Cape Town - While about 18 700 housing project beneficiaries have been affected by delayed handovers due to violence, intimidation and extortion, organisations across the province say they have become increasingly frustrated with deep-rooted corruption.
Answering a parliamentary question, Infrastructure MEC Tertius Simmers said that 18 722 beneficiaries in 25 housing projects have been affected by delays in the handover “due to violence, extortion and intimidation by gangs over the past five years”.
The most beneficiaries affected in one housing project was in Forest Village, where 3 254 people were affected, while other communities included Eerste River, Mitchells Plain, Delft, Macassar, Kalbaskraal, Citrusdal, Swartland, Paarl and Kraaifontein.
Social Liberals for Backyard Dwellers (SLBD) founder, Shariefa Nolan, said the corruption continued endlessly while the plights of the most vulnerable were ignored.
“People have been living in dire circumstances for more than two years and still the government can give no answers as to when they will receive proper housing.
We don’t know what to do any more, engagements with government and officials seem fruitless because there are never answers.
“We have people who have been so long on waiting lists already that they die while waiting for proper housing.
This is what brings out the anger in people, is that they have to just sit back and wait while government turns a blind eye,” said Nolan.
Nolan is renting a property in Delft, and has been on a housing waiting list for more than 30 years.
“It’s a deeply frustrating issue. Government knows about the issues also around beneficiaries who get houses here but then rent it out at exorbitant rates.
“They can’t say they don’t know this because we raise it in meetings often. The people who then rent in housing projects are the vulnerable who are most desperate for housing but cannot benefit even while being on waiting lists. They capitalise on the vulnerable.
“When will the corruption stop?” asked Nolan.
Head of organising at Ndifuna Ukwazi, Buhle Booi, said: “While issues related to violence in various communities may be an issue, which I can’t say with certainty, the state should not use that as a scapegoat and not take responsibility for its shortcomings and failures in responding to the housing crisis.
For instance the City of Cape Town housing delivery has been on the decline since 2014 and this can among other things be attributed to the City’s failure to release more public land to build housing but worry of all these is the City’s skewed priorities.
The City has in recent years been prioritising and channelling funds to the law-enforcement programme to strengthen its punitive measures on the vulnerably-housed communities instead of aiding more funds to human settlements to fast-track housing delivery. Therefore the city should fix its skewed priorities,” said Booi.
Reclaim the City, Ahmed Kathrada House leader, Sheila Madikane, said: “This is very tragic that year in and out, it’s the same story. The government is playing with us as poor people. Some of the people on waiting lists have already passed away while others are still waiting and it never happens. The funny thing is when you hear about people who have received houses but have not even been on the waiting list for so long.”
The City said it had a number of human settlement projects that have been hindered and impacted by extortion rackets, gangsterism and criminality.
Social activist and whistle-blower Colin Arendse said: “I am not surprised to hear of the violence and intimidation as the issue of housing has become a useful tool at election rallies every five years in the Western Cape.
I suspect the problem may lie in the captured housing waiting lists across municipalities and the province.
How else does a female in her 20s get to be the owner of a brand new house if there are gogo’s who are 40 years older than her are still waiting on a house despite their name being on the list since before 1994?”
National government must intervene as there needs to be an audited investigation into why young people are the beneficiaries of housing while pensioners are still homeless after all these years.”
Simmers last year said that over the past three years, over 700 housing opportunities were lost due to vandalism and land invasions.
According to the Western Cape Department of Human Settlements, it has experienced more than 1 600 invasions of land earmarked for human settlement development across the province and during the same period, more than 100 Breaking New Ground (BNG) houses were vandalised by illegal occupiers.
The Department spent just over R100 million to secure its properties and to prevent invasions for the past 3-year period. An additional R24 million has also been spent repairing vandalised houses.
Simmers had not responded to enquiries of what the cost of the 18 700 housing opportunities had culminated to.
Cape Times