Manuel: Lack of maintenance cause protests

Most service delivery protests arose from municipalities’ failure to do elementary maintenance, Minister in the Presidency Trevor Manuel said.

“It is necessary to remind ourselves that beyond the temptations of the great and the grand new projects lies the responsibility to ensure that proper and regular maintenance is undertaken,” Manuel said in a speech prepared for delivery.

He was giving a graduation address at the faculty of engineering at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, of which he is chancellor.

Manuel said: “It doesn’t matter whether your assignment covers rail-track, power stations, transmission lines, water schemes, petrochemical refineries, roads, elementary stormwater schemes or, as the inhabitants of Louisiana will attest, the scheme of levees designed to keep water out of the city.

“The failure to maintain any part of this rapidly wipes out the initial infrastructure investment.”

Other professionals might be able to mask the lack of maintenance, but engineers could never do this, Manuel said.

“Maintenance tasks are far less grand than new big projects, but certainly no less important.”

He said while the “era of high finance” had passed, the present was now “the era of engineering”, which was what society needed to transform.

“The challenges are all enormously important engineering challenges and... there are few that can be claimed as exclusive to one or the other engineering discipline.”

Manuel said the arrival of “the era of engineering” came laden with the demand for change in how engineers behaved.

“It is important that engineers everywhere approach the new era with humility.

“Much as the possibilities that present themselves make us drool for action, we must remember that many of the problems of the past, including the now unfashionable carbon-belching machines are the product of engineers from a different era,” Manuel said.

- TimesLive

Blikkiesdorp: 'It's a concentration camp'

The City of Cape Town has again come under fire for hiding its homeless from tourists on the eve of the 2010 World Cup.

'Sewage seeps from drains. Children are sick'

UK tabloid The Sun carried an article about dozens of poor people being forced to move to a temporary settlement called Blikkiesdorp, in Delft, north of the city.

"Residents living in row upon row of three-by-six metre wood and corrugated iron huts say they are the World Cup's shameful secret - the hungry and homeless 'dumped' in a makeshift tin city where football fans will not see them," the article said.

But city media manager Kylie Hatton said the area was definitely "not being used to hide people".

And Western Cape Premier Helen Zille told The Times: "No one is forced to stay. It is an informal settlement with full services. About 222 informal settlements have few or no services."

In a statement, the city said: "While the Delft Temporary Relocation Area, more well known as Blikkiesdorp, has been portrayed as an area to move poor people prior to the World Cup, the City continues to receive requests from people who want to move there."

But Blikkiesdorp residents liken it to a "concentration camp".

Children played in puddles, prompting Alexandria Cambell, who has lived there for two years, to scream: "Get away from there!"

She told The Times the puddles were sewage water which "seeps from the drains when it rains".

"The children are always sick here," she said.

The little boy she yelled at responded: "I am sick already, aunty."

Cambell said: "I was told that it would only be temporary, but here we are still. People die because it is so cold in winter and die because it is so warm in summer.

"It is like we are in a concentration camp - we are hidden from the world".

Blikkiesdorp was established in 2008 to house illegal occupants of homes in Delft which formed part of the controversial N2 Gateway housing project. Some of its inhabitants have been on the housing waiting list for over a decade.

Blikkiesdorp is now also home to those evicted from unsafe houses, vagrants, and victims of xenophobic violence.

The city, however, insists that environmental health practitioners regularly visit the area to ensure health standards are met.

Last month Raquel Rolnick, special rapporteur on adequate housing for the UN, presented a report to the UN Human Rights Commission on the negative impact "mega-events" like the World Cup have on people's right to proper homes.

She highlighted the case of the 20000 people evicted from the Joe Slovo informal settlement to make way for the N2 Gateway housing project.

The project, her office believes, is no more than an attempt to beautify the entrance of Cape Town for the World Cup - a claim repeatedly denied by city and national government officials.

- TimesLive

SA Human Settlements & subprime loans

Government has put together a billion rand fund to put a "floor" under banks' "gap" market loans. Is this the US subprime market reinvented for SA?

Minister of Human Settlements Tokyo Sexwale announced that he has briefed banking executives on government's plans. These will be announced in Sexwale's budget speech on April 21. This is so as to "not surprise them".

The discussions revolved mostly around the "gap" market, defined as those earning R3 500 to R9 000 per month. This is the group that finds it most difficult, if not impossible, to access bank credit explained Sexwale.

