Housing South Africa

N2 homes get key inserts after safety blunder

2006-12-23T11:40:00.000-08:00

Housing authorities on Sunday began distributing 1 000 key inserts that cannot be duplicated to residents of the N2 Gateway complex, after at least three tenants were robbed in recent weeks.

And 10 security guards have been placed on day and night shifts to strengthen security, said the housing ministry spokesperson, Monwabisi Maclean.

Residents complained earlier that the keys to their newly completed units could be used to open any of the 705 units in the complex.

A spate of break-ins had sparked fears that criminals could be using the standard keys to gain access to units.

Maclean confirmed that originally "standard" keys that opened the doors to all 705 apartments had been issued.

"The problem of the duplicate keys was brought to (housing company) Thubelisha's attention on November 13. Thubelisha chose to purchase key inserts that should solve the problem as they cannot be duplicated."

Thubelisha Homes was appointed by the national housing department to manage the multi-billion N2 Gateway housing development.

Last week residents threatened to withhold their rent if the duplication of the keys was not sorted out and asked the Local Government and Housing MEC, Richard Dyantyi, to intervene.

Maclean said it had not been known that the locks could be opened by standard keys. He was also not aware of any break-ins at the complex.

Thubelisha Homes could not be reached for comment.

This key-duplication debacle is the latest controversy to cloud the government's flagship housing project since it was launched in 2005.

The first 705 units of phase one were completed in April this year, behind schedule.

Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu said then that delays were due to "challenges in construction complexities of building such a huge project".

Initially an intergovernmental project shared by the three tiers of government, the N2 Gateway was taken away from the City of Cape Town in July.

There have also been delays in the allocation of units to the more than 7 000 hopeful applicants, which housing authorities attributed to housing list confusion. The project has been dogged by financial difficulties including allegations that contractors were not paid for work done.

More recently, there have been complaints from residents about building defects which included peeling paint and leaking pipes.

Soweto wants to lure the white rand

2006-11-18T14:31:00.000-08:00

Developers involved in Orlando Ekhaya, a massive multi-use development in Soweto, want to draw the "white rand" to South Africa's most famous township.

Elangeni Property Development, a consortium of Soweto business people involved in part of Orlando Ekhaya, and Minanawe Marketing are looking to attract black and white non-Soweto residents to the development, which centres on the old Orlando power station and will boast restaurants, a hotel, a gym, offices, loft apartments and a shopping centre, with retailers as diverse as Pick 'n Pay and Stoned Cherrie.

To this end, Minanawe is co-ordinating negotiations between Elangeni and local taxi associations to provide park-and-ride transport to outsiders.

The idea is that visitors to Orlando Ekhaya would park at the Nasrec showgrounds, south of the Johannesburg CBD, and be transported from there to the development.

Orlando Ekhaya will also have an entertainment centre resembling a beachfront, being developed by Elangeni, which will be used to host the Captain Morgan Spiced Gold Beach Party.

About R800 000 has been spent since 2003 on shipping beach sand to Orlando for the annual party, but Minanawe managing director G G Alcock won't say where the sand comes from.

Billy Chaka, the activation director of Minanawe Marketing, says: "We are halfway through completing our first phase development, which is going to cost us roughly R2-million. The project costs about R30-million to R40- million.

"We cannot continue with phase one because the environmental report from the City of Johannesburg (CoJ) has not been finalised. We need to comply with it first," Chaka adds.

Similarly, Elangeni is still awaiting clarity from the CoJ for phase two, comprising the environment and electricity site, which is due for development late next year.

Alan Dinnie, the project manager for Soweto development projects of the Johannesburg Property Company, says the department of agriculture has completed all the necessary reports.

"At the moment we are only waiting for the authorisation of phase two."

This authorisation, a process which he points out could take years, is expected by the end of March next year.

For this year's beach party, which took place recently, 200 local residents were employed for six weeks. Of the 200, 20 were employed on a permanent basis in security, maintenance and site management positions.

"We plan to employ 30 more permanent workers and 150 or more on a temporary basis once the [entertainment development] project is complete," Alcock says.

Already, Elangeni hosts between 10 and 20 events every year, with about 10 000 to 20 000 people attending each event.

Alcock is confident that Elangeni's market will continue to increase, as there is no competition for them yet.

"We are a lifestyle operation, with aspirational audience members," he explains. When asked about the risks associated with the project, Alcock is confident that the risks are very low.

"We have been running this event successfully for four years," he points out.

A worry was getting "traditional" white people to get over their fear of Soweto and visit Orlando Ekhaya - hence the park-and-ride scheme under negotiation.

"Once they get used to coming to the place, then they will drive in themselves," says Alcock. For similar future projects, Elangeni is thinking of going east to Umlazi, the second-biggest township after Soweto.

However, no definite investigations have been finalised in this regard.

Missing millions furore

2006-11-08T04:34:00.000-08:00

The Gauteng Department of Housing has to explain why supporting documents for about R152,6 million in expenditure were not included in its annual financial statements for 2005-2006.

The department’s hearing in front of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) had to be cancelled due to administrative troubles at the legislature.

In its preliminary answers to Scopa, the department submitted that the documents relating to the expenditure had to be obtained from the Gauteng Shared Services Centre (GSSC).

