Western Cape Local Government and Housing MEC Richard Dyantyi has vowed clampdown on “underhand activities” in housing projects

Cape Town - Western Cape MEC for Local Government and Housing Richard Dyantyi has vowed to clampdown on “underhand activities” in housing projects aimed at uplifting the poor.

This follows a moratorium on a number of low cost housing projects due to alleged maladministration and corruption.

“During 2005 it came to my attention that some of the beneficiaries of these housing projects within the Cape Metropolis did not receive their rightful share,” he said.

He said beneficiaries in some of the projects such as the Umzamomhle housing project in Khayelitsha had lodged complaints with his department after the project came to a standstill.

The complaints according to Mr Dyantyi ranged from unauthorized payments of state subsidies and failure by the service provider to comply with contractual requirements.

As a result of the alleged corruption, hundreds of poor people who were supposed to have benefited from the housing projects still remain homeless.

The plight of the victims prompted Mr Dyantyi to institute an investigation, which he said was now at an advanced stage.

“I have decided to act decisively in this matter and requested the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) and the Directorate of Special Operations (DSO) with whom my department has co-operative agreements, to investigate,” he said.

The investigations, which so far have resulted in the arrest of one official involved in the housing projects, form part of Mr Dyantyi ’s mission to monitor and support municipalities while at the same time rooting out corruption and maladministration.

My Dyantyi said he would this weekend hold a meeting with the victims to update them about the investigation process.

“The programme of addressing these housing corruption victims is key to me as it will provide all the necessary answers to our people,” he said.

However, Mr Dyantyi said that while the money that was meant to provide shelter for beneficiaries had been misused, the government still had a responsibility to build houses for the victims.

“We therefore need to discuss the matter with the affected people and give a clear way forward,” he said. - BuaNews

2004-05 edition of the South African survey

There were protests about service delivery, most notably about lack of sanitation facilities or against the bucket system. Most demonstrations concerning housing delivery took place in the urban areas of Gauteng, Western Cape and Eastern Cape.

There are many issues that prevent municipalities from being economically viable and from delivering essential services to citizens. Among those frequently cited are lack of skills; corruption; and failure to spend budgets.

Frequently overlooked is the creation of jobs, specifically in the rural parts of the country. More rural jobs would ease the influx of people into the urban municipalities and thus minimise the demand for housing (and services associated with it) in those areas.

The high demand for housing in urban areas contributed to the proliferation of informal settlements, which grew 119% between 1995 and 2004.

2004-05 edition of the South African survey

Housing - what the Judgements say

October 04 2000

A Constitutional Court judgment in favour of the “Irene Grootboom” group Cape Town.

In a landmark judgment on Wednesday, the Constitutional Court ruled that the state had an obligation to implement an effective housing plan and to provide emergency shelter to destitute people.

In an unanimous judgment, Justice Zakeria Yacoob ruled that the constitution obliged the state to act positively to lessen the plight “of the hundreds of thousands of people living in deplorable conditions throughout the country”.

The South African Human Rights Commission and the Legal Resources Centre welcomed the decision.

05 April 2006

What the judgement says
The City of Johannesburg v Rand Properties (Pty) Ltd and others: On March 3 2006, the high court ruled that the City of Johannesburg could not evict residents of condemned buildings without providing alternative accommodation.

Judge Mahommed Jajbhay ruled that the city had failed in its statutory and constitutional obligations to provide a suitable plan of action for rehousing inner-city residents, and prevented it from carrying out the evictions.

“Our Constitution obliges the State to act positively to ameliorate these conditions,” he said. In terms of Section 26 of the Constitution, all people have the right to access to adequate housing and the state must take reasonable measures to achieve the progressive realisation of this fact.

“We now require a coherent plan and the implementation of the plan at the micro level. The obligation is to provide access to adequate housing to those unable to support themselves and their dependents,” said Judge Jajbhay. - M&G Eviction and Dereliction

Housing conference under way in Kenya

A two day African ministerial conference on housing and urban development is under way in the Kenyan capital Nairobi. The conference chaired by South African Lindiwe Sisulu, the housing minister, is focussing on achieving the millennium development goals in Africa especially the realisation of global commitments on slums.

The African ministerial conference on housing and urban development AMCHUD was set up a year ago to develop a programme of action relating to slum upgrading and prevention. But African states are yet to meet the millennium development goal on improved livelihoods of slums. Moody Awori, the Kenyan vice president, says many African governments are overwhelmed by the rapid urbanisation as well as high poverty levels in urban areas.