The broad idea is that the fund will insure banks against losses from loans made to the "gap" market. Sexwale says this will not only enable banks to lend, but will raise the cap of what banks will commit to the sector.

The fund is essentially to give banks confidence to make loans they wouldn't have before. A bank executive heading for the exit just after the meeting commented that if the banks could've made money from a market they would be in there already.

This insight was mirrored by Cas Coovadia of the Banking Association. Somehow though, Sexwale believes that this government "insurance fund" will allow banks to make responsible loans compliant with the National Credit Act.

Sexwale acknowledged that the US, and global, economy was brought to its knees as a result of banks making loans to people they knew could never repay them. He spoke of local bank Unifer as an example to bear in mind. It lost billions through dodgy loans leading up to the small-bank crisis.

Interestingly, when asked if the fund will insure loans for specific groups in the "gap" or everyone, Sexwale responded "everyone". It will be interesting to see if this really is a colour-blind scheme in implementation.

So what's the difference between this SA government initiative and the US subprime implosion?

Sexwale said we have proper regulations in place, banks that value their reputations... and "[we] trust the banks aren't run by crooks".

Importantly Sexwale and the bank executives said they are working as a team to make this scheme workable. Hopefully this will result in a system that benefits those intended. Details were scarce as the scheme seems to be still in its early phase.

The fund is envisaged to start at R1bn, but Sexwale said that as the economic cycle improves he could approach Treasury to provide more guarantees, further underpinning bank loan books. This sounds a bit like chasing the cycle though, something US banks did as the housing bubble grew.

The question lingers, if the banks could really make money in the "gap" market then surely they would be there already? Does this scheme not privatise profits and socialise the losses just like America did?

Another issue is that government has been criticised over its implementation of plans. In fact, a similar discussion such as Monday's one happened in 2005. From the sounds of Monday's briefing, nothing has happened in the five subsequent years.

- Realestateweb

20 children die in Cape diarrhoea outbreak

Twenty children in the Western Cape have died as a result of complications arising from gastroenteritis and diarrhoea in the past few months.

Some medical staff said they were under serious pressure from both the seasonal outbreak of diarrhoea and a measles epidemic that had been diagnosed in 1 250 people since September.

The provincial department of health said that more than 700 children with diarrhoea had been admitted to its hospitals last month.

And on Friday, there were just more than 100 children being treated for measles in Western Cape hospitals. Thirteen children have died of complications linked to measles since the epidemic broke out last year.

The Red Cross Children's Hospital is dealing with scores of measles and diarrhoea cases, and staff are battling to cope.

One doctor, who declined to be named, said staff shortages at the hospital meant doctors and nurses felt overwhelmed by the number of patients they were treating.

"Staff aren't happy. There's been too much pressure for them deliver, with few resources. Critical staff shortages have made the situation worse.

"Staff just feel overwhelmed by the work as a result of the measles outbreak, for instance. It would be interesting to know what the department is doing to address staff shortages here," said the doctor.

Provincial health department spokeswoman Faiza Steyn acknowledged that there were staff shortages at the Red Cross Children's Hospital, but insisted these were being addressed as part of an ongoing process.

"We have addressed this with the employment of two additional medical officers at the beginning of the year, and we are in the process of appointing two additional medical officers next month," she said.

Meanwhile, both the province and the city are upbeat about a mass inoculation campaign, which aims to vaccinate at least one million children against measles. It is part of a national inoculation drive - other provinces have also been hit by measles outbreaks.

Steyn said that more than 400 000 children had been vaccinated across the Western Cape during the first three days of the provincial inoculation drive, which started last week.

Dr Ivan Bromfield, the head of City Health, said: "There has been a good response so far. Certain areas have been put under strain with numbers, but are coping.

"The challenges relate to ensuring that normal primary health-care services continue whilst we have to utilise a large proportion of our personnel power to deal with the campaign."

- Cape Argus

Nyanda picks hotels over official residence?

Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda has still not moved into his official residence a month after a media exposé of his R4 000-a-night stay at Cape Town's five-star hotels.

Nyanda has been staying at The Twelve Apostles and Mount Nelson hotels, costing the taxpayer a minimum of R4 000 a night. This is despite an official residence, a plush mansion in upper Claremont, provided for him when he took office in May last year. He has not spent a single night in the mansion since then.

