'Outsourcing of delivery no solution'

Cape Flats residents have taken to the streets of central Cape Town in protest against slow service delivery, the privatisation of housing and evictions.

The joint committee representing residents of the N2 Gateway flats, the Joe Slovo informal settlement and the Symphony Way settlement in Delft organised on Thursday's march with the Anti- Eviction Campaign.

Their aim was to speed up housing delivery and draw attention to the problems caused by the privatisation of housing construction by Thubelisha Homes and housing management by Trafalgar Properties.

About 200 gathered in Keizergracht, where they were instructed to write their grievances on slips of paper that they placed inside three homemade coffins representing Thubelisha Homes, housing management company Trafalgar, and Housing MEC Richard Dyantyi.

They then marched and danced their way through the central city, singing traditional protest songs, to the offices of the provincial department of local government and housing.

"They must give us houses immediately," said John Titus, who lives in the Symphony Way settlement with his wife and five children. He had been on the waiting list for six years and "enough is enough".

Campaign organisers read the memorandum to Dyantyi outside his offices and allowed him to sign it.

In the memorandum, they urged Dyantyi to declare the housing backlog a state of emergency.

They recommended that he start by "scrapping the laws that allow for the eviction of poor people".

"Your department must take direct responsibility for housing, housing delivery, and housing management.

"But you continue to outsource and privatise housing and housing delivery, as if this was a solution, rather than acknowledging that this is part of the problem.

"Evict Trafalgar and Thubelisha Homes, not the poor people."

Dyantyi's spokesperson, Vusi Tshose, said the department acknowledged that 410,000 people needed formal homes.

"It is our business to build houses. Housing is our priority. But there are certain things we can't resolve overnight."

Tshose said the department's budget enabled the building of only 16,000 houses a year.

- Cape Times

'Immigrants up housing challenge'

One of the major challenges for housing provision in the Western Cape is that the province is a "favourite destination" for immigrants in search of job opportunities, better education, health care and improved standards of living.

That was the view expressed by the provincial Housing Department ahead of the annual Govan Mbeki housing awards due to take place on Thursday night.

"They don't come to get houses, but at the end of the day you need a home to go to, South Africa is a democratic country (and) we cannot control the movement of people into the province," said Vusi Tshose, spokesperson for Housing MEC Richard Dyantyi.

"As government alone, we cannot meet the housing challenges. We need partnerships, we need the private sector, banks, employers and communities to come on board in our quest to provide decent housing."

Tshose said unemployment and poverty in communities needed to be tackled first and foremost because these issues resulted in people selling the houses the government had built for them.

"They then go back to live in shacks, start accusing the government of not doing enough, try to go back to the housing list or start protest marches," he said.

Tshose said it was important to have communities as partners to address these issues, especially the issue of houses being seen as valuable assets that could be sold.

For the past three years the department had met its target of building 16,000 houses and servicing 18,000 sites annually.

Each year the department had also spent its full budget allocation. Tshose said to-night's awards were aimed at recognising valuable roleplayers in the vital area of housing provision.

These included developers, building contractors, the banking sector, community-based organisations, the mining sector, building material suppliers and professional associations, among others.

He said these players had supported the government in building sustainable human settlements.
The housing backlog currently stands at 410 000. - Cape Argus

Shacks demolished

TRAFFIC came to a standstill last week Wednesday when shack dwellers and police clashed on the corner of Modderdam and Stellenbosch Roads.

Residents of Freedom Farm informal settlement decided to demonstrate and vent their anger on motorists by blockading the road with burning tyres.

The problem they said started the previous Saturday, Sunday and on Wednesday morning when they alleged law enforcement police officers arrived and demolished their shacks without giving them a warning first to vacate the area.

Freedom Farm is situated between the Belhar cemetery and Cape Town international airport.

Traffic came to a standstill as police vans and fire brigades rushed to the area to estinguish both fire and people’s anger.

Sophia Moodey (29) has two children and has been living in Freedom Farm for sixteen years.

“We are not animals or criminals and do not deserve to be treated like this.

“People’s houses were demolished and some of them don’t even know as they were at work.

“Another man lost his eye after being shot with a rubber bullet by the law enforcement police and is in hospital as we speak,” said Moodey.

Moodey said the people who were evicted and their houses demolished had paid between R200 and R500 to build their houses there.

Khuliwe Gqalaqha said people fear for their lives and were afraid to say who was selling them the land.

She said people were afraid to fall asleep at night. “People are removed forcefully and their houses are destroyed.”

Ziyanda Makhaba said she received a phone call from one of the neighbours that their houses were being demolished.

