Cape's bad weather displaces 20 000

The number of people displaced after heavy rains hammered the Cape Peninsula on Sunday has climbed to about 20,000.

The City of Cape Town has appealed to residents to donate generously to organisations providing relief to those worst affected by the storms.

Gallery: Cape Town Floods

The city's Disaster Risk Management department is mopping up areas affected by the rains and subsequent flooding. At least 63 informal settlements across Cape Town have been badly affected.

The department's Charlotte Powell said last night that the number of residents who were driven out of their waterlogged homes in informal settlements had climbed to 20,000.

She said with the "growing need for aid" the department was appealing to all Capetonians to donate to the NGOs proving relief.

The list of NGOs is HDI Support, 7 Transvaal Street, Paarden Island; Mustadafin Foundation, 18 Belgravia Road, Athlone; The Salvation Army, Western Cape Division, 85 Maynard Road, Wynberg; The SA Red Cross Society Western Cape, 21 Broad Road, Wynberg; The SA National Zakah Fund, 22 Cornflower Street, Bridgetown; and Masibambani, 323 Mongezi Road, Section C, Khayelitsha.

Meanwhile, the weather office has warned that cold and wet conditions were expected to persist.

Weather forecaster Carlton Fillis said while the rain was expected to clear by tonight very cold conditions were still expected to batter the Cape Peninsula for the next few days.

Although the wild weather has exacted a heavy human toll, there's a lighter side, too.

Some excited families from Cape Town took radio reports about snow lining the streets of Ceres very seriously yesterday, driving all the way to the little town only to discover it was not yet a white winter wonderland.

The Ceres Tourism Bureau said it had received more than 130 phone calls from people trying to confirm radio reports about snowfall in the town.

Most of them were directed to the Matroosberg Private Nature Reserve about 30 minutes outside of Ceres, because snow had fallen on the mountain ranges there since Sunday.

- Cape Argus

Rocks thrown at buses filled with people

Khayelitsha was rocked by violent service delivery protests last night as residents and police clashed after the residents had burned tyres and rubbish and hurled rocks through the windows of buses filled with people.

Police fired rubber bullets to disperse the residents.

Both Samora Machel, near Philippi, and Du Noon near Milnerton were also the scenes of service delivery protests yesterday.

- Cape Argus

‘We want houses, not food’ - Residents

AS MOPPING-UP operations continued in Western Cape yesterday after heavy rains displaced about 10,000 people, residents of Cape Town’s Kosovo township protested about the lack of housing.

Flooding in Cape Town (slide-show)

Rows of burning rubbish lined two streets in the township as a heavy police contingent watched residents chanting ‘‘We are not afraid. Give us houses”.

Nelly Skosana told The Times that she was forced to bail out 20cm of water in her shack after Sunday’s storms in Cape Town.

She demanded that President Jacob Zuma visit her shack.

“I want Zuma to come here. Why does he not fulfil his promises? Don’t they [government officials] think about how we stay? Are they skelms?” she asked .

“They just want us to vote for them and then they treat us like rubbish. We need houses. I have two children and they are sick.”

Patisa Bani said the people of Kosovo did not want “juice and bread” from Cape Town’s disaster management service.

“We need houses. We decided to make this fire because they don’t listen to our voices. This is a call. They will listen when it is burning,” said Bani.

Superintendent Andre Traut, spokesman for the Western Cape police, said the protest was not violent and no one was arrested.

Charlotte Powell, spokeswoman for the city’s disaster management service, said protests also broke out at the Du Noon informal settlement yesterday.

“[Protests] are not new. People tell us they don’t want food or hot meals. They want a house ,” she said.

Powell said the situation has improved for most of the 9350 people affected by the flooding of 20 settlements.

She said s ome people were housed at community halls because their shacks were still flooded.

She said the city’s housing department had provided flood kits that “include plastic sheeting and nails so people can fix their shacks”.

- The Times

Du Noon residents demand better service

Service delivery protests broke out at the Du Noon informal settlement near Milnerton on Tuesday morning, with residents burning tyres and blockading roads, Western Cape police said.