The United Nations Habitat estimates that 72% of Africa’s population in urban areas lives in slums without basic services such as clean water, electricity or proper sanitation. - SABC

Housing majors to be grilled by parliament

As the country prepares for accelerated housing delivery to eradicate shacks, parliament has departed from tradition to call together all those passing the buck in housing subsidy graft.

Its standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) decided after a report from the auditor-general (AG) to call the national department and provincial housing authorities to a joint hearing to explain why more than R300-million has been lost to corruption.

… “The AG’s audit provides disturbing reading because it calls into question the number of houses built since 1994,” Themba Godi, Scopa’s chairperson, told Independent Newspapers.

“The report talks about double payments to the same application and this constitutes a very high percentage at a time when we are trying to half the number of those living in shacks.”…

The government has committed itself to the millennium goal of halving the number of those squatting, and Lindiwe Sisulu, the housing minister, is implementing new plans to increase the number of units being built .

But the AG’s report on the approval and allocation of housing subsidies showed that a total of 53 426 out of 1,4 million subsidies were irregularly or fraudulently granted between 1994 and 2004. Of this, duplicate subsidies paid on the same property accounted for nearly half of the irregularities.

Duplicate payments to the same individual or household accounted for seven percent of irregularities while fraudulent payments to government employees accounted for 14 percent of irregularities. In total, R323 million of taxpayers’ money has been lost.

Although each province has its own public accounts committee, the housing budget and housing subsidies are voted by parliament in the national budget, which provides Scopa with a window of oversight over provinces’ use of the money.

Scopa has never before flexed its muscle to include both spheres of government in a joint grilling. - Sunday Independent

Appeal by Minister Sisulu to solve Housing crisis

** High Priority **

Dear Mr. Du Plessis

Your letter dated 13 February ‘06 addressed to Minister Sisulu has reference. The matter has been delegated to Minister’s Special Advisor, Saths Moodley, and he will revert back to you at his earliest convenience.

Emelia Mulder
Personal Assistant to Saths Moodley Special Advisor to Minister

Sisuluemelia@housing.gov.za Phone 012 421 1345

www.housing.gov.za

“All these areas of rapid urbanisation are [at present] a crisis for us,” she said. Minister Sisulu appealed to the private sector and construction companies to help the government solve the housing crisis. M&G 14 October 2005

Original request sent on 30 October 2005

Housing Subsidy Scams

Housing minister Lindiwe Sisulu has appointed a committee to urgently examine the findings of an auditor-general’s report that found R323m worth of irregular housing subsidies were approved by provincial housing departments between 1995 and 2004.

About 3.6% of the 1.4 million individual housing subsidies approved in this period involving 53,426 beneficiaries were found to be irregular.

(The national average of 5 citizens per house means 266,000 people are affected by this)

The report identifies a number of different kinds of irregularities. Some subsidies had been granted to employees earning over the annual salary subsidy threshold, some beneficiaries had died or were under 21, and some subsidies were paid to the same applicant or household more than once.

There are thousands of cases of duplicate subsidies awarded for the same property.

Saturday Weekend Argus

Request for meeting with Ms LN Sisulu, Minister Of Housing

Dear Mr Du Plessis,

By direction of Ms L N Sisulu, Minister of Housing, I hereby acknowledge receipt of your letter dated 13th February 2006 with thanks. This serves to inform you that your letter has been forwarded to the Minister.Yours sincerely

Mareldia Chowglay (PA)

Ministry of Housing

021 466 7603 (tel)

021 465 3610 (fax)

082 808 5562

National Department of Housing (NDOH)

HOUSING INFORMATION: 0800 146 873

HOUSING FRAUD & CORRUPTION: 0800 701 701.


Request originally sent 30 October 2005.

Resubmitted (due to incorrect filing - despite electronic track backs) 10/02/2006 & 16/02/2006

Planning Africa

The past present and future; Local needs in a globalising world; Planning, governance and the development agenda; Planning, poverty and marginalisation ; Planning resources and equity; Beyond planning fantasies; Planning and disasters; The formal and informal; Planning and identity; Planning and communities; Spaces, places and people; The urban and the rural; The planners of Africa and allied professions.

“The Planning Africa 2006 conference presents an incredibly important opportunity for local and African planning professionals to meet and to present ideas and look for solutions to planning problems on the African continent. Resolutions will be passed, hopefully leading to positive action on the part of all the participants. From a South African perspective we will interact with other African delegates and endeavour to find solutions for our own specific planning needs, at a time when the country has to keep on course with its bold agenda to create housing, basic infrastructure and the upliftment of a large sector of the population.” - Cape Business News

Cape Town shack fires kill 3 leave hundreds homeless

25/02/2006

Three people burnt to death in a shack fire that broke out in Nyanga, Cape Town, shortly after midnight on Saturday.

