, held a protest march after a number of speakers addressed them at St George’s Cathedral.

“We call on the city to recognise as a matter of urgency the need for public maintenance and existence of sanitation services in Khayelitsha. The city must initiate a public consultation plan and implementation of the plan and a budget to ensure that every informal settlement in Khayelitsha has access to basic sanitation services,” Archbishop Thabo Makgoba said.

Marchers packed the church on Wednesday, many wearing T-shirts which said: “1994 queuing to vote, 2011 queuing for clean and safe sanitation”.

Vuyiseka Dubula, from the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), told the crowd: “It is the day we celebrate 17 years of liberation and we are discussing a basic right – sanitation – it is not a privilege. It is tragic so many years after our liberation that 10.5 million people across the country do not have access to water and basic sanitation – that goes against humanity. We want to remind the government that our constitution allows us the right to life, dignity and safety,” Dubula said.

TAC chairman Zackie Achmat started his speech by asking the crowd to stand and observe a moment of silence for Andries Tatane, who was killed by police during a service delivery protest in Ficksburg two weeks ago.

Achmat said: “We must celebrate this day, but we must also be angry but not violent. If we look at our mothers and fathers, we see the hope has gone out of their eyes. We cannot suffer the way they have, our anger must be translated to a peaceful call for change.”

Khayelitsha resident Mabel Somdle said: “Seventeen years after we voted for our rights, I am still queuing for basic services. This makes me feel like I no longer want to vote because not much has changed. We have waited long to use the toilet and we have to walk far. It is dangerous at night, there are reports of woman getting raped at those toilets.”

Residents marched to the civic centre to hand over a memorandum for mayor Dan Plato’s attention.

They held up posters asking for their dignity to be restored through adequate water and sanitation services. One protester held a bucket with “dignity in our lifetime” written on it. Dubula said it was “sad that people were still forced to use the bush or the bucket”.

When protesters arrived at the city council offices, they held a demonstration by forming a snake-like “queue for toilets”.

The memorandum was signed by more than 10,000 people calling on the city to improve the state of existing sanitation services and to put a time-frame in place to provide each household with basic sanitation and water.

- Cape Times

Our sadness on UnFreedom Day

For the poor in South Africa, there is no freedom.

Today from 10am till 2pm, the movements will come to QQ Section Informal Settlement for an UnFreedom Day rally. QQ was the victim of a huge shack fire just before Christmas in 2010 so the location is fitting for our Shack Fire Summit.

The Anti-Eviction Campaign, Abahlali baseMjondolo, the Backyarders, the Landless People’s Movement, and other community of people living in poverty throughout South Africa are not going to celebrate Freedom Day. Instead, we are going to mourn it. The 27th of April, to the poor, is a day of mourning.

We live in shacks, in other people’s backyards, in rotting council homes and other urban and rural ghettos. But its not only about where we live or what services we receive. UnFreedom Day is also a call for dignity. Because we are poor, the government treats us as though we are less than human. This is why we are forced to hold UnFreedom Day – to asert our right to dignity.

Today, our focus will be the scourage of urban informal settlements: The shack fire. For the past 17 years of ‘democracy’, our communities have been ravaged each and every year by easily preventable shack fires. The solution to shack fires? Simple: houses and electrification now!

We demand special attention from government for our communities (especially our children) which are victims of shack fires. We also demand statistics from government as to the extent of our victimisation from these fires. We demand a moratorium on the selling of land to rich foreigners from Europe and the US and for that land to be given to us for the building of houses.

For more information, contact:

Mncedisi 0785808646

For directions to QQ section, call:
Mzonke Poni @ 073 2562 036 or 083 4465 081
or Mthobeli Qona @ 076 041 0057

Sexwale goes to war with spy chief over 'plot' report

Minister of Human Settlements Tokyo Sexwale is going to war with crime intelligence boss Richard Mdluli.

Sexwale intends suing Mdluli in a bid to identify those behind a controversial report alleging he is leading a "plot" to unseat President Jacob Zuma.

The high-ranking member of the ANC will announce his plans for court action against the police chief this week.