Inspector Daphne Dell said residents set tyres on fire at about 5am.

"Even though it is a bit peaceful now, there is a possibility that the violence could spread to nearby site 5," Dell said.

When Sapa contacted Dell, she was still trying to make her way through the blocked roads entering the area.

Residents are said to be unhappy with services provided by the local municipality. - Sapa

Thousands homeless as storms hit Mother City

Charlotte Powell, a spokesperson for Cape Town's disaster and emergency management, said around 9,000 people from 2,500 shacks had been affected by the floods.

No injuries had been reported.

"We are mopping up across the city," she said. "We have 20 informal settlements that have been affected. They are mostly on the Cape Flats."

Emergency sheltering was being provided for the affected people in community halls. Powell said the Lourens River in Strand and Liesbeek River outside the city had burst their banks.

She said floods had also hit suburbs such as Newlands, Rondebosch, Claremont, Athlone and Somerset West.

Disaster management services were trying to unblock stormwater drains.

Gail Linnow, client liaison officer for South African Weather Service Cape Town, said the weather office at Cape Town International Airport recorded the second-highest rainfall for a 24-hour period in July since recording started in 1957.

"The station recorded 55.2mm for the 24 hours from 8am on Sunday to 8am today (Monday). The highest figure recorded for a 24-hour period in July was 61mm in 1985," she said.

The record for a 24-hour period was 93.7mm, recorded at the airport in April 1993.

Linnow said figures from an automatic weather station in the Elgin-Grabouw area showed 148.2mm had fallen in the district between 8am Sunday and 8am Monday. This was the highest recorded since the station was established, in 2004.

Rian Smit, a SAWS forecaster at Cape Town Weather Office, said the severe weather would continue in the Western Cape on Monday.

"Snow is forecast for the Western Cape mountains today (Monday)," he said.

"The freezing level is at 5 000 feet, and while this will not close the (road) passes, it will definitely put some snow on the peaks.

"The weather is set to improve tomorrow. A weak weather system will pass over the Cape on Wednesday, but the forecast for Thursday and Friday is sunny weather."

At Matroosberg nature reserve, snow was reported to have fallen on the second highest peak in the Western Cape.

"There is small crack in the cloud and we can just about see that it has snowed on top of the mountain," said Mietdie Jasper, who works at the reserve. - Sapa

Cape flooded as rivers spill over

Hundreds of residents, mostly in informal settlements, had to be evacuated as heavy showers wreaked chaos throughout the city on Sunday, flooding homes and roads as rivers burst their banks.

Once again, poor Capetonians have been hardest hit. Hundreds had to be evacuated from shacks in low lying areas. Others spent the night cold and wet.

Swamped with calls, the city's disaster services could not give the extent of the damage last night, but said at least 1 000 people in informal areas were flooded out.

And there is more bad weather to come. The SA weather office has warned that very cold, wet and windy conditions, as well as snowfalls, are expected in high-lying areas today and tomorrow.

Both the Liesbeeck and Black rivers burst their banks yesterday, flooding parts of Rondebosch, Newlands and Observatory. Homes were flooded and cars submerged.

On the banks of the Liesbeeck, River Club owner Dewald Swanepoel waded waist deep with his umbrella.

"The entire parking lot is under water," said restaurant manager Andre Kalenda. They had evacuated all patrons when the river was near to bursting its banks, but several buildings were flooded.

A flooded M5 freeway had to be closed.

Meanwhile, torrents of water sent boulders and sediment tumbling down Camps Bay Drive last night, and a landslide blocked the outgoing lane at Kloof Nek.

Above Newlands Avenue, Albert Vianello's wall was pushed over as a stream grew to a flood.

"The tributary couldn't take it. With all the pressure against the vibrocrete wall, the water pushed it over and it gushed down over people's houses.

"You know, we're living on the mountain. So we're competing with nature here," he said.

"There has been widespread flooding across the city and it's very difficult to tell the extent of the damage at this stage," said Greg Pillay, head of the city's Disaster Risk Management Centre. "A lot of rivers and canals are going over their banks."