The documents, according to them, were available but only after the cut-off date for audit submissions. Other documents had been misfiled by GSSC and also submitted late.

The department faces tough questions relating to recurring shortcomings in its financial reporting processes, such as the provision for bad debts not being accounted for.

A previous Scopa recommendation relating to the department’s understatement of property had also not been addressed.

The department will have to tell Scopa why it could not quantify the money it lost in the past financial year due to “irregular, unauthorised, fruitless and wasteful expenditure” by officials.

The dog ate my rent

2006-11-06T05:44:00.000-08:00

Nobody knows the trouble landlords have seen, nobody but Hollard Insurance, this is. And in its wisdom, Hollard is lightening the landlords’ burden with a new policy to protect them against defaulting tenants.

An estimated 1,2-million landlords in South Africa will be cheered to know that R35 a month plus 1% of the rent can now buy them peace of mind.

It’s been a downward slide for landlords ever since the Russians abolished serfdom in 1891. Back then, they could simply chop off the heads of uncooperative tenants and the offender would never default again.

But the tenant lobby put an end to landlord power in the 19th century, destroying the image of this noble class. “Property is theft” was but one of the hateful cries designed to undermine landlords in the public eye.

Cruel words dashed off in the depths of the British library further eroded their position. “The landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed,” Marx famously wrote. Easy enough to say when you’ve never tried to extract your livelihood from an unwilling tenant.

In theory, owning property is supposed to be a surefire get-rich-eventually scheme. In practice, tenants don’t always cough up the cash at the end of the month. So, what do you do when you’re too squeamish to break kneecaps and your tenants shower in the neighbour’s sprinklers when you turn off the water?

Many landlords use the funds they earn from renting property to cover bonds and provide pensions. If the tenant quits paying, they risk losing their house or monthly income.

The boys in the backroom at Hollard worked out that property owners themselves manage 50% to 75% of leased properties and that a significant number of properties have been bought to let.

Before 2002, landlords could sleep secure in the knowledge that the contract signed between them and the potential transgressor was law. If rents were not paid, the penalties they agreed to would come into play and, after a certain date, former lessees could sleep under a blanket of stars for all the landlords cared.

In 2002, a groundbreaking ruling by the Supreme Court of Appeal complicated the eviction process to protect the homeless.

This well-intentioned judgement made the bureaucracy of eviction the bane of every wronged landlord. To remove the now parasitic person from his or her property, a landlord has to get an eviction order and hire a lawyer. After the eviction, a separate civil recovery process is necessary to recover the defaulted rent.

But that was then and this is now. What was money to the lawyers is now money to the insurers, thanks to the new Landlord Protection Policy, which Hollard is introducing in partnership with Tenrisk Underwriting Managers.

When the golden goose tenant refuses to lay, Hollard and Tenrisk step in. The policy commits the insurers to forking out up to R40 000 in legal costs, taking care of the legal transactions and paying up to three months’ rent during an eviction and one month’s rent if the tenant does a runner.

With the Landlord Protection Policy in place, your tenant had better retrieve their cheque from the post office, take the dog to the vet or wait for the call from your insurers, because their problem is no longer yours.

Government takes over

2006-11-05T09:28:00.000-08:00

In a shock announcement, the District Six Beneficiary Trust announced that the redevelopment of the area would be taken over by national government from the Cape Town city council with "immediate effect".

But executive mayor Helen Zille, who was informed by the media of the national intervention, decried the takeover and warned it could result in "another N2 Gateway fiasco". A group of beneficiaries threatened legal action to stop it.

The trust's Nadeem Hendricks "welcomed the direct intervention by national government" and said: "Petty politics of Cape Town has held up the project for a long time.

"I am hoping that with national government driving the project as part of the N2 Gateway, we will see substantial progress with immediate effect."

He said Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu and Deputy Agriculture and Land Affairs Minister Dirk du Toit would take over leadership of the project from executive mayor Helen Zille.

Zille said there had been no consultation with the city before the announcement was made.

"It is clear that the National Department is repeating the N2 Gateway scenario.

"They want to prevent the city's involvement in delivery and they want to stop us asking penetrating questions," she said.

Sisulu had earlier stated that part of the housing backlog would be accommodated in District Six, as part of the N2 Gateway project.

Hendricks blamed the repeated changes in the city's political administrations for delays in the redevelopment of District Six.

"I got so fed up that I took the initiative on behalf of the trust to call on (Housing Minister Lindiwe) Sisulu to intervene."

N2 Gateway tainted with graft

2006-10-31T02:14:00.000-08:00

Crossroads residents have appealed to Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu to use Red Ants, security guards from Gauteng reputed to be fearless, to evict beneficiaries of the N2 Gateway housing development who make extra money by renting their shacks in Boys Town.

Lusaka informal settlement resident Sindiswa Godongwana asked the minister to obtain court interdicts against these beneficiaries.

Sisulu was at an imbizo at the Crossroads sports complex on Sunday to hear details of the plight of Cape Flats people who are using the bucket system and waiting for formal homes.

Godongwana was cheered when she claimed officials responsible for N2 Gateway brought relatives from the Eastern Cape to occupy the flats at the expense of people who had been waiting for years.

