Floods wash through the Cape Flats

The homes of another 1 300 residents of informal settlements have been flooded, pushing to 6 000 the number seeking help.

Disaster Risk Management spokesperson Wilfred Solomons-Johannes, said on Monday that 18 areas were severely affected by the recent rains that had pounded the city, including Nyanga, Browns Farm, Khayelitsha, Mfuleni and Manenberg.

The worst hit was Gugulethu, where more than 2 000 residents were struggling to waterproof their homes with plastic sheets. About 150 residents from the Lotus informal settlement in the area were put up in the community hall.

“Our main problem now is the sewerage works. Because the Berg River rose so much, some sewerage pipes have been damaged.”

Mabula said repairs were under way and that the municipality was monitoring the rainfall. No towns had been as badly affected as Moorreesburg, which flooded last week.

Some 118mm of rain had fallen in Moorreesburg overnight last Thursday. About 42mm has fallen since.

# Flooding and service interruption emergencies can be reported to the city’s technical operations centre on 0860-103-054.

# Life- or property-threatening situations can be reported to the city’s public emergency communications centre on 107 from any landline and 021-480-7700 from a cellphone. - Cape Times

‘They have right to be fed-up about housing’ - Housing minister Lindiwe Sisulu

Housing minister Lindiwe Sisulu was on Saturtday reminded how desperate people are for housing when a group in the parliamentary gallery began to toyi-toyi as she started her budget vote speech.

They were from Fedup - the Federation of the Urban Poor - and were protesting at the fact that despite pledges made last year, provinces had not yet supplied them with subsidies.

“They indeed have a right to be fed-up with us,” Sisulu said. She added that she would ask the Treasury to divert the pledges directly from the national department to Fedup.

The minister announced measures taken to improve the quality of housing, minimise delays and root out fraud and corruption in the housing sector.

“We have suffered a great deal from both unscrupulous contractors and inexperienced ones,” she acknowledged.

The state had in the past been provided with “shoddy work” and in some cases, incomplete houses by developers and contractors, and poor communities felt “the government was not exercising its powers adequately” to protect them from unscrupulous contractors, she said.

The department was considering making changes to tendering processes and the government would look into the possibility of buying “quality fully developed integrated housing projects” built by the private sector.

In addition, the National Housing Code had been revised to ensure developers and contractors sold only houses whose quality could be vouched for, Sisulu said.

Quality was the issue raised time and time again by opposition parties, from the Democratic Alliance to the African Christian Democratic Party and Minority Front.

DA MP James Masango noted that the National Home Builders Regulation Council was failing in its mandate to protect housing consumers and carry out proper inspections.

The department is also cracking down on fraud - a presidential proclamation signed about three weeks ago has given the Special Investigating Unit powers to investigate fraud in housing projects, director-general of housing Itumeleng Kotsoane said later.

In addition, the department had waded through about 30 000 of 50 000 cases where public servants had possibly acquired houses fraudulently between 1994 and 2004, Kotsoane said.

Good news, however, included the fact that banks - who used to see funding low-income housing as a risk - had not only come to the party, but were “threatening to take over the dancefloor”, Sisulu said.

The Banking Association of SA had said that an estimated R32-billion of the R42-bn pledged in loans for low-cost housing had already been expended, she announced.

But later she said work still had to be done to transform banks into humane entities that people were not scared to approach for help if they ran into difficulties with repayments. Cape Argus
Heavy rains cause widespread flooding

More than 5,000 people are getting disaster relief from the city as heavy rain and flooding continue to wreak havoc.

Monday morning’s downpour disrupted rush-hour traffic, caused a spate of accidents and blocked drains. Flooding was reported in 16 areas.

Metro Police spokesperson Nowellen Petersen said two key city routes were flooded.

‘Demanding houses instead’
But motorists on the Ottery/ Shawcamp route and Turfhall/ Chukker were able to navigate their way through.

“There were a number of accidents, luckily with no serious injuries, just a few fender benders, but we appeal to motorists to be extremely cautious on the roads because of the weather conditions,” Petersen said.

There was one accident on the N2 at Mew Way near Khayelitsha, two on the Racecourse Road junction with the M5 near Kenilworth, two on the N2 at Borcherd’s Quarry, and a truck had jack-knifed at the intersection of Beach Road and Golf Course in Strand.

Johan Minnie of Disaster Risk Management said this morning that in addition to 5 000 people they were assisting, a number of residents of Burundi in Strand were relocated overnight.