About 200 people were evacuated from shacks in Ocean View and taken in at a community centre, disaster spokesperson Charlotte Powell said.

Nearby Masiphumelele was also flooded. Many areas across the Cape Flats were hard hit, Powell said.

Another 800 people affected by flooding in Gugulethu were given hot meals and blankets by the Red Cross and NGO Mustadafin while 50 homes were flooded in Hanover Park.

"There's a lot of water in these houses," said Thembisile Qhapha, a resident of Taiwan in Site C, Khayelitsha. Taiwan is without drainage and prone to flooding in winter.

Qhapha said 24 homes were flooded.

At the Egoli informal settlement near Ottery, Nikki Schwartz said homes of about 200 people were flooded and community leaders tried to find alternative accommodation.

At the Blikkiesdorp informal settlement in Delft, community leader Beverly Jacobs said she and her three children were forced to spend the night in their flooded home.

"Some of the houses are flooding with water. It's about ankle deep. Some people are staying at other people's houses, but many don't have alternatives."

Traffic spokesperson Merle Lourens reported rockfalls on Faure Marine Drive between Gordon's Bay and Rooi Els.

Overberg disaster manager Reinhard Geldenhuys said parts of Grabouw and nearby informal settlements were flooding last night. "We're busy investigating reports of dwellings flooding, but so far there's heavy water in the town. The municipality and fire services are on site and they're putting sandbags down."

He said there had been no reports of flooding in the Overstrand area.

Last night, there were also no reports of flooding in the Winelands district and Eden (George) municipalities.

The weather service predicted colder conditions in the city today with a 60 percent chance of showers, but the rain was not expected to be as heavy as yesterday.

Rainfall was predicted to continue on Wednesday with a sunny respite later in the week.

- Cape Times

24 held after housing protests

Twenty-four people were due to appear in the Muizenberg Magistrate's Court on Friday morning after Thursday night's running battles between police, Neighbourhood Watch members and angry Masiphumelele residents.

Weeks of unhappiness and tension about a housing development in the area spilled over into Masiphumelele's streets as about 300 residents armed themselves with sticks and knobkieries and staged a sit-in at the busy Blackhill Road intersection at 7pm on Thursday night.

At the same time, another 200 people gathered at the entrance to Masiphumelele in Pokela Road and burned tyres.

Police spokeswoman Captain Cesley Olivier said the police had asked residents to disperse because they were a hazard to motorists and to themselves.

From about 8pm, all roads leading to Masiphumelele were blocked off by police and Neighbourhood Watch members.

Many people returning home from work were unable to get to their houses.

Just over an hour later, police dispersed the crowd gathered at Blackhill Road with rubber bullets. The group broke up into small groups, and some scattered through Sun Valley.

Neighbourhood Watch members claimed that the various groups were running rampant through the area, smashing cars and damaging property. The patrols were set up at several entry points bordering the township. Neighbourhood Watch members were informed that a group had jumped over the wall and smashed windows at the Sun Valley Caravan Park.

As police and volunteers searched the perimeter of the fence, a group of five men emerged from the nearby bushes.

"Here we are, and we're very sorry. We jumped over the wall because were just trying to get home," said one of the men. They came out with their hands raised and asked if they could go home.

They were, however, put in the back of a police van.

On the other side of the property, screaming and crying could be heard. A man with his hands tied behind his back emerged from the dark. His face and head was dripping with blood.

A few youths armed with sticks dragged two more men toward the police.

"Ons sal julle almal vrek maak, hoor jy?" (We'll kill all of you, do you hear me?), said a youth.

It is unclear if he was with the Neighbourhood Watch members or if he lived on the property. After the three men were loaded in the van, police caught another woman and also put her in the van.

By 10pm, the roads had been opened. The main road was full of dirt, broken glass, huge rocks and the remnants of burnt tyres.

Police carried out foot patrols inside a very tense Masiphumelele, but stuck to the main road. According to Olivier, residents had continued to stone police vehicles. They maintained a heavy police presence on Kommetjie Road, just outside the township.