His spokesperson, Tiyani Rikhotso, said two weeks ago that Nyanda had been living in hotels because his ministerial mansion was not ready for occupation.

This week, staff at Mount Nelson and The Twelve Apostles said Nyanda no longer lived at the hotels. Rikhotso failed to answer questions about where Nyanda was now staying.

The Cape Times visited the house and learnt that Nyanda had not moved in, but visited every now and then, to drop off his valuables.

Two SAPF officers guarded the house every day and a domestic worker made sure it was spick and span.

A police officer said he had been guarding the house since last year, but had never seen Nyanda there. He confirmed Nyanda had not moved in.

The Cape Times has been trying for days to get comment from Rikhotso. He did not respond to e-mails, phone calls and messages left at his office.

Democratic Alliance shadow deputy minister of Communications Lindiwe Mazibuko said it had been more than a month since she had submitted parliamentary questions to Nyanda, asking how much his stay at the five-star hotels had cost the taxpayer. She had not received a response.

A Mail and Guardian article stated last month that Nyanda stayed in the hotels an average of four nights when he visited Cape Town to attend Parliament. If he attended all National Assembly and special sittings since taking office, he would have spent about 88 nights in Cape hotels.

According to the article, Nyanda ran up a bill of R33 330 between February 6 and 12 in accommodation, food, mini-bar expenses and laundry services at the Twelve Apostles. From February 14 to 19 the hotel billed Nyanda R21 417 for four nights' accommodation and food.

Nyanda was criticised last year for buying two luxury German cars, each worth well over R1-million.

- Cape Times

Investors in Affordable Housing are most welcome in the Western Cape

I am very excited to hear of International Housing Solutions' involvement in the financing of affordable housing in South Africa and, more particularly, the Western Cape. It is indeed pleasing that you already have $35 million worth of projects in the pipeline in this province, and I hope that we can work together to grow that investment here.

Those who have encountered me since my appointment to this portfolio will tell you that a regular theme of mine is the need to encourage greater private sector investment and involvement in the affordable housing sector.

In his State of the Nation Address in February, President Zuma announced that a R1 billion guarantee fund will be created to encourage banks to increase their loan books in this market. The national Department of Human Settlements, together with Treasury, is busy working out the details of the implementation plan for this fund, but the national department has already set the very ambitious target of 600 000 affordable units over the next five years.

For our own part, in acknowledgement of the need to service this market, we have created a Directorate of Affordable Housing under the Chief Directorate of Human Settlement Planning in our provincial Department of Human Settlements. This directorate will be responsible for driving our rental housing strategy, which we will be launching shortly, as well as building partnerships with investors, developers and other stakeholders to increase the development of affordable housing and thus close the gap in the housing market between the traditional bonded market and the fully-subsidised market.

We must acknowledge that rental stock must be a significant contributor to the provision of affordable housing. If managed properly, it is the most sustainable means of servicing this market.

Last month, I visited the UK to attend a Social Housing Conference, and to visit social housing projects and meet with experts in the field.

In the UK, the state does not provide housing; social housing associations do. And the state only finances 40 percent of any housing project; the rest is funded from a combination of the associations' own income (from rental collections) and private finance. We need to move towards this model here.

We have much to learn from the social housing associations in the UK, and a number of partners there indicated their willingness to assist us with developing our social housing institutions here in the Western Cape, as well as building capacity and sharing expertise with our department.

But we need to draw in more partners, especially those that can finance social housing projects, and I would like to invite you to be a part of this initiative.

In the Provincial Government of the Western Cape, you have a partner that is committed to making it as easy as possible to make a success of your venture - from the general environment we create to the specific assistance we can provide in facilitating the development of affordable housing in the province. I invite you to continue to engage with us and to build a partnership that will benefit you and the people of the Western Cape, and South Africa generally.

- Capegateway.gov.za

'It is better to go home and die'

Some of the refugees facing eviction from the Blue Waters safety camp say that they would rather be deported than continue to be "harassed and intimidated" by the City of Cape Town.

"It is better to go back home to go die there," said Marcel Mahele, 26, originally from the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo.

On Monday city metro police arrived at the camp to dismantle makeshift structures that some refugees had erected on Sunday night.

City of Cape Town spokesman Pieter Cronje said they were keeping a close eye on Blue Waters for the eviction of the remaining refugees.