“I left everything at work and ran as fast as I can to get here in time to save my belongings before they got stolen.

“Why is the law enforcement not giving us a warning first instead of just demolishing our shacks?” asked Makhaba.

Police tried to negotiate their way to have the angry community stop burning tyres and infringed the rights of the motorists and advised them to get their leaders instead to approach the ward councillor of the area about their problem.

The community said it was the third time their houses have been demolished since Saturday. They simply re-build it.

Close to 70 shacks have been demolished so far in the area.

One policeman said the Cape Town airport was a national strategic point and people are not allowed to build their houses next to the airport.

The police officer said the houses were built too close to the airport fence.

Mr Dan Plato, mayco member for housing in the City of Cape Town, said according to the information received only new structures were destroyed. He said a specific community leader in the area was selling sites at R200 with a promise that they will become beneficiaries of the N2 Gateway housing project and that was illegal.

Plato said community leaders have requested the city of Cape Town to re-open the N2 gateway list for communities of Freedom Farm to become beneficiaries in the N2 Gateway project.

He said the people whose houses were demolished received wrong information from these community leaders. “My response was that the city was not responsible for compiling of the beneficiaries list, that is for Thubelisha Homes to do. No one has the right to go and erect structures where ever they want and that is why the city demolished those new structures,” said Plato.

Plato said the city officials on the ground did give prior warning to those people not to erect structures and they ignored the warning.

He said the official did communicate with the people to go back to where they came from.

“Their leaders had requested a meeting with the city officials and councillors,” said Plato.

- TygerBurger

Two dead as fires ravage Cape shacks

A spate of fires in informal settlements in Cape Town this weekend has left two people dead and more than 800 homeless.

It is not yet clear what caused the spate of blazes, but Greg Pillay, head of the city's Disaster Risk Management Centre, said residents using open flames or stoves to keep warm may have been the cause.

Early on Sunday, a woman burned to death in Zone Six, Langa, when her shack was gutted.

Four hours later, a 29-year-old man was killed when his shack and four others were razed in the Lusaka informal settlement in Philippi.

Police had opened inquests into the incidents and the names of the two residents will only be released once their relatives have been contacted.

Pillay said in a separate fire, 20 Heinz Park residents were left without shelter when five shacks were gutted.

He said another shack in Philippi had also been razed, leaving four residents homeless.

Shacks were also razed in Nyanga.

And in the Masiphumelele informal settlement where the biggest fire occurred on Friday, another 800 residents were left homeless.

On Sunday, scores of residents were busy rebuilding their shacks and sifting through piles of blackened corrugated iron and pieces of wood.

Crying children could be heard between continuous hammering.

Resident Nofirst Nzamela watched as her 12-year-old son, Asafika, curled up to rest in an old suitcase, one of her few remaining possessions.

She shook her head as she said she felt hopeless about the future of her four children.

"They are in school. But where will they stay now?

"I don't know what we'll do," she said.

Nzamela pointed to a sodden pile of burnt clothes which she had tried to salvage and said her sons did not have any school clothes, except for what they had been wearing on Friday.

She said she was thankful their school books had been with them when the fire had gutted their shack.

Nearby, Andrew Sigauke hammered pieces of wood together as he recalled the shock of arriving home on Friday to find his shack gutted.

Everything I had, everything, is gone, he said.

Just a few weeks ago when it was raining so much my house was flooded and the water came in.

Now I don't even have a house. I have nothing.

Sigauke said none of the residents seemed to know how the fire had begun.

Pillay said the fire might have been linked to people trying to keep warm.

It's quite strange because it's been cold, but not really that cold this weekend, he said.

He said fires that broke out in summer caused more damage because flames were fanned by strong winds and spread easily.

- Cape Times

Thousand lose homes in shack fire

A fire that swept through the Masiphumelele informal settlement on Friday destroyed more than 250 shacks, displacing about 1 000 people.

Local volunteers said they had to rush many residents out of their shacks because they wanted to stay on and save their belongings.

One volunteer said a group of men even picked up an entire small shack and carried it away.

The fire, which started around noon, was brought under control after an hour and firefighters then started dampening down the area.

No one was injured or killed in the blaze and residents were moved to the Masiphumelele community hall.

Disaster Risk Management are providing blankets, hot meals and alternative shelter.

- Weekend Argus

Tulbagh waste pours into water supply

Tulbagh residents say water pollution in the picturesque town is "worse than ever", with sewage "popping up" through manhole covers and the Klip River being strewn with feminine toiletry products and human waste.