She said 24 people had been arrested and detained at Muizenberg police station. They were all due to face charges of public violence in the Muizenberg Magistrates' Court on Friday.

Several protests over housing have taken place in the area over the last few weeks.

Many backyard dwellers are unhappy about the Amakhaya Ngoku housing development in the area.

- Cape Argus

N2 Gateway builders 'bankrupt'

National government housing agency Thubelisha Homes never had a mandate from the cabinet to manage the N2 Gateway housing project.

This was why Thubelisha "got into financial difficulties", said the company's chief operations officer, Mano Pillay, on Tuesday at Parliament's human settlements' portfolio committee.

Pillay said the National Treasury declined to approve the Section 21 company's budgetary requests as its mandate, given by former housing minister Lindiwe Sisulu, was never approved by the cabinet.

Thubelisha declared itself technically insolvent in 2008.

The company will cease operation from July 31.

Pillay said the company had assumed when given the mandate by Sisulu that all the legalities would be met by the national Housing Department.

Desperate to perform, Thubelisha "went into projects no one else would touch with a barge pole".

But Morris Mngombzulu of the national Housing Department said Sisulu had asked the cabinet to approve a mandate for emergency housing and that Thubelisha would be authorised to build them.

"When cabinet approved the emergency housing we assumed it was a blanket approval for all projects. It's a question of interpretation."

He said at an official level, it should have been mentioned that Thubelisha would be responsible for megaprojects such as the N2 Gateway.

Pillay said Thubelisha would be getting funding of R6,3-million for the 2009/10 financial year, but that this would contribute to operational costs.

The company survived on the interest of income from the provinces, about R2m a month.

Arron Steyn, of the Democratic Alliance, asked how the then housing minister could expect Thubelisha to produce 22 000 housing units for the N2 Gateway when the company only managed to build 13 000 houses in the past few years.

Mngombzulu said the National Treasury gave Thubelisha R50m to increase its capacity when the emergency housing mandate was approved.

Mngombzulu added that, when the N2 Gateway project was started, the City of Cape Town, provincial and national governments were involved.

"You all know what happened when there was a change of government (from ANC to DA)," he said.

"The project was the flagship of the minister and government. Government wanted it to succeed. We thought we would overcome the difficulties."

Pillay said the company struggled with "serious governance flaws" before the CEO resigned in 2006.

Mngombzulu said the N2 Gateway was a lesson for the national Department of Housing and that the National Housing Agency would fare better.

- Cape Times

Western Cape Housing ’not’ sending squatters to flood area

The Western Cape Housing Department has denied claims by shack-dwellers near Fish Hoek that it is forcing them to move to an area which is prone to flooding.

More than 150 residents from Masiphumelele informal settlement are refusing to move from the land which is earmarked for 350 housing apartments.

They say before they move from the area, authorities must provide them with a permanent piece of land with basic services.

Last week, they rejected a proposal by the department to move them to another site, claiming it was prone to flooding.

The department’s Zalisile Mbali says the claims do not have any substance.

“It is not true because the land we are relocating people to is actually earmarked for construction and it used to be the school and so it is impossible that we could be relocating people to a flooding area.”

Mbali says the department does not understand why the people are unhappy because the City of Cape Town and the residents have held fruitful meetings in the past.

- Eyewitness News

Another delay for District Six

District Six's redevelopment may be delayed yet again, because a crucial business plan cannot be completed due to bungling by the Department of Human Settlements.

The department, formerly known as the Department of Land Affairs, has appointed a contractor, but the department failed to finalise the spatial plan, or development framework, on which the business plan had to be based.

A private development, seen as a pilot project, is under way after several hiccups, but now the project itself may be delayed, because the Auditor-General has recommended that no project should be launched before a proper business plan has been drawn up.

The business plan, which will form the basis for future development and which was due this month, will at best take several more months to materialise, it has emerged.

Willem Nero of the Western Cape Regional Land Claims Commission confirmed on Monday that although the commission had appointed contractor Target Projects to draw up the business plan at the end of last year, a development framework to inform the business plan has yet to be completed.