Speaking to the Sunday Times on Friday, Sexwale confirmed he had consulted his lawyers about the "plot" against the president.

The report was compiled sometime last year and sent to Zuma's office in November.

But it only became known publicly recently when Mdluli - who is facing charges of murder and kidnapping - claimed in court that he was being persecuted because he had uncovered the "plot".

A separate civil case against Mdluli will also be filed by the Mvelaphanda Group, a private company founded by Sexwale.

The minister resigned his posts at the group when he was appointed to cabinet in 2009, but remains a major shareholder.

Action by Sexwale, as well as Mvelaphanda, comes after the publication of the "intelligence report" - said to have been declassified by Mdluli - alleging that Sexwale led a group of senior ANC leaders in "plotting" to oust Zuma at the party's elective conference in 2012.

Sexwale denied any involvement and now wants Mdluli to reveal the names of the people who ordered him to compile the report.

Government agencies, including the police, have distanced themselves from the 22-page dossier.

Mvelaphanda's involvement in the matter, said its chairman Mikki Xayiya, stemmed from the fact that the group's name had been tarnished by the report's reference to the alleged plotters as "the Mvela group".

"We are not acting with Tokyo. Our name was used by people with bad intentions of defaming Mvela. We want a full disclosure of who gave him (Mdluli) the instruction to compile the document," said Xayiya.

"We cannot have our name being associated with this kind of activity . We are a leading international company investing at home and internationally."

He said the company's lawyers had sent letters to the "relevant authorities" demanding clarity on the report.

Mdluli's lawyer, Ike Motloung, could not be reached for comment yesterday.

The document was compiled - according to unconfirmed reports - by freelance intelligence operators in KwaZulu-Natal. It claims that Sexwale and KwaZulu-Natal premier Zweli Mkhize held a clandestine meeting in the province in January last year to discuss the alleged plot.

It said members of the "Mvela group" also included national police commissioner General Bheki Cele and ministers Paul Mashatile, Bathabile Dlamini, Fikile Mbalula and Jeff Radebe.

Other members of the ANC national executive committee mentioned in the report are Julius Malema, Enoch Godongwana, Tony Yengeni and national treasurer Mathews Phosa.

Although the ANC has confirmed its leaders did have a political rally in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands town of Escort on the date announced in the report, it denied that most of those mentioned in the report were in the area.

Mkhize's spokesman, Ndabezinhle Sibiya, said the premier was also consulting with lawyers.

- TimesLive

Sexwale to keep fighting housing graft

CAPE TOWN — Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale yesterday vowed to continue fighting corruption in public housing, despite revelations that at least half of all the projects run by the department were encountering problems.

During the human settlements budget vote in Parliament, Mr Sexwale said visible progress had been achieved by the Special Investigating Unit, led by Willie Hofmeyr , which was investigating the "top 20 questionable contracts nationally to the value R2bn".

"Two of the investigations into the contracts have been completed and case dockets have been registered with the South African Police Service. These cases are now with the director of public prosecutions for a decision to prosecute and for the issuance of arrest warrants," Mr Sexwale said.

The government has long been struggling to meet its housing targets, largely due to poor implementation, corruption and the inability of provincial governments to spend their housing grants .

Last month, Mr Hofmeyr told Parliament that corruption in public housing was the Special Investigating Unit’s longest-running project .

He said that at least half of all housing projects undertaken by the department were "problematic in some way". Contractors were being paid for houses that did not exist, were incomplete, defective or fewer than the number agreed upon.

Mr Sexwale said five syndicates were targeted in various provinces. In one instance, three arrests were made in Gauteng. One of the suspects was a councillor in Tsakane, along with two accomplices.

"Criminals have been arrested. Corrupt officials and councillors have been dismissed. Monies from incompetent and fraudulent contractors have been recovered." One of the major challenges faced by the department was the rectification of shoddy workmanship, a process that cost the state large sums of money, the minister said.

"This is work that should not be done in the first place. It is a waste of resources, time and is costing the state substantial amounts of money, which should have gone for the building of brand new houses.

"Enough is enough regarding the incompetent shovel, wheelbarrow and bakkie brigade who line up for tenders and only end up cheating the poorest of the poor. This does not exclude some of the larger companies," Mr Sexwale said.

