DA at it again

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Djtay

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http://www.sport24.co.za/Soccer/WorldCup/NationalNews/Raw-deal-for-Cape-Towns-poor-20100607

Cape Town - Grim rows of grey metal shacks stretch out with military precision in the barren sandy ground.

Residents call it Blikkiesdorp – "Tin Can Town" in Afrikaans – a vast, soul-less temporary camp for Cape Town's homeless and evicted that has attracted a media spotlight ahead of the soccer World Cup.

"This is basically like a concentration camp," said Mohammed Ali, 38, who lives in the settlement with his wife and two daughters.

Miles away from the upscale city's attractions that will greet football fans, some residents accuse officials of using Blikkiesdorp for a World Cup clean-up in a debate that has unveiled South Africa's crushing poverty.

"They're moving people staying on the streets or staying in shacks in the back of the yards. They're moving all those people to this place for 2010. They're cleaning up basically the roads," said Ali.

South Africa has poured billions into hosting Africa's first football World Cup with new stadiums, transport systems and a beefed up police force.

Temporary emergency housing

But while children gleefully undergo football training on a sandy patch near a busy road, there is little sign in Blikkiesdorp of the World Cup kick-off on June 11.

"Why didn't they use some of that money to build houses?" asked community leader Beverley Jacobs, 42, who is spending her third winter in one of the camp's 18-square-metre shacks.

Blikkiesdorp was set up as temporary emergency housing in 2008 and has grown to nearly more than 1 500 structures with electricity and communal toilets and water taps.

Priscilla Ludidi shares her shack with four children and her 82-year-old mother, who sleeps on a piece of sponge on the ground.

"All the structures that we're living in are leaking. We are four families on one tap. We are four families on one toilet, which is so unhygienic," said the 44-year-old.

"They promised us it's only three to six months until you get your houses. They always lie."

Chronic housing shortages

South Africa struggles with chronic housing shortages despite rolling out 2.3 million new houses since the end of apartheid in 1994.

But a growing backlog of 2.1 million means 12 million people – nearly a quarter of the population – still need homes. And the number of shantytowns, known euphemistically as informal settlements, has rocketed to more than 2 700 countrywide.

Cape Town – which has some of South Africa's priciest real estate – has a housing backlog of 400 000 and 220 informal settlements.

Former homeless couple Rina Mina Kiwido, 48, and James Adams, 48, came to Blikkiesdorp last September via a social worker, with a group of people from near the Cape Town stadium.

They are aware of the claims of clean-ups to sanitise the city for foreign visitors, but are still happy with the move.

"We are off the street," said Adams.

Less glamorous Cape Town

As foreign news crews flock to Blikkiesdorp to show a disturbingly less glamorous Cape Town, officials deny that the city is being stripped of its homeless.

"There's no clean up campaign that is happening," city spokesperson Kylie Hatton told AFP, saying it gets repeated requests to move to the camp.

"The area was already almost 80% full by the end of last year so there is no dramatic move towards moving people into the area in the build up to the World Cup."

But in Blikkiesdorp, frustration is high.

"We are not eager to stay here. We don't want to stay here. This is not home. We were forced to be here," said Washeila Smith, 57.

"We have no other option. We're waiting on the government to sort us out with a house, with a home. This is not home."

:mad:
 
OP - you are the racist. Take the splinter(s) out of your eyes and the tree off your shoulder.

Why use the racist tag?
 
Blikkiesdorp was set up as temporary emergency housing in 2008 and has grown to nearly more than 1 500 structures with electricity and communal toilets and water taps.

Wow sounds horrific.
 
Enlighten yourself Mr Racist.

DA Newsletter said:
This week has been dominated by what the media have described as "toilet wars". And, as usual, in war of any kind, truth is always the first casualty.

This edition of SA Today sets out, for the record, the facts of this messy situation. The first fact is this: open toilets are a serious affront to human dignity and cannot be condoned.

So how did it happen that toilets without walls were provided to the residents of Silvertown, Makhaza, by the DA-controlled City of Cape Town?

The issue had its genesis under my watch as Mayor of Cape Town when the City began an ambitious programme to deliver services (such as water, sewerage, roads, storm water and electricity) to 223 informal settlements (home to around 650,000 shack dwellers) across the metropolitan area. Most of these settlements are the consequence of land invasions. Densities, and lack of planning, make "retrofitting" services in these areas a technically complex task.

But the technical difficulties pale into insignificance compared to the social complexities of upgrading a densely populated informal settlement. Inevitably, upgrading results in intense community conflict, as some people have to move to make way for service installation, and people vie for access to the jobs that upgrading offers. Usually, community conflict stalls delivery for many months, and often stops it altogether. Very few contractors wish to work on these projects because of the social conflict that inevitably arises, which is why they always cost more and take much longer than initially planned.