He said the city had obtained an eviction order from the High Court, Cape Town to compel the remaining refugees to leave the Strandfontein camp.

Those refugees who have remained behind are waiting for the Sheriff of the High Court to arrive at Blue Waters to serve the eviction notice, which came into effect on March 31.

Cronje said that basic services would be delivered until the eviction notice was exercised.

There were only 153 tents left at Blue Waters. All other tents and portable toilets not being used were being removed, he said.

The small community left alleged that their departed neighbours only left the camp because they had been intimidated into doing so.

The camp manager prevented the media from entering the site because he said he feared this may incite violence.

Speaking to the Cape Argus outside the camp, Mahele said he had arrived in Joburg almost seven years ago, and had been living in a refugee camp in Port Elizabeth when xenophobic violence broke out across South Africa in May, 2008.

He was moved to the Soetwater safety camp, then about three months after that, was transferred to Blue Waters.

Now, all that was left of his makeshift home was the kitchen section, but without a door.

Mahele had refused to leave his home. But he said he was left bleeding when he clung to a blanket as metro police dragged him out before they pulled down his tent home, he claimed.

"Tonight, I have to go sleep with some other friends. The wind is blowing, it is not safe for me to stay here," he said.

Mahele said city officials came knocking on Monday, but had refused to identify themselves.

He said they were there about the pending evictions, but had not shown him any court papers or a notice for his removal.

Tony Shoku, 29, also from the DRC, fears that his home will be next.

"We want a safe place, but we keep on being told we are (living) here illegally," he said.

Shoku has lived at Blue Waters since being moved from his home in Samora Machel in Nyanga, when the xenophobic violence broke out.

"We fear they will come to evict us. But they must evict us to our country - to the border - full eviction," he said, adding that he and other refugees were in danger outside the fences of the camp.

Shoku said they had been promised integration, repatriation and resettlement.

"We are waiting to be resettled. We stay here. We want a solution. We are not fighting for land or money," he said.

Bryant Mushishajay, 22, from Burundi, said he did not know where he was going to spend the night as his belongings had been left uncovered and exposed in the middle of the camp.

"I didn't take any money or rob anyone, and now I don't have a house," he said.

Mushishajay said the city was telling lies and evicting everyone in small groups at a time.

- Cape Argus

How green is our Constitution?

Nature has powerful resonances for South Africans. Well-heeled, educated folk regard it as an elitist hobby. Others, who live off the land, revere it as a critical survival resource.

Paradoxically, nature is routinely disrespected by South Africans.

Debacles such as those involving coal-mining rights near the Mapungubwe National Park and the dumping of polluted water in the Marievale Nature Reserve in Springs seem to be on the rise. The former is a world heritage site and the latter is an internationally recognised Ramsar bird and wetland area.

One source of this ungreen behaviour is the Constitution. Section 24 of the Bill of Rights, which deals with the environment, is limp. Nearing retirement age, it is the result of a problematic people-centred, rights-based approach. It is worth unpacking these shortcomings if we are to deserve our emerging status as a player in international green politics.

Basic rights to life, dignity and equality are expressed in our Constitution, as well as democratic freedoms of expression, association, assembly, opinion, belief and religion, and culture and language. These reflect the giddiness of fresh post-apartheid psychology.

Complex relationships between people and the environment appear to have been overlooked in the Constitution. Section 24 (b) states that "[e]veryone has the right to have the environment protected for the benefit of present and future generations, through reasonable legislative and other measures".

This comes across as a weak attempt to broadly define sustainable development because it does not delineate how humans should interact with the environment of which they are a part. Later on, Section 24 b(iii) refers to "justifiable economic and social development and ecologically sustainable development". This vagueness and jargon causes difficulties in interpreting what sustainable development actually means in the legal-politik of ordinary people's lives.

The right to "an environment that is not harmful to their health or wellbeing" is stated in Section 24(a) even before any reference to sustainable development -- suggesting that greater importance is attached to human needs and standards than to sustainable development. More importantly, it reveals that the Constitution treats "health or ­wellbeing" and "sustainable development" as mutually exclusive concepts that are not interrelated.

Section 24 b(i) to (iii) collectively refers to "reasonable legislative and other measures that prevent pollution and ecological degradation, promote conservation and secure … sustainable development". So, for example, as long as water quality is fit for human health or wellbeing, the law courts and other regulatory systems can allow rivers to become polluted to the point where all life forms and ecological processes in those rivers are destroyed.