This river feeds into the Voëlvlei Dam, which provides the City of Cape Town with drinking water. In March, Democratic Alliance MPL Gareth Morgan said the city council was spending R400 000 a month more than it should on treating the highly polluted water from the Voëlvlei Dam.

Niel de Jager, chair of the Tulbagh Ratepayers/Inwoners Forum, said the area had been grappling with the problem for more than two years.

"The municipality put in a new pipe (from the sewerage plant), but after all the rains the amount of sewage coming down has lifted up the manholes."

De Jager said the polluted water also ran into the trenches that fed into the Berg River and eventually into the Voëlvlei Dam.

Resident Graham Hunter said: "I drive through this daily to get home and have complained for months to the council in Tulbagh. All we get is lip service."

The new pipeline had done little to ease the problem.

Witzenberg's manager, David Nasson, said on Wednesday that the municipality had appointed a service provider to clear the blockages.

The saga of the polluted river is not new, and in correspondence between Nasson and the forum in 2006, the pollution was blamed on debris clogging the river.

Residents said then that Tulbagh's sewerage plant was unable to cope with the volume of sewage.

Nasson rejected claims that the plant was the problem. "There is ample capacity and (the plant) is inspected regularly by the Department of Water Affairs."

The department could not be reached for comment.

Although the Voëlvlei Dam is managed by the department, the city said there had been concerns about the quality of the dam's water.

Nasson said the Witzenberg municipality would meet the World Development Bank and engineers soon about finding permanent solutions.

De Jager confirmed that the Witzenberg municipality had sent a machine to clean the pipe that was said to be filled with sand.

For many of the people of Tulbagh, the latest sewage overflow is the final straw.

De Jager said there were plans to declare a dispute with the municipality and to withhold rates payments.

The forum would vote on this issue at its next annual meeting, he said. If a dispute was declared, it would be one of more than 170 cases nationwide in which residents had or were declaring a dispute with their municipalities.

De Jager said the National Taxpayers' Union would meet tomorrow in De Aar to discuss ways of getting local government to improve its service.

- Cape Times

'Mini tornado' rips through homes

A gale has battered the rain-ravaged Cape West Coast and destroyed 59 homes, most of them low-cost RDP houses.

Onel de Beer, executive mayor of Saldanha Bay, said the 59 families were moved from the Witteklip area to community halls.

He saw the clouds darkening early on Tuesday evening and heard a loud noise and saw what looked like "a mini tornado" sweep over Witteklip.

He went to the scene soon afterwards and found the damage was more serious than he had feared. Some homes had collapsed.

"It's so bad that some people can't stay in their houses."

A pregnant woman and a child were slightly injured. They received attention and were "fine", said Japie Julies, head of protection services and disaster management.

The municipality provided the families with food, blankets and clothes on Wednesday.

The municipality hoped to repair most of the homes before the weekend as the weather was too cold for the families to endure a long stay in community halls, De Beer said.

He said emergency disaster funds would be used.

Julies said the families wanted to return to their homes because they were afraid they would be vandalised and looted.

Visible policing would be increased in the area, Julies said.

He had visited the area on Wednesday morning with De Beer.

"We went to the area to sympathise with residents and to see how we could assist them."

Social workers also spoke to the families on Wednesday morning to find out what help they needed.

A mobile disaster management unit had been moved to the area late on Wednesday afternoon to make it easier for the people affected to find assistance and information, Julies said.

It had yet to be determined whether any of the homes needed to be demolished, he said.

Ulrich Ukena, 28, and his son Shogun, five, were watching TV when part of their roof blew off.

Ukena has closed off the damaged section of his home and he and his family were now living in the bedroom.

People in Witteklip seemed in good spirits as they worked in the sunshine, repairing their roofs on Wednesday. They said they wanted to repair their roofs as soon as they could as more rain and cold weather were expected.

Municipal teams were out on the streets clearing broken glass, sheets of corrugated roofing and other debris.

Stella Nake, a meteorologist with the South African Weather Service, said weather in the area was expected to be fine with no rain until Monday, when the next cold front was expected.

- Cape Times

Cape RDP houses destroyed by freak storm

At least 30 RDP houses in Vredenburg on the Cape West Coast have been damaged during a freak storm that struck the area last night. Deputy Mayor in Saldhana Bay, Frank Mbanze, says the roofs of the RDP houses are blown off, and about eight informal dwellings are also affected.

He says with the assistance of disaster management they are able to assist the families affected. Mbanze says they are in the process of assessing the damage and will be asking provincial government for assistance.