To facilitate these processes where possible, contractors usually employ a "community liaison officer" (CLO) to achieve consensus and minimise conflict. In Silvertown, the CLO was none other than ANC Youth League (ANCYL) regional secretary, Andile Lili, who achieved notoriety when he was one of the group smashing the toilet enclosures in pursuit of the ANCYL's call to destroy infrastructure and make the City "ungovernable".

In his paid position as CLO facilitating the Silvertown provision of services, Lili had played a key role in implementing an agreement that emerged from lengthy negotiations with the community about how to meet their priorities out of the available budget. The budget, based on the national norms for the upgrading of informal settlements, provides one flush toilet for every five families. But the community understandably wanted one flush toilet per family. The proposed way to achieve this was for the City to provide the toilets and plumbing connections, while the families themselves would make a contribution and enclose the toilets.

This seemed an ideal win-win solution. It certainly was for the 97% (1,265) of Silvertown families who built their toilet enclosures, often in the most innovative "en-suite" arrangements attached to their dwellings. But it did not work for 51 families (less than 3% of total beneficiaries). For whatever reason, they did not enclose their toilets, and some even used their open air toilets under cover of blankets.

The City resolved to end this indignity and to build toilet enclosures for the 51 - but faced resistance from the 1,265 families who argued that if they had built their enclosures themselves, so could the remaining 51. After listening to these arguments, Mayor Plato concluded that it would be untenable to continue with the indignity of open toilets. The City would therefore enclose the remaining toilets.

By this time, the ANCYL had realised it was on to a good thing. Photos of unenclosed toilets had appeared in the media. The ANCYL lost no time using this to "prove" the lie that the DA treats black people with indignity, and developed a keen interest in ensuring the toilets remained open.

Mayor Plato then personally walked around Silvertown, speaking to the 51 residents with unenclosed toilets. He received a signed agreement from each of them that the City would erect enclosures around their toilets.

The City then moved in and began doing so. But the ANC youth league broke down the enclosures as fast as they could be built - against the pleas of the owners to stop doing so. The police did their job and arrested two perpetrators on charges of malicious damage to property. But the community was largely intimidated into silence.

This left the City with only two options: to leave the toilets unenclosed, or to remove them.

The first option remained untenable. It was therefore resolved that the toilets would be temporarily removed until enclosures were built. Then the toilets would be returned. This could, theoretically, happen within a few days. In the meantime, the community would continue to be serviced by toilets on the national standard ratio of 5 families to 1 toilet (with a concrete enclosure).

Even this is far better than what is available in most informal settlements in ANC-run metropolitan areas. A recent National Treasury report found that Cape Town was well ahead of other metro municipalities in dealing with infrastructure backlogs and delivery of services. And Cape Town's service delivery lead is growing, despite the fact that the City faces massive urbanisation - pro rata higher than any other City in the sub-continent.

Cape Town would be even further ahead if it were not for the vandalism of municipal infrastructure, such as the wanton destruction of toilets perpetrated by the ANCYL last week.

According to Alderman Clive Justus, Cape Town's Mayco member for Utility Services, the City last year spent more than R80 million on repairing or replacing stolen or vandalised basic services in informal settlements.

For every R3 that the City spends of its R125 million annual budget for water and sanitation facilities in informal settlements, R2 is spent on repairs and replacement of vandalized or stolen infrastructure. According to Justus, if it were not for this lawlessness, the City would be able to upgrade informal settlements at three times the current rate.

Justus said recently that in the past financial year, the City had installed 422 water stand pipes, but had to effect 5 482 repairs to sabotaged or stolen pipes and taps.
In the same year, the City's Utility Services installed 2 458 toilets, but had to make 4 302 repairs to cisterns, pans, pipes and ablutions damaged by criminals.

Last December, 300 out of 464 toilets installed in a Delft informal settlement were broken or had parts stolen. In Philippi, vandals destroyed 26 ablution blocks containing six toilets each. In RR Section of Khayelitsha, chemical toilets were burned to the ground. This all happened within weeks of installation.

To address the theft of copper cabling, brass valves, lead batteries, manhole covers and water meters, the City is now using only plastic or steel pipes, and concrete for toilets. Underground electricity cables are now covered with concrete so that they can't be dug out. Cape Town's 'Copperheads' task team has also cracked down on dealers of stolen scrap metal. The City has even provided padlocks and chains to community leaders to keep toilet facilities secure overnight.

Justus warned that a new pattern is emerging, whereby plastic pipes are stolen, despite their minimal re-sale value, concrete toilets are smashed with axes, and even padlocks are being taken. This is pure vandalism.