She said spaces in Lusaka were being sold for R130 and R570. "There is so much corruption in the way people are allocated houses and space, we no longer trust our leaders."

Thubelisha, appointed by the department of housing to be the project manager for N2 Gateway, was criticised for not addressing people's needs.

The development entails the building of 25 000 permanent homes, as well as schools, sports complexes and other facilities.

Thulani Katyeni, of Boys Town, said he was tired of living in his leaky shack. "We were promised flats, but we see even children born in 1984 getting houses before some of us who have been waiting for more than 12 years."

Sisulu acknowledged that the N2 Gateway rents were beyond the means of most people waiting for homes.

Mncedisi Twalo, chairperson of the Gugulethu Backyard Dwellers, warned that people were losing patience.

He said only a third of the N2 Gateway units were being allocated to people renting lowly accommodation in home-owners' backyards, despite some of them having lived in such shacks in Gugulethu for more than 30 years.

Corruption in housing highlighted

2006-10-30T07:28:00.000-08:00

Lack of development and corruption within the local housing projects were among issues raised at a community imbizo held at the Crossroads Sports Complex in the Cape Peninsula.

Lindiwe Sisulu, the housing minister, and Mcebisi Skwatsha, the Western Cape ANC secretary, attended the imbizo.

Some of the residents from Boys Town informal settlement in Crossroads say they have been waiting to have their houses for eight years now. They told Sisulu that they have lost faith in their local councillors and that they want houses to be built in their areas and not elsewhere.

N2 Gateway does not have a business plan

2006-10-27T10:24:00.000-07:00

The provincial department of local government and housing has spent almost R92-million on the N2 Gateway project without a formal business plan.

This has been disclosed in the auditor-general's report, included in the department's 2005/2006 annual report made public this week.

According to the auditor-general's report, the decision to go ahead with the project flouted a memorandum of understanding signed by national Minister of Housing Lindiwe Sisulu, MEC for local government and housing Richard Dyantyi and then-mayor of Cape Town Nomaindia Mfeketo.

Vusi Tshose, spokesperson for the provincial department of local government and housing, said the department had had to go ahead with the project before approval was finalised because of the "great pressure for housing delivery" in the province.

Had the department waited for the business plan to be finalised, development "would have been delayed", he said.

Under the N2 Gateway project, begun last year and touted as a national pilot for low-income housing, about 22 000 units are to be built for low-income earners in Langa, Gugulethu, Crossroads and Airport Industria.

But by October 13, only 326 units had been allocated to beneficiaries since the first phase of the project was officially opened on July 17.

The auditor-general's report noted that of the R91 913 076 used, R6,5-million had been spent in planning and designing units for the Boystown informal settlement, which is included in Gateway. The people of Boystown rejected the plans.

They say they have waited more than 20 years for formal housing. But when the department proposed building blocks of flats, they rejected the plan, demanding "proper houses".

They said they were not consulted and one of their requirements was that they have a yard in which they could perform traditional rituals.

A member of the Boystown residents committee, Mlungisi Noludwe, said people living in the settlement were "never interested in N2 Gateway flats and were forced to accept the plan".

"People ... have concerns about the flats, such as ownership," said Noludwe.

The R6,5-million was paid by the City of Cape Town, but later reimbursed by the provincial department of housing.

The auditor-general's report said the amount had not been "accounted and disclosed accordingly" in the department's financial statements.

Tshose said the project had been stopped when it was found "the cost of the construction would exceed the subsidy".

In August, Boystown ANC ward councillor Elese Depouch said the N2 Gateway plan had been "disrupted" when the DA took control of the city.

DA provincial spokesperson on housing Michael de Villiers said the project was a "huge failure and unfortunate waste of valuable funds" intended for housing the homeless. He said Dyantyi had costed each unit at R80 000, excluding the rehabilitation of the land, at the start of the project, but this had risen to R120 000 by May.

"This was a result of lack of planning."

A hard new world for Afrikaners

2006-10-22T14:42:00.000-07:00

Irene Duppers (left) lives with her family in a white squatter camp (right) - a type of settlement long home to millions of the nation's impoverished blacks.

A few miles west of Pretoria's downtown, away from the buildings that house the nerve centers of South Africa's bureaucracy, is the old neighborhood of Danville.

This was once home to civil servants and factory workers, miners and truck drivers - all Afrikaners, descendants of long-ago Dutch settlers. They had brick houses and fenced-in yards, pensions and job security. They had promises from South Africa's leaders that no white brother would be abandoned to poverty - a main tenet of the apartheid system.

Irene and Jannie Dupper rented a house in Danville. It had three bedrooms and a yard for Jannie's gardening.

"Ach, it was a nice house," sighs Mrs. Dupper, a slight smile creeping in with the memory.

But to find the Duppers these days, you must go to the end of Danville, and down a short driveway. There, you see an old army building, surrounded by a collection of tents, trailers, and "Wendy Huts," room-size wooden boxes that look like Home Depot tool sheds. This is Kwaggaspoort Reddingsdaad, a white squatter camp.