Mbanze says: "Those 33 houses, our verification is that some of them have to be rebuilt ... there was also damage to three wendy houses, which were completely destroyed." - SABC

Western Cape now expecting fire

From flood to fire. That’s the warning from the South African Weather Service for residents of the Western Cape.

Cape flood damage to cost millions Flood victims double It forecasts conditions that could lead to runaway fires in the province, recently hit by floods that left thousands homeless. The Breede River valley and Eden District municipality are at risk, it said. Cold conditions are forecast for the area for the rest of the week. Lynette van Schalkwyk, a forecaster at the weather service, said it had issued fire-danger warnings. “Fires can spread rapidly in current conditions in some areas. This includes strong winds, high temperatures and dry surface air. Warmer conditions are also expected in the areas that we have warned about,” she said... - The Star

W Cape's housing crisis hits the big screen

The critical housing question in the province hit the big screen with politicians, activists and beneficiaries heading to the movie house to catch a provocative production focused on the housing crisis in the Western Cape.

Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille, Housing MEC Richard Dyantyi, mayoral committee member for housing Dan Plato and Ashraf Cassiem of the Anti-Eviction Campaign, among others, were part of the audience who watched Shamila's House on Saturday afternoon.

The movie, directed and produced by Robyn Rorke, was shown at the V&A Waterfront as part of the Encounters Film Festival.

'The movie is not meant to blame anyone'

"The movie is not meant to blame anyone, but is a line of conversation designed to stimulate robust dialogue around the housing issue with the intent of finding solutions," explained Rorke at the outset of the movie.

Made about four years with a budget of nearly R300 000, the documentary focuses on the struggles of a community in Eastridge, Mitchells Plain, in its quest to have its poorly constructed block of flats repaired.

The movie exposes inefficiency within a city-appointed company which built the blocks of flats in 1999.

The community feels cheated as it discovers that its members have to pay double the original agreed figure per month for homes with cracked walls, broken doors and windows and leaks.

Faced with this scenario, the community, together with the Anti-Eviction Campaign, elects Shamila Hamied, a mother of two, who looks after five other children for a living, to spearhead the fight with the city and the company to have the houses fixed.

'We must not make housing a political football'

The community refuses to pay for the houses and stands its ground, including toyi-toying when threatened with eviction.

Housing authorities eventually relent and the flats are repaired.

As is reflected in the movie, the community wants action taken against the company.

After the movie, De Lille, Dyantyi, Plato, Cassiem and Hamied engaged in a panel discussion.

Plato, who was shown in the movie handling the issue between the community and the company, came under attack from activists for "dragging his heels" in dealing with the company.

Plato said legal action had been taken and remedial work was underway.

De Lille, calling housing an "emotive issue" and citing the constitution, said the provision of houses should be made a top national priority.

"We must not make housing a political football," she said.

Dyantyi called on Rorke to do a follow-up film.

He said the housing question should not be looked at in isolation but other critical components such as unemployment, poverty, education, health, the economy and crime had to be taken on board.

He said R82-million had been contributed for repairs to poorly built houses, in nine areas including Eastridge.

Cassiem said public-private partnerships in housing were cause for grave concern as they were often marred by corruption, inefficiency and crooked people bent on abusing the public purse to enrich themselves. - Cape Argus

Secret Joe Slovo rezoning plans

Western Cape housing minister Richard Dyantyi has applied to rezone land occupied by the Joe Slovo informal settlement, even as the Constitutional Court prepares to hear a plea from residents to set aside their court-ordered eviction.

In March Cape Judge President John Hlophe granted a court order evicting the 15,000-strong community from the site, which is intended to form part of the government's flagship N2 Gateway housing project.

Hlophe gave the provincial and national governments the go-ahead to force the removal of the Joe Slovo residents to Delft. They do have a constitutional right to housing, he said, but not in the locality of their choice.

In his ruling Hlophe said this was a not a normal eviction but a "strategic relocation".

The Constitutional Court is set to hear the residents' appeal on August 21, when it is likely the top judges will still be embroiled in their battle with Hlophe over claims that he tried to influence them to decide in favour of ANC president Jacob Zuma.

Lawyers acting for the community appear to have learned by chance of a notice in the Government Gazette advertising the rezoning application. This week they filed an urgently compiled objection with the city council.

They argued that the application could not go ahead while the case was sub judice, saying "an application of this nature cannot be considered prior to the finalisation of the appeal. The reasons for clients' objections are also legal issues still to be decided by the Constitutional Court", attorneys at Chennels Albertyn and the Legal Resources Centre wrote.

The notice sets out a request that the properties to be rezoned for "residential purposes and associated community and other urban facilities".