Minnie said they were making emergency shelter available.

But some of Cape Town’s poorest families, who have been battling with cold and wet conditions, have refused to accept help from the city and demanded houses instead.

Extensive flooding caused by the week-long rains and blocked drains has hit informal settlements.

About 600 people gathered at the Lucas Mbebe Educare Centre in the Lotus informal settlement in Gugulethu to collect bread, blankets, plastic sheeting, hot meals and baby packs.

Wilfred Solomons-Johannes, head of Disaster Risk Management, said Lotus was worst hit, with engineering services having to pump out excess water that had accumulated from a retention pond in the area.

Elsewhere, residents burnt tyres in the streets in protest at slow delivery of houses.

Residents in the Never Never informal settlement, behind Tambo Square in Gugulethu, had demanded homes instead of relief, said Solomons-Johannes.

Residents had also protested over housing in Khayelitsha’s CCT on Sunday, Solomons-Johannes said.

An Intersite area in Langa was severely flooded at around midnight on Sunday but the area had been cleared by Sunday morning.

Mayor Helen Zille visited several of the affected areas on Sunday.

During her tour of Lotus, she expressed concern about the drainage system.

She said the area had been cleared before the winter rain but that pollution that had accumulated in the interim, combined with the floodwater runoff, had clogged the drains.

Amanda Fodo of Lotus said she did not want the bread or the blankets: she wanted a house.

She said she had been on the council’s housing waiting list for 10 years.

She wanted her house so that next year she would not need relief.

“They want to help, but we are too many people living here,” she said.

Ward councillor in the Lotus area Mandisa Matshoba said residents were happy with the food and blankets but were, at the same time, angry over the housing issue.

“The mayor says she is going to drain the area today (Monday) so that the water can run down out of the people’s houses, but the people say they are tired of getting food and blankets and want to know when they will be moved out of the area, by next winter they want to be out,” she said.

Nomvuyo Xundu of Lotus said her prayers had been answered when relief was provided.

“God brought them here, who else is going to give me food and blankets?” she said.

Zintle Mqukuse, also of Lotus, was happy to receive the blankets and nappies.

“I’ve been struggling the whole week. I don’t have a room to sleep. The blankets they really help me and the nappies for my baby,” she said.

Nozibele Tyala, who lives in Lusaka, Nyanga, with her two sons, spent yesterday sweeping out water that had risen from beneath her shack.

She said plastic sheeting provided did not help much. “I go to work and my sons go to school, so there is no one to put sand and stones on the sides of the house to stop the water.”

Meanwhile, mopping-up and road repairs continued in the Swartland area after severe flood damage last week. - Cape Argus

Govt might buy houses from private sector

Lindiwe Sisulu, the housing minister, says government is now looking at buying houses intended for the recipients of subsidies from the private sector. The private sector will be encouraged to sell high quality houses to the government for allocation to beneficiaries of housing subsidies, she says.

Sisulu says government’s past dependence on developers and contractors was fraught with poor workmanship and incomplete projects. She says as a result, the poor people felt that the government was not doing enough to protect them against unscrupulous contractors.

“We have suffered a great deal from both unscrupulous contractors and inexperienced ones. Coupled with the fact that government itself was negligent of its responsibilities to pay on time.

“We have decided that we need innovative interventions to ensure that the highest quality housing products are acquired by the government for allocation to the housing subsidy beneficiaries.”

She says there is a need to accelerate delivery and to harness the considerable skills and capacity the private sector has to provide. - SABC

Homeless to lay charge after woman’s death

A homeless woman has allegedly died of exposure after Metro Police and SAPS officers in Wynberg confiscated her bedding and personal belongings, according to an advocacy organisation.

The Homeless People’s Crisis Committee (HPCC) and members of the homeless community in Wynberg claim that Maria Visser died on June 2 from exposure to harsh weather conditions after the police conducted an “illegal raid” on May 17 and left her without blankets.

The raid occurred at 9pm near the Wynberg railway station, said Adrian Bezuidenhout, who also had his belongings confiscated. He said the police officers arrived in three trucks and did not show a court warrant.

“They didn’t tell us anything,” he said, standing in the rain near the Wynberg Home Affairs office, where he often slept. “‘. They just came and took everything.”

The HPCC planned to lay a formal charge of murder with the Minister of Safety and Security, Charles Nqakula, said MP Neville Hendricks (ID), the organisation’s chairperson.