Twelve years after the end of apartheid, whites on the lowest rung of South Africa's socioeconomic ladder are experiencing role reversal. Apartheid's safety net for Afrikaners is gone, and now blacks are the preferred candidates for civil service positions and private-sector jobs. Whites are even living in squatter camps - the type of settlements long home to millions of impoverished blacks across the country.

Whites - Afrikaners and those of British descent - as a whole are still far wealthier than the 80 percent black majority here. Median income for whites is $11,000, compared with $2,000 for blacks. But what's changing is that whites and blacks seem to have reversed roles at the lowest income levels. The number of whites earning less than $80 a month grew by more than 50 percent between 2000 and 2004, according to a recent Standard Bank study.

There are many white squatter camps around Pretoria. But most are hidden - either because Afrikaners are too proud to let their poverty show, or because squatting is illegal, social workers say.

"I don't think many people realize there is this squatting," says Andre Vermaak, who runs charity projects for the majority-white Solidarity trade union. "I think we're too proud for our own good, maybe."

So these settlements are hidden behind houses, with up to 100 people living on one small lot, taking turns in one small bathroom. Or, like Kwaggaspoort Reddingsdaad, they're clustered around institutional buildings.

It was in 1999 that the Duppers felt the first real stab of change: Irene's brother died in a car accident, and the family mechanic's business collapsed. Jannie tried to find new work, but private employers wanted black employees in order to comply with racial-equity laws. Civil service jobs for Afrikaners were gone.

Asked how many jobs he applied for, Jannie laughs bitterly: "Many." More than 10? "Ja." More than 20? "Ja."

He turns and walks into his hut.

When they ran out of money, Irene's surviving brothers invited the Duppers to stay with them. But, says Irene, "I won't do that. It's not right."

The Duppers' middle son, 23 and also named Jannie, is confident that this life is, in fact, temporary. But the high school graduate, a welder, hasn't found work for two years. Companies tell him they don't have positions. "Everything is falling apart now," he says. "With this new government, they are looking out for the black people, instead of looking out for the white people."

The reality has left his parents perhaps less optimistic about their own way out of the camp. "It's been so long, you just get used to the way we live," says Irene.

Confess and walk free

2006-10-22T11:02:00.000-07:00

Fraudsters guilty of pocketing housing subsidies could soon get away without criminal records if they confess to their crimes, according to a proposed amnesty by the department of housing.

Housing director-general Itumeleng Kotsoane said a presidential proclamation would allow for the amnesty and that this would be offered on a selective, case-by-case basis - and only to those who come forward and confess.

The guilty would also be required to pay back the stolen money.

Kotsoane could not say when the proclamation would be announced, but hinted that if it only happened next year "the auditor-general's report would not be kind to us".

Kotsoane's announcement follows a damning report by Auditor-General Shauket Fakie earlier this year on housing subsidies at provincial level.

The report found that the housing subsidy system, in some instances, did not accurately record beneficiaries and was open to abuse.

While more than R2,5-billion had been handed out in the subsidy scheme between 1994 and 2004, Fakie identified irregular applications involving R323-million.

This prompted housing minister Lindiwe Sisulu to give the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) the go-ahead to sweep her department clean of its crooks.

Kotsoane said the amnesty would be effected in conjunction with a national probe by the SIU which has so far yielded 88 cases for investigation.

He denied that it would send out the wrong message to crooks.

"Our intention is to try to clear the cloud that has forever cast doubt on our credibility and our department's housing subsidy system," he said.

We do not want to send the wrong message

2006-10-20T13:02:00.000-07:00

Blanket amnesty would not be granted for all involved in fraud in the housing department and each case would be dealt with on merit, the national department's Director General Itumeleng Kotsoane said. "We do not want to send the wrong message that corruption pays," he told a media briefing at Parliament.

The intention was to "clear the cloud" casting doubt on the credibility of the department's housing subsidy system and to "clean the system", he said.

Each case would be dealt with separately to determine whether or not the amnesty would apply, with the special investigating unit (SIU) closely involved.

The proposed amnesty would include housing subsidy beneficiaries, contractors, civil servants and other individuals.

Kotsoane said a proclamation was currently being prepared to allow for a much wider investigation by the SIU into housing fraud and corruption, and the amnesty would form part of this.

Such a proclamation would have to be approved by President Thabo Mbeki, but he could not say when it or the amnesty would come into effect.

The SIU was currently dealing with 88 housing fraud and corruption cases.

Of these, three convictions had been secured, three were acquitted, 44 were referred to the police and 18 were before the courts.

Delivery of houses need to double

2006-10-20T03:14:00.000-07:00

Housing delivery in South Africa needs to double from the current delivery rate of about 250 000 housing units a year to 500 000 units if the backlog is to be removed and supply to new urban residents to be fulfilled, Director General of Land and Housing Irumuleng Kotsoane said.

Kotsoane said there is currently a backlog of about 2,4-million housing units in the country.

He acknowledged, at a media briefing at Parliament, that the pressure to deliver so many housing units -- and to reach the target of removing all informal settlements by 2014 -- will be a significant challenge given that South Africa has also embarked on a massive capital investment drive to improve infrastructure, including transport.