City officials report that residents sometimes vandalise facilities to secure more jobs in the subsequent repair programmes on the basis of the City's "local employment" policies, creating a perverse incentive for people to destroy newly installed infrastructure, to secure employment in the repair work. When contractors employ other outside labour, local communities often drive them out of the area, delaying projects by months and years. This pushes up the cost of services in informal settlements.

We have come to the conclusion that the best way to instill a sense of ownership and an ethos of respecting property, is for each family to contribute to the construction and maintenance of their own toilet. The perfect condition of the enclosed "en suite" toilets in Silvertown is evidence of this.

But this type of intervention which encourages self-reliance and initiative does not suit the ANC Youth League who would rather ensure that people remain passive and powerless recipients of government handouts.

We have seen through the ANCYL's strategy and it is time for the community to do so too. Unless they stand up for their rights against the intimidation of the ANC Youth League, they will remain victims and forfeit the power to change their lives.
Click to expand...
 
Expect many more opprtunists to come out during the next month.
 
So which racists are responsible for the shacks outside of Western Cape ?
 
Dear DJTay

http://www.da.org.za/our_people.htm?action=view-page&category=national-leaders&person=6305

Joe Seremane
Federal Chairperson of the Democratic Alliance

Joe was born in Randfontein, Transvaal (now Gauteng), on 26 August 1938. Despite many hardships, Joe is known for his compassion for others, his sense of humour and his respect for other people – young, old, rich or poor, black, brown or white. Joe has been an advocate of Human Rights and Democracy for as long as he can remember. His first role was that of school teacher in Bekkersdal, until he was barred from that profession for political involvement.

During the apartheid era, Joe was involved in assisting cadres to leave South Africa. He served six years on Robben Island from 1963 to 1969, after which he was ‘deported’ to Bophuthatswana. He was later detained under the “Terrorism Act” from March 1976 until August 1978. During the period 1982 to 1984 he was detained on a number of occasions by the Bophuthatswana Security Police.

Joe has been politically active for many years, firstly as an ANC Youth League supporter and later in his young adult years as a member of the Pan Africanist Congress. Recognising the need for a strong opposition to consolidate democracy in South Africa, Joe joined the Democratic Party in 1994.

Joe served as a field worker and later as director of Justice and Reconciliation for the S.A. Council of Churches. He was also the assistant director of the South African Communication Services and, in the late 90s, the Chief Land Claims Commissioner on the Commission on Restitution of land Rights. He entered Parliament in 1999 as a Member of the National Council of Provinces for the Democratic Party and, shortly thereafter, he was re-elected to the National Assembly. Joe was the founding Chairperson of the Democratic Alliance, a position he holds to this day.

Joe has addressed conferences and the public worldwide on topics ranging from justice, peace, human rights & reconciliation, and has served in many roles including on the SADC Parliamentary Forums in Namibia, Swaziland and Zimbabwe.

Joe served as the DA deputy spokesperson on Foreign Affairs and was on the sub committee focusing on the African Union. Joe’s other portfolio in the Democratic Alliance was diversity, empowerment and interfaith issues, one of his passions. He retired as an MP in April 2009
Click to expand...

In case you didn't pick it up, Joe is as black as they come.

Care to enlighten me on why a party founded by a black man would be racist against blacks? Or even more ... how it could even be defined as 'racist' ?

I Thought so.
 
It would be nice to build everyone a house, free quality medical, education, water, electricity, transport etc but there is just too many people and too little money. Problem lies is the culture of breeding when you can't even afford to feed ones self.

I agree to that the money spent on the WC is excessive but that is hardly a DA thing, look at the rest of the country.
 
Back in 2008 wasn't the ANC running the Western Cape? :p

BTW isn't it the goverment's job to help build houses? So why are you solely putting the blame on the DA :rolleyes:
 
Voicy said:
Dear DJTay

http://www.da.org.za/our_people.htm?action=view-page&category=national-leaders&person=6305



In case you didn't pick it up, Joe is as black as they come.

Care to enlighten me on why a party founded by a black man would be racist against blacks? Or even more ... how it could even be defined as 'racist' ?

I Thought so.
Click to expand...
But the democratic party existed long before 1994?
The OP is probably racist, but your rebuff is most lame... the DA as is today is a result of their ill informed merge with Kort Broek's NNP at that time.
 
I'm getting so sick of these people always saying "Build us houses etc"... COME ON! They should use the money to build JOBS, not houses. Create work for all the people and pump some money into this country instead of buying expensive cars and R 10 000 champagne. We need more work opportunities for the people in this country.
 
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