Western Cape police Inspector Elliot Sinyangana said 68 shacks burnt down before emergency services workers put out the fire…

The shack fire follows another at Khayamnandi informal settlement at Stellenbosch on Friday in which around 1 000 shacks were razed.

Residents have since been housed in tents at a sports ground in the town. Read More

26/02/2006

About 90 people were left destitute after a fire in an informal settlement in Hout Bay, the Cape Town municipality said today.

Wilfred Solomons, the spokesperson for the city’s disaster management service, said 52 shacks in the Mandela Park informal settlement were burnt down after an unattended candle tipped over in the early hours of yesterday morning. The man who left the candle unattended sustained first degree burns and was recovering in hospital. SABC

InternAfrica doubt that only 1.73 people live in a shack in Mandela Park, the fire average is 4 people per shack, and national housing average of 5 per shack. We estimate 221 citizens displaced by this habitat disaster.

Western Cape a priority for eradication of shacks

Lindiwe Sisulu, the housing minister, says the Western Cape will be given priority in their plans and efforts to create a shack free society. Sisulu visited the Kayamandi Informal Settlement in Stellenbosch that was ravaged by a fire on Tuesday.

Cape Habitat

It is estimated that the fire left about 800 people homeless after gutting more than 200 shacks. Sisulu says she is concerned that the country has still not come up with a strategy to deal with the persistent problem of shack fires.

Meanwhile urgent plans are in the pipeline to move the Joe Slovo fire victims into the first phase of the N2 Gateway project. Similar projects are expected to be launched in other vulnerable informal settlements. - SABC

Sisulu admits to housing blunders

Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu has admitted that the country’s flagship housing project, the N2 Gateway, has been a “terrible learning curve”.

Sisulu was called to a meeting in November by aggrieved developers who complained they had not received a cent for several months. She had to intervene to ensure they were paid.

The N2 Gateway project is a joint venture between the city, the province and the national government.

Sisulu said she was pleased that this was the biggest housing project in the country’s history “even though it’s been a terrible experience for us and we are all scarred”.

The city is expected to announce this week when the first residents will move in.

The project was planned as a blueprint for the upgrading of housing projects elsewhere, and is part of the government’s goal to eradicate all informal settlements by 2010.

In an effort to prevent a repeat of the problem, Sisulu said the cabinet would appoint a “special purpose vehicle” or project management organisation, Thubelisha Homes, to oversee the project.

“It cannot be run by a city or a municipality however good intentions might be: the government is not structured to respond to the pace of industry. We are dealing with taxpayers’ money and therefore there are certain steps that have to be taken and certain securities we’ve got to be assured of.”

The decision would be applied to all the government’s mega projects in future, she said.

However, N2 Gateway developers said yesterday they were not aware of Thubelisha Homes. A spokesman for the Sobambisana consortium, Andre September, said the developers were still being paid through the City of Cape Town.

He confirmed that the developers had met Sisulu and raised their concerns about working at risk for quite a while, and that they had now been paid.

Sisulu said that as a result of the state’s delayed payment to developers, the relationship had soured.

The developers were still on site but were not as happy as the government would have wanted.

“We don’t have the muscle because we have not been able to provide the carrot,” she said.

It was for this reason the government had decided to hand over management of the project to a body that could be more effective.

“Outside the government we might have a more efficient delivery mechanism. It’s been a terrible learning curve,” the minister said. - Cape Argus

Project Consolidate could do better: Mbeki

Despite violent protests in some municipalities over a lack of service delivery recently, the governance and administration cluster stated that a qualitative analysis of the past five years of local government indicates that there has been steady progress in broadening access to basic services.

Lindiwe Msengana-Ndlela, the director-general at the provincial and local government department, said a communication strategy will soon be launched in the hope of making people address their needs through a specific channel to avoid violent protests. She says this is especially designed for municipal councils and the community.

In the State of the Nation address on Friday, President Thabo Mbeki acknowledged the problem surrounding Project Consolidate, saying it has not been as successful as it could be in accelerating service delivery in local government. The project, a programme that was adopted at the July 2005 cabinet lekgotla, is aimed at finding new, practical and impact-oriented modes of engaging for both national and provincial government.

President Mbeki also said that service delivery was hampered by unqualified managers in the municipalities.

Addressing the issue in Parliament, Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, the public service and administration minister, did not specify exactly what measure would be taken in making sure that municipal managers are qualified. Fraser-Moleketi said instead of focusing only on 163 municipalities, Project Consolidate, will include all municipalities to ensure that those lagging behind will be capacitated. SABC

Housing Atlas 2005