In addition, Kotsoane said there is already pressure to import cement as South Africa gears up to provide facilities -- including stadiums -- for the 2010 Soccer World Cup.

Dodgy housing figures

2006-10-19T23:06:00.000-07:00

If the Minister of Finance and the Auditor-General lacks confidence in the Housing Department’s delivery figures, then there is no way that the people of South Africa should put any trust in the stated housing delivery figures.

Finance Minister Trevor Manuel has questioned figures showing that 1,9-million houses have been built since 1994 and whether these included the thousands still standing empty because of poor workmanship.

Asking what constituted a house, Manuel said: "I truly don't believe that the numbers add up here." He questioned whether the thousands of houses standing empty because of poor workmanship were included in the Provincial Government and Expenditure Review figures for the 2002/03 to 2008/09 financial years.

The report showed that 1 930 783 houses had been built or were under construction.

"I think the people here have the right to know. It does not put us at the top of the popularity contest but I think that people have the right to know and we must try and deal with these issues," he said.

The report showed that while spending had more than doubled from R4-billion in 2002/03 to R8,7bn in 2008/09, there had been a "significant" decline in housing delivery. It cited poor planning and project management, unpredictable lead times and rezoning and environmental impact assessment processes as challenges.

The review figures showed that apart from the 1,9-million houses built, 1,6-million government-owned houses had been transferred to residents and property assets worth over R37-billion had been transferred to poor households.

But the report raised concerns that despite the 1.9-million houses delivered, the backlog was still growing.

With urbanisation growing at 2,7 percent a year, the report noted that the number of "inadequate dwellings" had increased by 20 percent from 1,5-million in 1996 to over 1,8-million in 2001.

Calling on parliament and constituency MPs to get more involved, Manuel said they urgently needed to carry out their oversight function in order to gain a clear understanding of the situation. Similar discrepancies existed with figures pertaining to water and electricity delivery, he said.

The Local Government Budget and Expenditure Review, which along with its provincial equivalent was tabled in the NCOP on Tuesday, showed that the electricity backlog in KwaZulu-Natal had increased by 17 percent between 2003 and 2005.

It reported that the number of non-electrified households had risen from 40 percent to 57 percent during the period under review. Only Gauteng and the Western Cape had managed to reduce the backlog. Manuel said on Tuesday that not enough was known about the quality and sustainability of public services.

"Chairperson, the reviews we table show that provinces and municipalities accounted for R161-billion and R199-billion of public expenditure in the last fiscal year. The question we should be asking ourselves is whether we know enough about the change this amount of spending has had on the lives of people," he said.

Housing quota go ahead

2006-10-11T02:49:00.000-07:00

Apparently exclusive neighbourhoods are too exclusive. The regime is concocting a scheme to impose racial quotas on housing developments.

Negotiations are under way with developers to establish quotas in residential developments so that each area is made up of families of differing income levels, according to housing minister Lindiwe Sisulu.

At the conference of the Southern African Housing Foundation yesterday, Sisulu told delegates that the new quota system, a "much misunderstood strategy", was aimed at removing apartheid in residential areas. "We as the government need to ensure residential developments take into account that we can no longer live apart and therefore we have to begin to manage this integration."

She pointed out that the government had entered into "social contracts" with financial services providers and had negotiated with them to provide R42 billion to people in the affordable housing sector.

She said the biggest challenge was the insufficient housing stock for this target bracket. To overcome the problem she had adopted a two-pronged approach, providing well-located land to encourage the private sector to cater for this market and ensuring that part of the R42 billion would also be used as bridging finance for developers.

The minister also insisted that the "inclusionary" process was not prescriptive, but supported a range of options. These had yet to be defined "as we negotiate with the developers".

Odette Crofton from the Social Housing Foundation urged the minister not to impose quotas this year. "The private sector is approaching us. They want to do this, but they want to do it organically, in response to demand and need in particular areas."

Marie Huchzermeyer from the University of the Witwatersrand's school of architecture and planning said that imposing quotas in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg might not work.

She warned that where it had worked, in the US, care had to be taken to preserve the mixed nature of the development. "After some years the income gap narrows and the units get sold off into the market." She also wanted to see subsidies and tax relief linked to a preservation system.

Democratic Alliance housing spokesperson Butch Steyn said there were problems with the system. The party "is in favour of integrated housing, but the minister is speaking of imposing a 20 percent quota of all new housing developments to be set aside for low-cost housing. This simply won't work where you are building a cluster of R4 million or R5 million houses," he said. "We must approach this very circumspectly."

Investigating corruption

2006-10-06T11:14:00.000-07:00

Talks between the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) and the national Department of Housing have advanced to crack down on corrupt elements within the department.

In July, Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu said she would ask the unit to probe sleaze within the department, after the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) criticised officials for poorly administering housing subsidies.

Auditor-General Shauket Fakie had found that of the more than R2.5 billion handed out since the beginning of the scheme in 1994, more than R300 million had been paid out irregularly.

In Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal there are fictitious applications, corruption committed by conveyancers as well as the lack of houses being built whereas payment has been made.

Head of the SIU, Willie Hofmeyer, briefed the media about investigating corruption in the country.

21 588 government officials had irregularly registered as social grant recipients.