In effect, the poorly thought-through expression of sustainable development in the Constitution can translate to mean that the state can sanction environmental destruction.

The Bill of Rights also fails to anticipate emerging environmental challenges such as those associated with climate change and carbon emissions. For example, do citizens have the right to clean air, irrespective of whether the law courts determine the effect on our health or wellbeing? It is clear that Section 24 presents environmental rights as trade-off rights that are negotiable. In contrast, the Constitution is explicit about the right to education, the right to a free and fair trial, the right to shelter and so forth.

Our Constitution is a platform that allows for fundamental shifts in society's norms and values and to this end it imposes duties on all spheres of government to satisfy "everyone's right to have the environment protected". This requires resources and technical and leadership capacity in government. It also requires a coordinated understanding and a shared vision of sustainable development, especially among the environmental affairs, minerals and energy and agriculture, fisheries and forestry departments.

Our Constitution dissociates Citizen Joe Soap from playing an active role in protecting the environment because government is the regulator. This is disempowering for two reasons.

First, it removes any incentive for people to bring the state to book when it fails in its duty. Legal recourse is almost impossible in South Africa because Section 24 does not give easy credence to laws that grant people the right to sue on behalf of nature, even when legal compliance standards were not met. Recall the high-profile slanders associated with the court case involving the preservation of the flamingo breeding site in Kimberley versus the lobbying for a housing scheme.

Second, the scope for people power, social mobilisation and environmental activism is absent from Section 24. For seemingly enlightened types, environmental rights embody lifestyle changes that reduce carbon footprints and consumption behaviour. This can amount to remaining childless (but adopting an orphan), giving up meat and getting on bicycles to buy organic veggies from the local market. But for the majority, environmental rights involve local, proactive decision-making muscle in spaces where corporations or government exercise power.

In September 2008 disillusionment with foreign multinationals displacing people and damaging the richness of Ecuador's biodiversity (including the Galapagos Islands) led to a successful vote to constitutionally enshrine nature-based rights. Ecuador's Constitution recognises that people are trustees of nature who are obliged to protect and preserve it. It also recognises that nature -- ecosystems and all living organisms -- have fundamental and inalienable rights to exist.

The Ecuadorian case is groundbreaking in sophistication because human beings are correctly seen as being part of nature. This is a key principle of sustainable development. The result is a fusion of holistic human values into the sustainable development agenda, which in return is integrated with governance systems -- a philosophy known as "Earth jurisprudence".

As in Ecuador, South Africa and elsewhere in the developing world, the vacuuming effect of expanding external powers in many rural landscapes dries up small local businesses and wreaks havoc with environmental resources, community values and labour rights. Safeguarding the future may mean creating local constitutions or municipal bylaws that espouse the rights of both nature and citizens. The basis for this is a robust and well-thought-through approach to sustainable development in the Constitution.

A legal remedy for Section 24, for example, might be to present principles and goals for air and water as individual subsections that relate to biodiversity and people. This would signal to the state and society what the particular duties are that we have towards our environment. This will also slay the perspective that the environment is the property of the state.

If we dare to forecast the evolution of South Africa's track record of sustainable development over the next few years, then perhaps it is time for a radical rethink.

~ Janice Golding is an independent consultant and commentator with a doctorate in environmental change from Oxford University

- M&G

Clash of the rich and poor

It's a classic clash of classes. Johann Rupert has submitted plans to develop a world-class golf course on land once earmarked for a government housing development.

" 'Things are moving. We've done all the ecological surveys. You can't build there. We've been looking at it for five years' " Jacob Zuma

The plan has divided the sleepy town of Hawston, near Hermanus.

The proposed golf course would carve up one of the last remaining seafront wilderness areas in the Western Cape.

The matter has also turned political, with local ANC leaders accusing the local DA council of selling off state land to the highest bidder despite a massive housing backlog in the area.

Rupert has defended his plan, comprised of two adjacent 18-hole golf courses - one public and one private - even as residents of nearby Mount Pleasant township prepared a mass march to demand housing and better municipal services.

Rupert told the Sunday Times the plan included a links grade course that would attract the world's top players, and much- needed foreign currency, into the poor Overstrand area.

He said a business plan had already been submitted to the Overstrand council, along with an Environmental Impact Assessment.