Prof Titos Khalo, a housing expert who is also a senior lecturer in public management at the Tshwane University of Technology in Pretoria, said yesterday that not much was to be read into Mr Sexwale’s comments in Parliament.

"Measures to fight corruption have been in place all the time and due to the human element they have been either circumvented or not effectively implemented, " Prof Khalo said.

- BusinessDay

SHACK FIRE SUMMIT

The above mentioned organization would like to invite your organization/ community/ area to SHACK FIRE SUMMIT that will be held at QQ informal settlement site B Khayelitsha on 27 April 2011 from 10:00am to 13:00pm.

The aim of the event is to:

1. Light candles in memory of those who lose their lives within shack fire and the victims of shack fires.
2. Explore the course of shack fire, governmental intervention, and other humanitarian intervention
3. To come up with a program/ campaign to call for electrification of all shack settlement

For further details and direction please call ABM @ 073 412 8218

Housing in state of crisis, says Sexwale

Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale has agreed with the DA that his department faces a crisis with more than a 1.5 million subsidised houses having been built so badly they need repairing or rebuilding, at a cost of billions.

"I am the Minister of Human Settlements, not the Minister of Rectification," Sexwale said in reply to debate on his department's R22.5 billion budget, up 38 percent on last year's.

In a presentation to MPs recently, the National Home Builders Registration Council (NHBRC) said that of more than three million houses built between 1994 and last year, only 409 100, or 13 percent, had been registered with it.

It estimated that of the remaining 2,638,500 houses, 40 percent or 1,055,400 would need rectification, and 20 percent or 609,520 would need to be rebuilt. It calculated the cost, at current prices, to be R58.7bn.

Butch Steyn (DA) said Sexwale's department lacked a coherent strategy to address the problem. With only R1.3bn allocated this financial year for rectification, "it could take 40 years" to complete this process.

Sexwale agreed there was a crisis and said the NHBRC was under his "watchful eye".

The Special Investigating Unit was probing 20 "questionable" contracts involving R2bn.

"Criminals have been arrested, corrupt officials and councillors dismissed, and money for fraudulent and incompetent contractors has been recovered."

- Cape Times

Sexwale: Free houses will stop

Cape Town - South Africa cannot give free homes to the poor indefinitely, the housing minister said Tuesday, while presenting a budget for the scheme meant to give solid roofs to millions living in shacks.

"Current increasing dependency and pressure on the state are not sustainable for the country going forward," Tokyo Sexwale told lawmakers.

"Somewhere, sometime in the future there will have to come a need to have a cutoff point on the government's subsidised housing, where people can begin to do things for themselves."

Build Your OWN Cannabrick Home click here

South Africa faces a massive housing backlog with 2,700 poorly serviced slums countrywide, partly a reflection of apartheid-era injustices but also of the current migration toward cities.

The country's 2011 housing budget was increased by 38% to R22.5bn.

Despite building millions of homes since apartheid, when blacks were forced to live on the edge of cities, housing remains a massive pressure on the state.

Authorities regularly battle protests in shantytowns by destitute black residents angered by rampant joblessness and poor amenities like water, toilets and electricity.

- SAPA

Housing in state of crisis

Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale has agreed with the DA that his department faces a crisis with more than 1.5 million subsidised houses having been built so badly they need repairing or rebuilding, at a cost of billions.

“I am the Minister of Human Settlements, not the Minister of Rectification,”

Sexwale said in reply to debate on his department’s R22.5 billion budget, up 38 percent on last year’s.

In a presentation to MPs recently, the National Home Builders Registration Council (NHBRC) said that of more than three million houses built between 1994 and last year, only 409,100, or 13 percent, had been registered with it.

It estimated that of the remaining 2,638,500 houses, 40 percent or 1,055,400 would need rectification, and 20 percent or 609,520 would need to be rebuilt. It calculated the cost, at current prices, to be R58.7bn.

Butch Steyn (DA) said Sexwale’s department lacked a coherent strategy to address the problem. With only R1.3bn allocated this financial year for rectification, “it could take 40 years” to complete this process.