“These people are extremely vulnerable,” he said. “For the city to act in the manner that it does, we must lay the blame at their door.”

Metro Police helped with the raid by removing cardboard and other materials, but the SAPS would have been responsible for getting a warrant, said Metro Police spokesperson Kevin Maxwell.

The SAPS was not available for comment.

‘They just came and took everything’

Councillor JP Smith, a member of the mayoral committee, said making a link between a police operation and a woman subsequently dying from exposure required a “stretch of the imagination”.

“We find street people dead on the street often,” he said. “To try to pin one of these deaths on law enforcement, I feel, is malicious.”

Homeless people should make an effort to secure a bed at a shelter or contact an outreach worker to prevent dying from exposure, Smith said.

If homeless people remained on the streets, Smith said, the city first warned the person that specific behaviours - such as urinating in public or obstructing a public place - were illegal, then ensured that an outreach worker was available, and finally insisted the person leave the area. Any personal possessions left behind were bagged and tagged to be returned later, he said.

Another homeless woman, Jennifer Muller, sat on a crate, wearing shoes a size too small. She said police officers had also confiscated her mattress, blankets and clothes. Pointing to the clothes she was wearing, she said: “This is all I’ve got - and the shoes are not even my size.”

The street people said their IDs had been lost in the raid. About 200 people lived on the streets in Wynberg, said Hendricks. - Cape Times

Sisulu blames council for N2 Gateway delays

Construction of the second phase of the N2 Gateway project, that will include 2,500 units in Joe Slovo, must be fast-tracked, says Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu.

She said the first 46 units should be completed within the next three months.

Speaking at the launch of the next phase, which had been delayed by several months, Sisulu apologised to residents for the late start of the project.

For the second time in as many days, Sisulu pointed fingers at the City of Cape Town for contributing to the delays in the national flagship housing project.

She repeated her assertion, made in replies to questions in the National Assembly, that the DA-led city council had dragged its heels in the signing of a land availability agreement for more than a year.

But Butch Steyn, DA MP and housing spokesperson, said Sisulu needed to apologise to parliament for “misleading” the house.

“It is unfortunate that the minister is playing politics with a project that could make a significant difference to poverty levels and social dislocation in Cape Town, and it is unacceptable that she should misuse parliament to find scapegoats for her own department’s failures in this regard.”

He said the delays were not because of the unsigned land availability agreement, but were a result of a dispute between the contractor and the developers about the cost of the houses being built.

‘It is unfortunate that the minister is playing politics with a project’
The contractor, however, had access to the land before the agreement was signed, Steyn said.

Community conflict in Boystown and New Rest were to blame for delays in these projects while in Joe Slovo, the community had contributed to construction delays.

Steyn said the delay in the signing of the land availability agreement was because of negotiations between the city and the province over land that would be given to the city in exchange for the N2 site.

Despite this renewed spat between the city and national government about responsibility for the project, Sisulu was confident that “the controversy is behind us”.

In an official ceremony that was markedly less flashy than the launch of the first phase last year, Sisulu said the department had been “fighting” banks to get them to contribute to the bonded housing market.

She said First National Bank had been the first bank to accept the offer.

The next struggle was to convince developers that building bonded houses near to free-breaking new ground units or rental stock would not affect property values. “This is a shift from being a township to being a suburb called Langa.” - Cape Times

SA faces housing funding crisis

South Africa needs to spend billions of dollars to ease a nationwide housing crunch, its housing minister said on Friday, highlighting a glaring legacy of decades of apartheid.

Lindiwe Sisulu told Parliament during her annual budget speech that the country had made progress in easing a huge backlog in requests for housing.

But she stressed that in order to tackle the problem by 2016, the funding shortfall will rise to R253-billion ($34,80-billion).

“In view of this I believe that the housing backlog must be eradicated within the shortest possible time and our cost projections indicate a doubling of costs for every two years delayed,” Sisulu said.

South Africa is the continent’s economic powerhouse. But critics accuse the government of favouring big business over the poor, who mostly still live in grim townships not far from upmarket areas and fancy malls, symbols of the investment that has poured in since apartheid ended.

Commercial property continues to rally although the residential market has cooled after a three-year boom that took prices way out of reach of many potential buyers.

“Our commitment is to remove those previously impenetrable clouds in the form of the historical backlog and the deep-seated challenges of an intractable, somewhat insensitive state machinery,” said Sisulu.