At least 13 920 possible prosecutions were imminent on implicated public servants. The officials were charged with fraud for receiving benefits they were not entitled to.

In the Department of Correctional Services, six major procurement contracts are under investigation. These include, the repair and maintenance contract at Klerksdorp whose amount inflated from the original R56 million to R112 million and another of an information technology database from R4 million to R14 million, among others.

Regarding the Department of Transport, 24 243 invalid licences - including foreign conversions - were identified.

Cape Town mayor Helen Zille on housing

2006-10-04T04:25:00.000-07:00

African-American sociologist William Julius Wilson pointed out that racial tensions flare up when people are competing for scarce resources. Quite simply, people respond to scarcity by forming alliances with others who they believe can help protect and promote their interests. And these alliances can form along lines of shared religion, ethnicity and/or race.

In Cape Town we have seen this tragic situation play itself out around several key areas.

One of the most serious of these is housing.

With a backlog of nearly 400 000 housing units and the annual arrival of 16 000 people who have no jobs or houses, the demand for decent housing has reached critical proportions.

And many of our people have been waiting for up to 20 years on a list that keeps on growing. This is creating serious social divisions, not only along race lines. It has led to major public protests. It has also led to approximately five land invasions a week, which sometimes result in violent clashes.

So far the problem has not been tackled adequately. The government has only made financial provision to deliver 7 000 housing opportunities a year, and that is only if the existing budget is spent, which hasn't been the case for the last few years.

The N2 Gateway Project, which Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu promised would deliver 20 000 units by this year, has so far only resulted in 700 rental flats, in an unsustainable, unaffordable programme.

And already the communities that were supposed to benefit from the project are polarising around who can and can't afford these flats.

The shortage of housing in our city is a serious problem in its own right, but it is symptomatic of a deeper problem, which is unemployment.

About 25 % or 450 000 of Cape Town's economically active adult population are unemployed, and over 60% of our city's adult population do not have a matric. This has created tensions around who does and who doesn't have access to jobs.

Building a non-racial society

2006-10-03T03:14:00.000-07:00

The ANC regime is pushing ahead with its plans to build low cost housing next to or in the middle of housing developments which they have determined to be racially exclusive.

Housing Director-General Mpumi Nxumalo revealed that, from April next year, the pace of housing delivery would be virtually doubled and thousands more be made eligible for subsidies, to address a backlog of some 2.4 million homes.

In a revolutionary move to end apartheid urban planning, renovated apartment buildings and new multi-storey complexes will be built near established suburbs, where families from different income groups will live together.

"The primary objective is to build a non-racial society," said Nxumalo.

Nxumalo said the 10-year programme to end shack living, announced this week, would seek to integrate rich and poor communities, without undermining the value or security of property owned by the wealthy.

Citing Sandton in Gauteng as one example, she said apartheid had created an artificial division between generally white affluent areas and generally black poor areas.

"The micro-economy of Sandton needs gardeners, shop assistants and office workers as well as millionaires to keep going and there is no reason why those people should have to travel for hours every day to get to work.

Nxumalo said that the government would target regenerating inner cities such as Cape Town and Johannesburg, buying apartment blocks for renovation and rental to low-income earners.

The moves follow a series of Housing Department imbizos, as well as research by experts at the Wits School of Architecture and Planning, which has recommended "developing an environment where the poor and the rich share open space".

Wits researcher Dr Marie Huchzermeyer said yesterday that she was optimistic about the policy change, but cautioned that care had to be taken that those with some means did not jump the queue on the poorest communities.

Housing minister Lindiwe Sisulu said the cabinet had approved the 10-year programme to house the poor and draw low-income communities into the property market.

Property analysts say prices in mainstream areas have surged about 23% in the past year, but township house prices have dropped about 0.5%.

About 1.6 million houses have been built with subsidy support since 1994 - an average of 440 a day - but according to the Idasa monitoring group, the backlog has grown from around 1.5 million in 1994 to 2.4 million today.

Bruce Peach, chief executive of development giant SummerCon, said the plan "could work, if managed properly" - although he conceded that some wealthy homeowners would view the move as a financial and security threat.

Members of the committee, due to meet within days, include Sisulu, Public Works Minister Stella Sigcau, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, Provincial and Local Government Minister Sydney Mufamadi and, when necessary, ministers responsible for transport, water, education and health.

Catching up with old friends

2006-09-10T13:02:00.000-07:00

Another 400 shacks went up while the housing minister was having tea with Vladimir Putin and reminiscing about the good old days when the moral communists were still around.

With Russian President Vladimir Putin and his delegation of government officials and businessmen currently in the country, there is plenty of room for nostalgia and emotional reminiscences of the support that Russia provided to the anti-apartheid struggle, writes Shaun Benton.

The visit is the first ever by a Russian head of state and will be expected to cement and grow trade links between the two countries

Many senior members of the South African government - several cabinet ministers among them - received military and political training in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the current visit will no doubt be a welcome chance for the South Africans to host the staunch supporters who provided them with the vital solidarity needed to carry them through the darkest periods of the struggle for liberation.

This is further brought into relief as it came at a time when few of the world's other powerful countries were as supportive of the goals of South Africa's anti-colonial movements.

Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu is one such leader, who trained in the then USSR.

She fondly recalls the days when the Soviet Union not only offered some security to exiled South Africans but took many of them through periods of intense military and political training as they prepared to take on the apartheid military and ideological machine.

"I think a new person was emerging through most of us [during the training in then Soviet Union], a new person who understood that there was a greater good," Dr Sisulu said in a recent interview.

"This might sound strange," she added, "but the morality of the communists was much higher than any I have come across ... [it was] very stringent and each one of us wanted to aspire to that which was greater than ourselves.

"We were challenged at all times [by the Russians], that to be a good and loyal cadre, to be the best, you had to live beyond yourself, above yourself ... and I think that is what carried most of us."

If they don't have bread, why don't hey eat cake?

2006-09-09T13:10:00.000-07:00

In the South African context, Marie Antoinette's famous quote still rings true for houses. If they don't have houses, they will build shacks. At a phenomenal rate. There is a growth industry in South Africa, after all. Note that the annual growth of shacks (8%) outstrips the economic growth rate of about 4%.

The number of shack dwellings in South Africa rose from 1,45-million in 1996 to 2,14-million in 2003, according to Minister of Housing Lindiwe Sisulu. That was 417 new shacks a day on average between 2001 and 2003 and 210 shacks per day on average in the five years between 1996 and 2001.

In a reply on Friday to a parliamentary question from Inkatha Freedom Party MP MA Mzizi, the minister noted that according to Statistics South Africa's 1996 census there were 1 452 839 shacks, including shacks in backyards and shacks not in backyards.

The province with the most shacks was Gauteng with 690 000. KwaZulu-Natal had the second-largest number which nearly doubled from 1996 to 2003.

Although Limpopo was working off a low base of 48 000 shacks in 1996, the number had nearly quadrupled to 166 000 by 2003.

Two provinces have shown a real drop in the number of shacks between 2001 and 2003. In the Eastern Cape, the figure dropped from 167 000 to 156 000 shacks. The Western Cape's figures dropped from 190 000 to 185 000 in this time. In 1996, the Western Cape had 162 894 shacks and the Eastern Cape had 145 461.

While the Northern Cape saw a drop in shacks from 26 218 in 1996 to 25 793 in 2001, this rose to 35 186 in 2003.

The Free State showed an increase from 163 000 in 1996 to 193 000 in 2003.

The number of shacks was increasing at nearly 8% a year.

A hectic schedule

2006-09-09T13:04:00.000-07:00

The minister had to reschedule her busy calender in order to see off an old friend who was reporting to jail to serve a sentence for corruption. No worries, the housing backlog can wait. Only 400 new shacks will arise today...

There was brief pandemonium at the gates of Pollsmoor Prison on Thursday as warders used electrically-charged shields to push back throngs of Tony Yengeni supporters.

Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu and speaker of Parliament Baleka Mbete had to be ushered through the milling crowd and security.

Earlier Yengeni, who reported for a four-year fraud-related prison sentence, toyi-toyed the 500 metres before entering the prison gates where he would have to swop his designer clothes for standard issue prison garb.

Yengeni, supported by senior ANC officials including Western Province Premier Ebrahim Rasool, provincial ANC chair James Ngculu and ANC chief whip in Parliament Mbulelo Goniwe, told his supporters he felt hard done by.

"The English say those who laugh last, laugh best." He said he would emerge stronger and would continue with ANC activities.

We need houses, the environment be damned

2006-09-09T12:24:00.000-07:00

The South African regime is miffed at projects being held up because they will damage the environments. Instead of becoming more eco-friendly they have come up with a brilliant solution - simply scrap all the laws that enforce environmental impact assessments!

Government departments, under pressure to deliver economic growth, have launched a broadside against environmental legislation, saying it is holding up development and should be scrapped.

New regulations streamlining environmental impact assessments (EIAs) have been stalled for more than a year, partly because of high-level power-mongering. Environmental consultants are worried that the regulations, which mitigate harmful ecological practices and ensure public participation, may never see the light of day.

A consultant with close links to the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism said there were strong views in the “economic cluster” of ministries that EIAs should be totally scrapped. “EIAs are extremely contentious because there is a perception they hold up development.”

Minister of housing Lindiwe Sisulu said last month she had given the construction industry an undertaking that housing delivery would no longer be delayed by EIAs. “We cannot forever be held hostage by butterfly eggs that have been laid, because environmentalists would care about those things that are important for the preservation of the environment, while we sit around and wait for them to conclude the environmental studies,” Sisulu was quoted as saying.

A battle for control of EIAs has been raging between the Department of Environmental Affairs and the Department of Minerals and Energy since the new regulations were gazetted for comment in January last year. The regulations would bring mining EIAs under the control of environmental affairs, but the minerals department -- currently responsible for regulating the ecological impacts of mining and monitoring rehabilitation -- has resisted the change.

Minister of Minerals and Energy Lindiwe Hendricks and Minister of Environmental Affairs Marthinus van Schalkwyk discussed the issue at a meeting in late February -- days before the new regulations were expected to be promulgated. Neither party was prepared to discuss the outcome of those discussions, but the regulations are still on hold.