Sexwale agreed there was a crisis and said the NHBRC was under his “watchful eye”.

The Special Investigating Unit was probing 20 “questionable” contracts involving R2bn.

“Criminals have been arrested, corrupt officials and councillors dismissed, and money for fraudulent and incompetent contractors has been recovered.”

- Cape Times

Give them handouts, keep them poor!

South Africans love poverty. For too long our government has come up with ill-considered policies for poverty eradication and then we as citizens empower it to carry them out. Yes, we love poverty!

To illustrate my point I want to share a story about my grandmother. She was raised by uneducated and jobless parents in a family of 12 children, living in a two-room quasi-house/quasi-rondavel structure. She despised the poverty cycle in which her extended family was stuck in so she committed to becoming the first in her family to complete high school. She worked menial jobs after that and used the little she had to train as a teacher in college. Years later when she was a well-respected teacher (who had to travel a daily 80km round trip to work on a bicycle) and had her own large family, they still couldn’t afford a fancy lifestyle. But she rallied her community to build their own homes by agreeing with the local bricklayers to help them out at a discounted rate. Today, although the community of Bethania in rural KwaZulu-Natal has few completely electrified homes with running water, the individual community members own large three or four-bedroom houses. And having seen many villages in KwaZulu-Natal, I can tell you that this rural community’s story is no anomaly.

I ask then, how is it that on the dawn of democracy, having seen such examples of community-triumph over the oppressive apartheid regime, our government decided to dedicate billions of rands to free housing? We had proof of enterprising black folk countrywide in spite of their abject poverty but they decided to create the largest free-housing programme in the world. And yes, I’m aware that by implication, the patriarch of the scholarship that breathed life into this Mandela Rhodes Scholar blog is partly responsible for this policy. Free housing has had an immeasurable effect on our progress as a people as it has led to widespread corruption ie when councillors sell RDP houses and the beneficiaries in turn rent them out, when public servants occupy RDP houses even though they did not qualify for them. On top of it the total estimated bill to fix all shoddily built houses, through tender irregularities and sub-par contractors, was estimated at R58 billion by Tokyo Sexwale last month. All of this has set us back a generation as we no longer know how to fend for ourselves or strive to attain a better life.

Our government has overpromised on many other so-called “essentials” when ultimately money should have been going into free education for the poor all the way up to tertiary level. The folks of Bethania are self-educated and have shown the positive effects of that education in how they managed to fend for themselves without the government’s help. All they had to do was look at Singapore’s 50-year development story. Singapore’s government dedicated its resources fully to a professionally-run, free education system. It incentivised students to take on public-sector jobs once they graduated to ensure that the country could be built from the ground up. This is a country that went from having less infrastructure than South Africa in the 1950s to becoming a developed country today.

I am not against governments playing their part in looking after the poor. I am a big supporter of free education as it requires work on the part of the recipient but free housing and ever-expanding child grants don’t require ANY work on the recipients’ part. In fact, I would go further and say that it’s the lack of free, quality education in 17 years that has seen poverty persist in our great nation. Sadly, we have continued to support bad decision-making on poverty eradication. And then compounded the issue by being complicit in the cover-up of our public officials’ corruption and incompetence when running essential services by continuing to keep them in power. We, as citizens, continue to short-change our future by insisting on “essentials” today. The Singaporeans had a long-term vision they worked towards and never substituted it for short-term pleasures that required no work.

This is my rally call to get people to vote for the local government they deserve come May 18. But then again perhaps I’m alone and the majority of the citizens of this country do in fact want the status quo to remain. Perhaps our leaders prefer to only have a small portion of our citizens educated as it ensures they hold on to power despite these atrocious policies. Perhaps this is indeed the government we deserve …

Nkazimulo Sokhulu finds practical solutions to the problems he encounters daily. And no, he is not a part of “Sokhulu and Partners”.

- M&G Thought Leader

MEC 'forcing us to join DA'

ANGRY Nyanga residents have accused Western Cape housing MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela of "forcing" people to join the DA if they want to benefit from a new housing project.

But Madikizela described the allegations as "really shocking" and said the residents must provide proof.