The development framework, which details proposed roads, parks and built structures, is essential to determine particulars such as the cost of building claimant homes and the share of development which will need to go towards commercial enterprises.

Premier Helen Zille slammed the delay, saying that despite assurances by the department and the contractor that the plan would be completed by July, it was nowhere near ready.

"We have now discovered that Land Affairs only tendered for the business plan, even though it was warned that the spatial plan had to be done first," she said.

She said another tender now had to be issued for a spatial plan.

"The plan must then be completed. And only then can the business plan proceed. All in all, this will mean at least another year of delays," she said.

Nero estimated that the spatial plan would be completed within three months.

He said the commission was in the process of appointing people to draw up the framework, that the spatial and business plans would be completed concurrently and that an agreement had been reached with Target that no penalties would be incurred as a result of the delay.

Terence Smith of Target Projects said that for now, the company would proceed with the business plan until it reached the point where it needed the input from the development framework.

Smith confirmed there were currently no penalties as a result of the delay and also that Target would not be bidding for the contract to complete the development framework.

"It simply means that once we get to a point where we can't proceed, we have to wait," he said.

Progress had previously been delayed for more than a year because of disagreement between the city council, the District Six Trust and the commission over the tenders for the development framework and the business plan.

An estimated 2 000 claimants are waiting to be returned to District Six, which has seen only 24 homes completed since the restitution drive was launched in the early days of democratic South Africa.

- Cape Argus

Cape protests 'about leadership'

Violent protests this week at Happy Valley shack settlement on the Cape Flats were sparked by a leadership struggle, not delivery, the councillor for the area said on Tuesday.

Ward councillor Bert van Dalen said about 200 residents erected burning barricades and burned toilets in Wimbledon Road on Monday morning.

The protesters left when police arrived,

Van Dalen said the unrest was allegedly around housing, but this did not make sense as the community was aware that the city would soon start building 1300 houses at Happy Valley.

'The underlying cause seems to be a leadership struggle among a small clique'

"The underlying cause seems to be a leadership struggle among a small clique," he said.

Years ago, the majority of the 5000-strong community had elected an executive to represent them.

This body had been co-operating responsibly with the city and local welfare organisations.

"The entire community cannot be held to ransom by a small minority of rabble rousers," he said. - Sapa

MPs probe N2 Gateway problems

The N2 Gateway housing project has been fraught with political, rather than administrative, challenges, the national Department of Housing has said.

And the City of Cape Town - three years after it was removed from the project because of political differences with the provincial and national governments - has again been included in discussions about the management of the N2 Gateway.

A new intergovernmental agreement for the project could be on the table by September.

"After the 2006 local elections, there were issues around the project," housing director-general Itumeleng Kotsoane said.

"The (city's DA) leadership indicated they were not interested in the project. The political atmosphere affected the functioning of the project.

"Thubelisha Homes (a Section 21 company) was asked (to take over management of the N2 Gateway) more because of the political challenges than administrative challenges."

Kotsoane said work was being done to revise the original agreement signed in 2005 by the three spheres of government, and a final agreement would be ready in two months.

The acknowledgement of political influence came during yesterday's parliamentary hearing on the Auditor-General's blistering report on mismanagement and irregularities in the N2 Gateway project.

Former MEC for housing and local government Richard Dyantyi was present, but not as a member of the provincial delegation.

The standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) grilled the delegation about the decision to appoint Cyberia Technologies to manage the housing project.

The Auditor-General's office reported that the city council had begun a forensic investigation of Cyberia's contract when it came into power in 2006, but the investigation had not been completed because of a lack of documentation.

Scopa chairman Themba Godi said it was evident the final decision to appoint Cyberia Technologies - which had a low score in the bid adjudication - had been made by the then-city manager Wallace Mgoqi.

Cyberia was awarded a R5-million contract, but cost the city R12-million.

The committee raised several concerns, including whether the council had been removed from the project in 2006 or had withdrawn voluntarily.

City executive director of housing Hans Smit said: "The city was removed because of certain disagreements."

Godi asked whether, after the city council had been removed, changes were made to the memorandum of understanding signed by the three spheres of government in February 2005 and defining their roles and responsibilities.