"Things are moving in the right direction," Rupert said.

"We've done all the ecological surveys. You can't build there. We've been looking at it for five years. It would be an enormous uplift for the whole community."

He said the site had the potential to benefit everybody - rich and poor.

Rupert is one of the country's richest men and a keen golfer. His holiday house in Onrus, close to Hawston, is a regular retreat from his corporate duties as chairman of Richemont, a luxury goods company with profits last year of à844 million (about R8.2-billion).

Although it is unclear how much Rupert is willing to invest in the Hawston development, his previous Leopard Creek golf course in Mpumalanga was designed by Gary Player. Membership is "by invitation only", according to its website.

Golf experts estimate the exclusive Hawston course would cost R30-million to R50-million. If up-market housing is allowed, the new development could be worth up to R1-billion. A new up-market development in nearby Hermanus raked in R700-million worth of residential sales.

By contrast the plight of Hawston's unemployed fishermen recently drew comment from President Jacob Zuma, who visited the town late last year, promising jobs and investment.

The Sunday Times has established that:

* A 2004 development study commissioned by the former ANC-controlled Overstrand council recommended a massive integrated housing development, incorporating much of the vacant land surrounding Hawston;
* The new DA-controlled council ditched the 2004 study in favour of their own housing masterplan;
* After Rupert submitted his golf plan, which would incorporate council and provincial- owned land along the coast, the new DA council tried unsuccessfully to acquire the province's portion from the then ANC provincial government; and
* The golf course plan appears to be moving ahead. Last month the council approved a motion to call for development applications on a vast chunk of the Hawston land, identified as portions 3 and 7 of the farm Middelvlei.

Council spokesman Fanie Krige confirmed the call for development, but said Rupert would have to resubmit his plan .

Rupert would also have to negotiate a separate deal with the provincial government for development rights on provincial land.

Rupert's project co-ordinator Merson Arendse said developers had already met with the province, and that the project would soon go ahead.

But former head of Overstrand Housing and Community Development, Bobby von During, said the plan was inappropriate: "There are tens of thousands of people on the housing waiting list here, what good will more golf courses do?"

Hawston ward committee member Tommy Gelderblom said he had heard of Rupert's plan, but the community had not yet been consulted.

"We need businesses, not just golf courses," he said.

Rupert insists his plan has widespread support and would stimulate growth in the economically depressed area, which so far has failed to attract investment.

"I haven't spent my whole life trying to do things the right and ethical way, then on a relatively small thing to cut corners," he said, adding that he himself insisted on a public tender for developing the land.

He also maintains the proposed site is not suitable for housing: "It's just wasteland dunes. There is nothing of ecological value," he said.

- Sunday Times

State suing over poor housing - Sexwale

The government has started taking legal action against developers who built shoddy houses for the poor, Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale said on Wednesday.

"The department is taking civil and criminal action against companies/developers or contractors who built flawed houses for government housing schemes," he said in a written reply to a parliamentary question by the ANC.

His department would also take disciplinary or criminal action against officials who accepted sub-standard work or colluded with unscrupulous contractors.

Sexwale said the legal steps followed a national audit of housing schemes and an ongoing probe by the Special Investigating Unit.

The civil action aimed to recover money lost by the department. Some contractors have "already signed acknowledgements of debt with the department for failure to deliver when money had already been paid to them".

The ministry could not immediately be reached to give an indication of the sums involved.

Sexwale said where structures needed to be demolished, the department was bearing the cost while litigation was underway to establish the cause of the structural defects. This was done in order not to delay service delivery, he added.

The minister said the department was resolving problems with 500 sub-standard houses in Cala in the Eastern Cape. It would do the same with defective homes in a development of 2000 low-cost houses in Tarkastad, in the same province, in the current financial year.

It was currently working on houses in Tarkastad that were unfinished rather than flawed. This project should be finalised by the end of the month, he said.

Sexwale launched a national audit of housing projects in November last year to get to the bottom of what he termed "chronic" and "massive" problems with delivery.

- Sapa

Arson blamed for blaze which left 24 homeless

Arson is alleged to be the reason for eight shacks being razed and 24 people left homeless in Khayelitsha.

The fire raged in Taiwan informal settlement at about 11pm after a husband and wife got into an argument.

Nthabaleng Lebenya said her husband came to the shack she was house-sitting for a friend who was in the Eastern Cape. Lebenya said her husband threatened her with a gun but she managed to escape.