"I would never say something like that," he said.

The furore erupted this week after 10 residents from the Mpetha Square informal settlement told Sowetan that they had been billed for services and given title deeds for new houses in the Mpetha Square phase one housing development, but were now not permitted to move in.

The 58-house development is still unoccupied and some of the houses have been vandalised.

The group said Madikizela suddenly decided last week to allocate 50percent of the houses to "backyarders" from the Zwelitsha informal settlement who had recently joined the DA.

Zodwa Ndlovu, who has been evicted twice after moving into one of the houses, told Sowetan: "We are not interested in politics. All we want are houses. We will not join the DA to get houses.

"Getting only 50percent of the houses was never discussed with us. These houses belong to the people of Mpetha Square informal settlement."

Sowetan reported last December that DA councillor Steven Vuba had personally evicted Ndlovu, accusing her of getting the house "unofficially".

Nothobile Willie showed Sowetan a bill for services, though she has not yet moved into her house.

"Look, we are paying for the unoccupied houses. How unfair is that?" She said because they were already paying for the houses, some of her group became impatient and forced their way in twice, but were evicted.

Madikizela told Sowetan that he had announced seven months ago that 50percent of the houses would be given to backyarders.

"That piece of land was initially earmarked for backyarders. I decided to take the plight of the backyarders seriously ... We needed to prioritise both the groups on a 50-50 basis," he said.

"That land belongs to the government and we will use that land in order to make sure that everyone benefits fairly. Nobody had a problem when we made that decision seven months ago."

Madikizela said there were very old people living in backyards around Nyanga who had never benefitted from any housing project.

"We cannot continue prioritising people who live in shacks every time there is a project," Madikizela added.

The Mpetha Square housing project has been shrouded in controversy for some time. Last month, about 60 Zwelitsha backyarders visited the site to complain that the houses had been poorly built.

Backyard dweller Yoliswa Mriba complained that they had never been consulted about the development.

- Sowetan

South Africa’s road to ruin or salvation?

South Africa’s investigating unit (SIU) has been inundated with new cases revealing staggering corruption in the police, the public broadcaster, the land reform and housing subsidy systems, state departments and municipalities, a parliamentary committee was told last week. At the same time political economist and commentator Moeletsi Mbeki on an international website poses the question: “Will corruption lead the country to ruin or will it lead to the ANC's own ruin?

SIU head Willie Hofmeyr told Parliament's portfolio committee on justice: "We have received a flood of new cases. Some of them are very big." He outlined 16 new proclamations received by the anti-graft unit in the past financial year, the most ever in its 15-year history. Hofmeyr’s report prompted the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) to declare in a statement that it is “shocked, yet not surprised,”

It congratulated the SIU for its “determination to tackle what is clearly a massive and widespread growth of the cancer of crime and corruption within our public service and state-owned enterprises.”

Independent from the SIU report the reputable international website openDemocracy also last week carried an article by Mbeki in which he declares: “The presence of corruption from the top to the bottom rungs of the ANC government has detrimental consequences for the South African public sector and economy. These consequences may have important electoral implications for the ANC.”

Describing what five years ago looked pristine in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia he writes “we now know better - appearances can be deceptive,” and adds;

“South Africa and Tunisia are at the opposite ends of the vast African continent but share some commonalities. One of the sparks that ignited what turned out to have been a tinderbox despite its many positive economic indicators was the issue of corruption.”

There the president’s family ... commanded vast amounts of wealth through business deals. “Sounds familiar? During his 23 years as President, Ben Ali’s family came to have fingers in many pies – banking, tourism, telecommunications, distribution, air transport, car dealerships, publishing and influence peddling in general.

“South Africa’s First Family has been in power for less than two years and already sports iron ore prospecting rights in an existing iron ore mine, oil wells in the Congo, shipping businesses, gold mines and is soon to acquire billions worth of shares in South Africa’s largest steel maker ArcelorMittal to name but a few businesses Zuma’s family is engaged in since he became President in 2009,” he writes.

He notes that “Cosatu has woken up to the fact that corruption, even by its friends threatens its members’ livelihoods. In economic terms corruption is an extra tax that must be added to the normal cost of production. This makes the products which carry that extra tax more expensive relative to similar products produced elsewhere, where there is no such an extra cost.