Kotsoane said the political atmosphere after March 2006 affected the functioning of the project.

It was decided that Thubelisha take over the project.

The Auditor-General's report noted that the N2 Gateway steering committee did not meet after May 2006, but Aaref Osman, of the national Department of Human Settlements, said it had met regularly.

The meetings "were not in the same form", but there was "engagement" with the province, he said.

The Auditor-General's office noted none of these discussions had been minuted.

Smit confirmed the city had not taken part in steering committee meetings after May 2006.

After two hours of discussion, Godi postponed the meeting to August 5.

He said Scopa wanted answers to questions about what steps had been taken against those responsible for the mismanagement of the project.

"We are dealing with public funds that have been used in an unsatisfactory way."

- Cape Times

No MPs evicted from parliamentary villages

Acting public works department director-general Solly Malebye on Tuesday refuted media reports that former MPs still living in parliamentary villages in Cape Town were refusing to move out. (IOL)

Malebye also rejected reports that the former MPs had been served with eviction notices.

"Six [former] MPs have asked for an extension and two MPs who have changed political parties leading up to the elections are required to move out of their current houses and move to those allocated for their new political party," he said.

Malebye said the matter was being blown out of proportion as the department was receiving co-operation from all people concerned.

Nothing to see here folks... Move right along...There is no way that the ANC would ever be so rude as to treat it's MPs like regular citizens and actually evict them. The former MPs (let's call them what they really are) are now staying on the perogative of the minister of public works while the MPs waiting for those homes are racking up a hotel bill. It has been important to stop the rot early. We are finding out that it can be very expensive when "people" stay at the state's expense. Mr Aristide costs the South African government a mere R5million a year!

Scopa halts hearing on Cape housing project

Parliament's Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) postponed a hearing on a damning report into a Cape Town housing project on Tuesday after an "incoherent" response from the officials responsible for the project.

"There is a great deal of dissatisfaction at the way members of the committee are getting feedback," committee chairperson Themba Godi told representatives from the City of Cape Town and the provincial and national departments of human settlements.

"There is a lack of coherence of information, yet this was a project by the three spheres of government."

The aim of the multi-billion rand N2 Gateway Housing Project (N2GP) was to provide housing adjacent to the N2 Highway between Bhunga Avenue near Langa and Boys Town in Crossroads.

'There is a lack of coherence of information'

The report, released in June last year, found a number of irregularities in the project, which had been dogged by protests and a series of court challenges over evictions from the informal settlements it was supposed to replace, since its launch.

It said the business plan for the construction of the N2GP had not been finalised and approved before the actual construction commenced.

'Millions irregularly spent'

An interim business plan for the project had indicated that R3,42-billion was required to complete N2GP by 2009/10. This resulted in an overall shortfall of approximately R1,7-billion, of which the national department of housing (NDOH) would have to provide R1,68-billion.

"The NDOH could not indicate how they would pay the said amount," the report said.

The report said the project's business plan had indicated that the average income of households in the region was R1 200 per month. The income of 99 percent of the current tenants however, ranged from R1 500 to R7 500.

"Consequently affordable housing was not provided for the target market concerned."

Geotechnical surveys on soil problems were not completed prior to the commencement of the project. This resulted in costly improvements having to be made to the soil conditions and "delayed the delivery of the programme at critical stages".

The report found that the time frame of six months in which interested parties had to deliver the initial 22 000 planned units was insufficient.

It said work had commenced on certain sites prior to individual project approval from the Western Cape provincial government, resulting in irregular expenditure of R71,8-million.

Last week hundreds of residents from the N2 Gateway housing project marched through central Cape Town to protest against structural defects and plumbing problems. The 704 units in the complex were also said to be becoming havens for drug dealers.

"Everything is just wrong in that complex," chairperson of the residents' committee Luthando Ndabamba said.

The units that the protesters lived in were erected on land formerly occupied by shack-dwellers, many of whom had been relocated to more distant areas of the Cape Flats.

Scopa will next meet the City of Cape Town and the provincial and national departments of human settlements on August 5. - Sapa