President Thabo Mbeki has said conditions of the poor have improved. Housing authorities have moved thousands of townships families away from their tin shacks. Residents of the areas, however, say much more needs to be done.

Sisulu was hopeful, despite the huge challenges.

“We have broken through the backlog barrier and have produced more houses than there are people in our backlog, which has been dislodged from the 2,4-million mark and now stands at 2,2-million,” said Sisulu.

She said this was the first time in South Africa’s democracy that significant progress was made on the issue, with annual production of houses now at 272,000 from 250,000 a year, the benchmark figure for the most houses built in one year.

But she noted soaring construction costs fuelled by preparations to host the World Cup have impacted on housing delivery targets.

“This has had serious implications for the delivery of housing and this will exacerbate our ability to deliver the projected number of houses,” Sisulu said. - Reuters

Housing sector tightens grip against criminals

Government officials involved in corruption within the housing sector are to be investigated and prosecuted through new powers given to the Special Investigating Unit.

Lindiwe Sisulu, the housing minister, says deviant officials will be brought to book through intensive criminal prosecutions and civil recoveries. She was speaking during the debate on her department’s budget vote in the National Assembly.

Sisulu says a National Anti-corruption Forum is being set up.

Housing budget approved
Meanwhile political parties in the Western Cape legislation have welcomed the R1.2 billion budget of the local government and housing department. Richard Dyantyi, the provincial minister, presented a budget with most money allocated to the building of houses in 15 identified areas which include townships and rural areas. Dyantyi says R428 million has been set aside for the identified areas.

A further R600 million will be used in the same areas in the next two years. - SABC

Heavy rains cause havoc in Western Cape

At least 17 people have been rescued in the Western Cape’s Swartland and Cederberg areas

At least 17 people have been rescued as heavy rain and floods continue in the Western Cape’s Swartland and Cederberg areas. Fifteen farm workers from Citrusdal in the Cederberg have been rescued after the Olifants River burst its banks in several places.

Police divers in a rubber-duck have rescued two people trapped on the roof of a house on the bank of the Berg River at Gouda in the Swartland. The N7 between Clanwilliam and Citrusdal has been closed to traffic due to heavy flooding. Several roads in Citrusdal have also been damaged. Flooding has also been reported in Moorreesburg, Porterville, Gouda and Citrusdal.

Several residents at Hopefield on the Cape West Coast have been evacuated from their homes due to heavy flooding. The Zout River, which runs past the town, has burst its banks. Heavy rains have lashed the West Coast, Cederbeg and Swartland regions over the past 24 hours. SABC

Houses for apartheid victims, war veterans

Apartheid victims who testified before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission are to receive subsidised houses as part of their reparations. The benefit will also be extended to former servicemen, war veterans and freedom fighters. These details and others came to light when Lindiwe Sisulu, the housing minister, delivered her budget vote in Parliament’s national assembly today.

The announcement was good news for World War two veterans, as well as for several MK and APLA soldiers. Their salaries in the national defence force didn’t take into account their housing needs, now along with apartheid victims, they’ll get preferential treatment.

Sisulu says: “I am certain it will go a long way to alleviate a great deal of indignity to the people we owe so much to.”

Shoddy work
Shoddy workmanship on RDP houses also got a mention. Earlier this year, a probe by the National Homes Builders Registration Council revealed that more than 2,000 low cost houses across the Cape Peninsula were riddled with structural defects. Often contractors disappear with millions of the public’s money.

It is hoped the soon to be established housing development agency will turn this around. Sisulu added: “Developers and contractors will therefore as part of a revised national housing code be required to sell to the state houses that they have built whose quality they can vouch for.”

It’s emerged that civil servants who fraudulently acquired RDP houses are giving them back. Some 30,000 are being prosecuted and more could be charged as the Special Investigating Unit is handling the probe. Corruption is seen as one of the serious impediments to the government’s commitment to housing delivery. - SABC

Western Cape downpours wash away sewerage system

Citrusdal residents in the Cederberg in the Western Cape say the recent downpours have virtually washed away the town's sewerage system.

Leonard Jacobs and Sam September have been living in the town all their lives. They say they are now concerned about a possible pollution problem. They say the recent rains are the heaviest in five years. Fruit orchards on farms in the area are also flooded.

Authorities in the Western Cape will start flood damage assessments today after the heavy rains that lashed towns across the Swartland. The flood waters in most parts of the region have now subsided.