“Leaving aside the very important moral and political issues not to mention the killings that are happening in the First Families’ gold mines, corruption therefore makes South Africa’s products uncompetitive globally, a road to ruin for South Africa as a country and to investors and workers in the affected industries.”

Corruption Watch

Cosatu convened a conference of civil society organisations to map out a strategy for combatting corruption. This infuriated the ANC leadership which denounced the conference as an initiative for promoting regime change.

The conference agreed that Cosatu spearhead an initiative to register an anti-corruption civil society organisation to be called Corruption Watch. “ This process is underway. South Africa is signatory to the African Union’s anti-corruption convention which stipulates that government work with civil society in the fight against corruption. So far this has not happened but must be expected to happen as Cosatu and friends roll out their initiatives. “This will surely be yet another point of friction between the ANC and its ally,” he writes.

He also points out that corruption is not confined to the top of the government. It runs from the top to the bottom

“It was reported at the beginning of last year by Willie Hofmeyr ... that 400,000 civil servants were getting welfare payments to which they were not entitled. A further 6000 senior government officials had failed to declare their business interests.

“The Minister of Human Settlements, Tokyo Sexwale revealed that 923 corrupt officials in his department had been brought to book over various scams, including the construction of thousands of substandard low-cost homes for the poor many of which were unfit for human inhabitation.

“Finance Minister, Pravin Gordhan at the end of last year said the government was investigating possible tender and procurement fraud involving up to R25-billion. Other sources estimate that R30-billion of South Africa’s R150-billion public procurement budget is lost to corruption.

“Extensive corruption in all levels of government is leading to internal conflicts and even assassinations amongst officials especially at the local government level. In Mpumalanga it is estimated that a dozen elected officials have been assassinated in connection with illegal procurement-related activities during the last two years.”

Consequences

Mbeki goes on to list some of the multi-faceted consequences of public sector corruption, including service delivery protests by poor South Africans who are locked in townships and informal settlements; and dissatisfaction with service delivery from the government by the poor has important electoral implications for the ANC.

He points out that despite the perception in some circles that it is working-class people that keep the ANC in power, the “core constituencies that keep the ANC in power are the poor and unemployed Africans.

“In return for their vote the poor receive all sorts of hand-outs from the ANC government that go under the generic name of social grants. These social grants have been growing steadily since 1997-98. Today they encompass over 14 million people and are scheduled to grow to 18 million in 2013 and they constitute about 15% of government revenues.

Conclusion: ruin or salvation?

“Twenty years ago the famous South African scenario analyst Clem Sunter said South Africa was approaching a cross-roads: one road was the high road and the other was the low road. The high road, which obviously he recommended, he said would lead to democracy, political stability and prosperity.

“Today South Africa is approaching another critical point in its history. In 1994 the leaders of South Africa chose the high road and adopted an inclusive political and economic model. Today the ANC government seems determined, despite its rhetoric, to follow the low road,” he writes and cites that according to a recent report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and development foreign direct investment to South Africa dropped by 78% in 2009; The recent Survey of Mining Companies 2009/2010 by Canada’s Fraser Institute, shows that South Africa is slipping constantly over the last few years in the league tables of mining countries.

One of the most glaring “follow the low road policies” of the government is the Kumba iron ore saga where the Department of Mineral Resources has allocated prospecting rights to a shelf company owned by the President and Deputy President’s families and their friends -- prospecting rights to an existing iron ore mine owned by an Anglo American plc subsidiary Kumba Iron Ore Limited.

“The important question is whether by following the low road the ANC will lead the country to ruin or it will lead to the ANC’s own ruin. An equally important question is will the ANC’s ruin be the salvation of the country as happened with the demise of tae National Party, the pioneers of the apartheid system?”

- Leadershiponline

Housing waiting lists are in a ‘shocking’ state

Nine municipalities in the Western Cape have displayed “shocking results” when it comes to management of housing delivery, said the provincial MEC for human settlements, Bonginkosi Madikizela.