Once designated as such, lawyers familiar with planning rules told the M&G, the government could build homes on the site, which are intended to be sold to people with low incomes who are able to afford a mortgage bond.

Ownership of the land, however, remains contested. Representatives of the community are expected to tell the Constitutional Court that they have lived there for 15 years and have a legitimate claim to the land.

Since most of the current residents of Joe Slovo have an income of between R300 and R1,200 a month, few of them will be able to afford the mortgage bonds required to buy N2 gateway houses, community members say.

Thubelisha Homes, the government's agent on the project, has, since Hlophe's ruling, released ­figures showing it is "technically insolvent" to the tune of about R70-million.

Prince Xhanti Sigcawu, spokesperson for Thubelisha Homes, declined to comment on the timing of the application.

National Minister for Housing Lindiwe Sisulu referred all questions to Dyanti, who did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Neither Chennels Albertyn nor the Legal Resources Centre would comment, saying the case is sub judice.

Jacques Snyman of Thubelisha's architectural firm, JS Architects, said applying for the rezoning of Joe Slovo "will enable the project to go ahead despite what legal or political battles are going on -- we have to build houses for people and court cases and political battles stall these processes. I wish we could simply build high-density structures to accommodate everybody who is currently living there," he said. - M&G

Extreme weather costs Western Cape R2bln

The aftermath of extreme weather in the Western Cape has cost the province more than R2 billion in the past six years. This has emerged at a two-day Disaster Management Indaba underway in Midrand, north of Johannesburg.

The province has recently experienced extreme floods which have left at least 18,000 people displaced and close to 4,000 homes destroyed. The University of Cape Town's Director for Disaster Mitigation, Ailsa Holloway, says government needs to put more money into developing risk averting infrastructure...

- SABC

R5 million needed for Cape flood victims

The city disaster management team is working around the clock to help flood victims

Western Cape Social Development Minister, Kholeka Mqulwana, says her department will need at least R5 million to assist those affected by the recent floods on the Cape Peninsula.

Mqulwana was speaking in Gugulethu on the Cape Flats where a donation of 250 food parcels and blankets was made by an NGO, Gift of the Givers. Close to 40,000 people have been affected by torrential rains that hit the Cape in the past week.

The city disaster management team says some 22,000 people are been provided for daily and over 13,000 blankets have been given to the flood victims. They say 3,000 people are being housed in community halls across the city.

Meanwhile, as many as 6,000 families in several towns in the Cape West Coast region are still cut off. Municipal manager of the Matzikama district, Dean O'Neal, says an Air Force helicopter has been bringing them supplies. Roads in Lutzville and Klawer are still closed. O'Neal says it's not yet clear how long the situation will remain.

Mqulwana says various government departments are out assessing the situation and will compile a report to consider disaster declaration in parts of the province. The province was declared a disaster area in May following the spate of xenophobic attacks two months ago. Chances are that parts of the province will again be declared a disaster area next week. - SABC

City identifies dry sites for flood victims

The city has identified two vacant pieces of land to which those worst hit by the floods can be relocated, and it will select the more suitable site today, although it will not force anyone to move there.

On Tuesday, the city's disaster risk management team reported that 22,000 people - in about 70 informal settlements, with 5,200 structures affected - had been left homeless by the downpours and strong winds that have swept through large parts of the province.

Mayoral committee member for housing Dan Plato told the Cape Argus that engineers and city housing and finance officials would meet today before deciding on which piece of land was more suitable for immediate relocation. Plato did not want to name the two sites, fearing there could be illegal occupations in the meantime.

"We need to determine if they can stand the test of flooding," he said.

On Tuesday, Plato and Mayor Helen Zille visited several areas to assess flood damage, including informal settlements at Lusaka in Philippi and Rotterdam near Silversands.

Zille said some of the worst effects of the flooding had been alleviated by rapid mopping-up operations and clearing of drains.

On Tuesday teams from the city's transport, roads and stormwater directorate pumped out stagnant water at some settlements to reduce potential health risks.

Referring to possible relocations, Zille said the decision to move was "entirely" up to those affected. "I am not in the business of removals."

Plato said the city would provide housing starter kits and would help move those who had their own structures.

The worst-hit areas identified by the city are Kanana and Lotus in Gugulethu, QQ Section, CT Section and Bani Mole kwani in Khayelitsha, Kosovo, Bongani TR section in Masiphumelele, Doornbach near Table View, Sweet Home in Philippi, Pholile Masakane and Soly's Town in Strand, and Gqobazi in Nyanga. Other settlements such as Freedom Farm and Malawi were also affected. - Cape Argus