"I went to a friend in Site C, not far from Taiwan, and a few hours later we heard that there was a fire.

"When I got there people started shouting at me, telling me that my husband had caused it.

"We tried our best to put it out but it was too big and by the time the fire truck came, there was nothing left," she said.

One of the people who lost everything in the fire was 73-year-old Phumelele Beme who had been living there for more than four years. "I have nothing now, just the clothes that I have on," said Beme.

Khayelitsha police spokesman Mthokozisi Gama said they were aware of the fire but no docket had been opened.

Wilfred Solomons-Johannes, spokesman for the city's Disaster Risk Management Centre, said no one had been hurt in the fire and the city had provided building material for people to rebuild their homes.

"We also provided them with blankets and would be giving them hot meals. Their homes should be up by tonight," he said.

In a separate incident, two men also lost everything when their homes caught fire in Site C on Sunday at about 9am.

Thembeni Mantyi said the electrical wires of his kettle caused a spark when he put it on.

He didn't pay attention to the sparks. Next thing he knew the wire of the electric circuit box started burning.

Fearing that it would blow up, he ran outside and called his brother.

"By the time I got back with my brother, both our shacks were on fire and we could not put it out in time," said Mantyi.

- Cape Times

Shack blaze leaves families homeless

Twenty-four people were left homeless after their shacks caught fire in the Taiwan informal settlement in Khayelitsha, the Cape Town disaster management centre said on Monday.

Spokesperson Wilfred Solomons-Johannes said in a statement that six shacks were burned on Sunday night, but no one was injured during the incident.

He said the homeless families would be assisted by disaster relief officials.

The fire was brought under control within minutes. - Sapa

Government reaches deal on rate boycotts

The government and the National Taxpayers' Union (NTU), representing about 70 organisations of mainly white ratepayers that are boycotting paying municipal rates to protest against poor service delivery, have reached a compromise agreement.

The two sides - including acting director-general of co-operative governance Elroy Africa and NTU president Jaap Kelder - met late last week and agreed to set up pilot municipalities in four provinces.

The pilot project towns will be Louis Trichardt in Limpopo, Barberton in Mpumalanga, Bethlehem in the Free State and Sannieshof in the North West.

Advisory committees consisting of all three levels of government, the ratepayers' organisations, township civic organisations, municipal managers and local mayors will be represented. These advisory bodies will look at service delivery problems in these areas.

Kelder said ratepayers would continue to pay their rates into separate bank accounts set up by the ratepayers' bodies in their respective towns. The money from the bank accounts would be used to pay for necessary services and other immediate requirements, be it fixing a pothole or repairing a sewerage pipe.

While Africa did not return calls for comment, Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Sicelo Shiceka's spokeswoman Vuyelwa Qinga-Vika said the minister's approval would be communicated with the NTU "within the next week".

Shiceka accused the white ratepayers of setting up a "parallel government" and threatened to use the full force of the law against them. He, however, did not attend the meeting with the NTU, leaving this to his department's senior officials.

Kelder, who was accompanied by Carin Visser, the chairwoman of the Sannieshof Ratepayers' Association and also the chairwoman of the North West branch of the NTU, said threats to cut off the supply of electricity to thousands of those boycotting rates in Brits and Phalaborwa had been prevented by the talks with the department.

While it could not be confirmed, Kelder said that according to the agreement with the department, ratepayers who had boycotted payments to the municipality would not be penalised for outstanding rates because they had paid them to the alternative bank accounts. That money would be used to implement corrective action in the municipalities concerned.

The advisory committees would, within two weeks, identify critical areas of service delivery backlogs. "The trust funds will be made available to address these problems," said Kelder.

Asked if the money would be channelled to the municipalities for this purpose, Kelder was emphatic that this would not happen.

"(The department) asked for that but the money will go directly to the contractors who put right what is wrong," Kelder said.

Qinga-Vika could not confirm if this was the case and whether the minister had agreed to this position.

- Business Report

Churches to hold Easter ceremonies in tents

Churches on the Cape Flats will conduct Easter ceremonies in tents erected by the city, reported the SABC on Friday.

This, after the Cape Town city authorities in March demolished church structures in Mitchell's Plain and Khayelitsha after it was discovered that they were illegally built on municipal land.

The tents were erected by the city at a cost of R300,000.

- Sapa