Briefing the media yesterday on his department’s R2.584bn budget for 2011-12, almost R400m more than the 2010-11 allocation, Madikizela said the problems arose from the housing demand databases managed by those municipalities.

Explaining the minister’s concerns, top bureaucrat in the provincial housing department, Mbulelo Tshangana, said many of the databases, where hopeful beneficiaries first register for a house, were flawed and incomplete, with some using manual documentation that was vulnerable to misuse.

Dedicated computer systems for input of data in municipalities, and which would give the ministry access to this information, were on the way across the province, he said.

He was reluctant to “name and shame” these municipalities, and insisted that the department was working on boosting capacity, although another housing official did not deny the Drakenstein municipality, with its long waiting list, was weak in this regard.

Clean and accurate databases with the names of people lined up for houses were vital to ensure transparency and fairness, so that certain beneficiaries with incomes of less than R3,500 a month, could not “jump the queue”, he said.

The other 15 non-metropolitan municipalities in the province were also getting ongoing assistance.

Madikizela earlier said that there was also “generally very poor planning” in municipalities, although for reasons not directly linked to poor database management, when it came to housing delivery.

As a result, money was taken away from three municipalities for use elsewhere.

“If you don’t use it you lose it,” he told reporters, in a blunt reference to the province’s struggling municipalities.

In his budget speech to the Western Cape legislature later yesterday, he said Kannaland, Prince Albert and Laingsburg had their entire allocations withdrawn in February, but that this was mostly due to constraints around the provision of bulk infrastructure such as sewerage.

Meanwhile, 20% of the province’s housing budget now goes directly to the city of Cape Town, which was taking greater responsibility for housing delivery in the metro.

This meant that the city got a R362m “slice” to fund the servicing of about 10,000 more sites in the metro area, said Madikizela.

This is according to changes introduced by the national Department of Human Settlements and the Treasury in January.

Outside the metro, the provincial government intended building 12275 houses this year with its R1.639bn share of the budget, and to service 14,000 sites in the province, he said.

In the financial year ending today, 13,100 houses were built and 12,000 sites serviced, he said.

- The New Age

April Fools – Jacob Zuma calls for immediate Hemp legalization after multiple green epiphanies last night.

In an astonishing turn of events, South African President Jacob Zuma calls for National legalization of hemp, also known as cannabis sativa or dagga locally, after he had multiple epiphanies in dreams last night during his round house visits of his 3 wives.

“I had green sustainable dreams last night where I realized the potential of this plant they call hemp. We can make every South African’s life better by just saying yes to hemp.”

DA leader Helen Zille commented on this radical move by South Africa’s president by saying: “Not even our www.everyrandcounts.org campaign now stand a chance against this sustainable hemp legalization call by our President”.

Jacob had the epiphany in the early hours of the morning, he immediately phoned former President Nelson Mandela after which his reply was: “We’ve been fooled too long about this plant’s potential. We shall not discriminate this plant by calling it something else. Dagga is our salvation. All we need to do is say yes, the people will do the rest. Viva!.”

There’s already a growing number of support for sustainable Dagga use in South Africa and Jeremy Acton from the sustainable political www.daggaparty.co.za was totally surprised to get a phone call from Jacob Zuma as he took his first sip of coffee this morning. “I’ve never in my life expected this to happen. He is for once backing the best thing this Rainbow Nation has ever seen.” Jeremy goes on with saying: “Our legalization fight is over, it’s time to celebrate this victory and get on with planting. Viva Ama Dagga Dagga!”

Tony Budden from www.hemporium.co.za was unavailable for comment as he was on holiday in the sustainable house of hemp that he built in Cape Town.

The www.hempnow.co.za petition site got an influx of visitors this morning with the server almost overloading around 9:30am.

Desmond Tutu briefly stated during breakfast this morning: “All he had to do is say yes!”

Jaob Zuma promised to get the cabinet to sort out the legal paperwork this week and to provide rural farmers with subsidiaries for farming equipment and called for a R2 Billion Hemp seed import to get things going.

“We will show the DA how many more RDP houses and RDP mansions we can build with this thing called hemp.” Jacob Zuma concluded.

- Imielvisser