“It is being suggested by various high-level sources that high-level opposition is the reason for the delay -- and that the regulations may never see the light of day because ‘environmental concerns’ are unnecessarily obstructing government’s delivery programmes,” said Nick King, director of environmental NGO, the Endangered Wildlife Trust.

Other growth departments with gripes about EIAs include public enterprises, trade and industry and water affairs and forestry. Delays in infrastructure roll-out by parastatals such as Transnet and Eskom are also being blamed on EIA processes.

Several officials in the Department of Environmental Affairs and Torusim told the Mail & Guardian that calls by other government departments to scrap EIAs entirely were “an open secret”. In response to questions, department spokesperson JP Louw denied the calls. However, he said: “Government is concerned about any delay, costs and associated impacts on economic growth and development. This is why we need improved efficiency and effectiveness without compromising basic environmental rights and quality.”

If you build it, they will come

2006-09-05T14:02:00.000-07:00

Lets build a block of flats, on an old landfill next to a squatter camp. This is so proudly South African. A grand project run by unqualified people is poorly planned, years behind schedule and way over budget. It produced empty flats that no-one wants to buy. Anybody who can afford $25 000 asking price (quite low even by Southa African standards) does not wnat to live next to a squatter camp. And the squatters cannot afford the flats because they were supposed to cost only $12 000! Also in proud South African tradition, everybody in the project is blaming everybody else.

The attractive three-storey flats, with their landscaped gardens and paved walkways, stand empty almost two months after completion. They stand in stark relief against thousands of tin and wood shanties, with their concrete communal toilets.

The strange contrast on view in Cape Town’s Joe Slovo settlement epitomises the muddle and controversy that has beset the R2,2-billion N2 Gateway housing project.

Two years ago, Minister of Housing Lindiwe Sisulu announced the Comprehensive Plan on Sustainable Human Settlements, known as Breaking New Ground (BNG), an ambitious blueprint for nationwide slum eradication by 2014.

BNG was to be a radical departure from past state housing efforts, which have been plagued by corruption, mismanagement and sub-standard workmanship. The plan called for extraordinary cooperation between national, provincial and local government to circumvent bureaucracy and deliver at speed.

Sisulu promised that by July this year, 22 000 units would be completed in the Western Cape in three phases on a 10km stretch along the airport road. It was envisaged that 12 000 rental units would rise in phase one in Joe Slovo alone. To date, only 705 houses in that phase have been built.

The completed units are a fantastic model of the kind of dignified social housing the government envisages for the poor, but are unlikely to be replicated. From the original projections, the cost per unit has doubled to R160 000 and the overall cost of the scheme to R1,2-billion. A notable problem is that few of the poor people targeted by the development can afford the proposed rentals.

The original plan ignored the fact that the entire project is to be built on a landfill, requiring large-scale, off-budget excavation. No provision was made for roads, walkways and landscaping. Further costs have been incurred by the discovery that phase one stands on a 50-year-old floodplain.

Relentless spin doctoring and politicking by the African National Congress and the Democratic Alliance have obscured the real issues and lessons of the N2 Gateway. ANC provincial housing minister Richard Dyantyi, for example, is arguing that the project is driven by needs, not costs.

Cape Town’s new DA administration is understandably unhappy about having to pick up the ANC’s pieces. It can be expected to question the project’s current R28-million cost overrun, for which it may be held responsible, and fears legal action from unpaid contractors.

The commissioning of two audits on phase one -- one by M3, the oversight committee comprising the three levels of government, and the other by Auditor General Shauket Fakie at Sisulu’s request -- is a tacit acknowledgement that the scheme is in trouble.

The first investigation, by legal firm Cheadle Thompson and Haysom, politely suggested that the appointment of Cyberia Technologies, a Johannesburg-based IT company with no experience of managing a housing development of this size, “may have been flawed”.

Cyberia was not the tender evaluators’ choice and was originally the sixth-listed bidder before being mysteriously bumped up. In February, its R7-million contract -- it was ultimately paid R12-million after tendering R5million -- was terminated and the project was handed to Thubelisha Homes, a national service provider.

Thubelisha was tasked with project-managing the houses still to be constructed, consolidating Cape Town’s seven waiting lists and allocating the Joe Slovo rental units.

In a recent speech, Dyantyi took an indirect swipe at former mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo and her city manager, Wallace Mgoqi, declaring that the city had been removed from the project in February, shortly before the Cape Town municipal election that the ANC lost, because of management incapacity.

Central to the runaway costs of the project was the turnkey system of contracting. In contrast to the traditional method of completing planning, costing and design before contractors are hired, it requires contractors to provide design and construction.

“There is nothing wrong with the turnkey method per se, but you need very strong project management,” said one industry expert. A good project manager, he added, would have carried out a geotechnical assessment and discovered that the Joe Slovo settlement was built on a landfill unsuitable for high-density housing.

New Director General of Housing Ithumeleng Kotsoane admitted that mistakes had been made, including the use of the turnkey method.

“This is a national pilot project, approved by Cabinet. If it gets attacked because of flaws, we must look at this. If someone has committed a crime, he or she will be arrested. The point of the project was not to have a big scheme for milking the government -- it was to provide housing,” he said.