Rivers burst their banks
Municipal authorities on the West Coast are concerned about the high water levels of the Berg and Olifants Rivers. Both rivers burst their banks last night. The Clanwilliam Dam, on the Olifants River is filled to the brim, and eight sluice gates have been opened.

Heavy rains have lashed the region over the past two days. Wessel Rabbets, the municipal manager for the West Coast District Municipality, says they expect more. - SABC

Capetonians promised housing worth R1.2 billion

The Western Cape housing department says it will spend R1.2 billion to build houses. Richard Dyantyi, the provincial housing and local government minister, says R428 million will be spent in this financial year.

Fifteen areas have been identified for the housing project. Included are Gugulethu, Nyanga, Mitchell’s Plain and Khayelitsha.

However, Dyantyi admitted that the province is facing a housing backlog of 409,000.

Meanwhile, the Standing Committee on Housing and Local Government in the Western Cape legislature has raised concern about the lack of community integration in the greater metropolitan area.

Patrick McKenzie, the committee chairperson, supported the department’s R1.2 billion budget presented this afternoon.

McKenzie referred to the Pilot Housing Project at the N2 Gateway in Langa as an example. He said the fact that the area has only 10 people who are not black Africans, is a demonstration that something is wrong with the integration process. - SABC

FNB housing for poor hits R2bn

In a bid to provide affordable housing for the poor, First National Bank (FNB) and the government have formed a joint venture, the bank announced on Thursday.

The FNB project will contribute 3 000 bonded housing units to the cntroversial N2 Gateway Project, in Joe Slovo and Delft.

The 567 bonded homes will border the 705 rental units that have already been completed. The next phase of the project will see the construction of approximately 2,000 subsidised homes (of 40m²) to be given free to those who qualify.

FNB said that that bonded houses will cost between R150,000 and R250,000 each. FNB bonds will be available to people who earn between R3,500 and R7,500 a month. - FIN24

Construction has already begun at Joe Slovo. Construction at Delft will commence later this year.

Property developers M5 will build the houses, having partnered with FNB to build houses in other housing projects in Gauteng.

FNB’s total investment in the N2 Gateway project is in excess of R900m. The investment is the product of collaboration between FNB’s business units, Commercial Property Finance which funds developers and FNB Housing Finance which provides home loans to qualifying individuals.

FNB’s involvement in the N2 initiative brings the bank’s total investment in affordable housing in South Africa to more than R2bn and over 7 000 housing units in the last 15 months.

This amount is set to peak at about the R3bn mark soon as more affordable housing projects are currently being assessed by the bank and other key housing stakeholders like municipalities and the Department of Housing.

FNB CEO Michael Jordaan recommitted the bank to future affordable housing developments in partnership with the government.

FNB’s involvement in the N2 housing project also increases the bank’s contribution to the attainment of the R42bn target to be met by banks by December 2008.

What are the targets of Goal 7?

Goal 7 of the Millennium Development Goals sets out by the year 2015 to:

* Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes; reverse loss of environmental resources.

* Reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water.

* Achieve significant improvement in lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers, by 2020.

Johannesburg March 2005 Re-ratified

Africa - Wrap a shack in the Remember banner on June 1.

Dyantyi accused of delaying tactics

The R89-million sale of the Malgas property in Buitengragt Street, to Old Mutual Property Group, is one of several rental and sales deals being pushed through by the City of Cape Town.

And 16 erven in Atlantis, worth R26-million, will be sold by the city for industrial use.

But Mayor Helen Zille said key housing projects in the city, in areas such as Wallacedene, were being delayed by national and provincial government.

In her budget speech this week, Zille said Richard Dyantyi, MEC for Local Government and Housing, was taking his time to sign off the city’s application for phase one of housing accreditation.

She said the final authorisation had been pending since November.

The accreditation would allow the city to access housing subsidy funds directly from the national treasury and housing projects could be approved without provincial approval.

But Dyantyi said on Thursday that the accreditation of local government was a national pilot project and that municipalities had to pass three levels to be accredited.

The City of Cape Town was only at the first level and there were no guarantees that it would get to the third level. He said the lack of capacity in the city’s housing department could count against it.

“Her assertions about delays are not true,” he said.

Zille said the city was also waiting for clarity on the amount for national housing subsidies.

“We cannot be dictated to and forced to implement an unsustainable policy.”

Dyantyi said the mayor had been informed of the change and accused her of making headlines out of nothing. - Cape Times