Housing backlog a key gripe in SA polls

ELANDSDRIFT – Post-apartheid South Africa’s snail-like progress in providing proper housing, running water and electricity to millions of poor blacks is a burning issue in today’s local elections.

The ruling African National Congress (ANC) trumpets the fact that more than 1,5 million households have moved from shacks to subsidised brick homes with a bathroom, but more than 5,6 million families still live in sub-human conditions, according to government estimates. Among the teeming masses who live in dire conditions is Paulina Zikalala, born in 1951 in a rude shack in Elandsrift, a slum north-east of Johannesburg which she still calls home.”We lack a lot of things here like garbage disposal, toilets and electricity…There is only a single tap which is shared by the 1,000 people living here,” she said.But she reckons that the ANC’s contention that the inequalities of apartheid cannot be levelled in slightly over a decade rings true.”They are trying, let’s give them a chance,” she said simply.Others have not been so generous.Riots and demonstrations broke out last year in several townships over poor “service delivery” – a sweeping term encompassing housing, electricity, roads, sanitation, water supplies, schools and health facilities.President Thabo Mbeki in his state of the nation address this year pledged that the government would speed up its efforts to provide decent housing for all and do away with bucket toilets, normally cleaned only once a week.But others, especially the young are impatient.Gevena Shabangu, a 26-year-old mother of three who also lives in Elandsdrift, has no illusions.”I am sad because the top people (in the government) have made money and forgotten us, the people.I am not voting in this elections because nothing will change.”And residents of the sprawling Khayelitsha township outside Cape Town, one of crime-ridden South Africa’s most dangerous areas, have sent out a clear message as well: “No land, no houses, no vote.”Although the South African government repeatedly says it is doing its utmost to provide a roof over everyone’s head, many township dwellers are unconvinced.A common sentiment in the impoverished Soweto quarter of Diepkloof is that senior government members and ANC cronies have only fattened themselves through business, and forgotten their roots and the poor.One building project which however is touted as a potential model for South Africa is Cosmo City – a diminutive for Cosmopolitan City – near Elandsdrift.A total of 12 300 homes are being built there of which 5 000 are reserved to former shantytown dwellers by the government of Gauteng, the richest province of which Johannesburg is capital.The project is ironically being built on the land of a white Afrikaner farmer who advocated the creation of a Boer homeland.One of the beneficiaries of the Cosmo City project is Esther Sibeko, a great-grandmother of 93, who now “has a proper home for the first time in my life.””I am so happy, happy, happy,” she said, her wizened face breaking into an almost toothless grin.”I only worry because I don’t have a refrigerator,” she said speaking in a modest kitchen where a giant but lifeless frigidaire serves as her larder.Meanwhile, the sole white eligible for a free house in the complex is Hans van Tonder, the son of the right-wing Afrikaner farmer who originally owned the land.”My father wouldn’t like me living here as the only white, but he would understand,” the 53-year-old unemployed mechanic said.The free houses are reserved for those families earning less than 3,500 rand a month and for people with dependants and for those evicted from shantytowns razed for development projects.- Nampa-AFPAmong the teeming masses who live in dire conditions is Paulina Zikalala, born in 1951 in a rude shack in Elandsrift, a slum north-east of Johannesburg which she still calls home.”We lack a lot of things here like garbage disposal, toilets and electricity…There is only a single tap which is shared by the 1,000 people living here,” she said.But she reckons that the ANC’s contention that the inequalities of apartheid cannot be levelled in slightly over a decade rings true.”They are trying, let’s give them a chance,” she said simply.Others have not been so generous.Riots and demonstrations broke out last year in several townships over poor “service delivery” – a sweeping term encompassing housing, electricity, roads, sanitation, water supplies, schools and health facilities.President Thabo Mbeki in his state of the nation address this year pledged that the government would speed up its efforts to provide decent housing for all and do away with bucket toilets, normally cleaned only once a week.But others, especially the young are impatient.Gevena Shabangu, a 26-year-old mother of three who also lives in Elandsdrift, has no illusions.”I am sad because the top people (in the government) have made money and forgotten us, the people.I am not voting in this elections because nothing will change.”And residents of the sprawling Khayelitsha township outside Cape Town, one of crime-ridden South Africa’s most dangerous areas, have sent out a clear message as well: “No land, no houses, no vote.”Although the South African government repeatedly says it is doing its utmost to provide a roof over everyone’s head, many township dwellers are unconvinced.A common sentiment in the impoverished Soweto quarter of Diepkloof is that senior government members and ANC cronies have only fattened themselves through business, and forgotten their roots and the poor.One building project which however is touted as a potential model for South Africa is Cosmo City – a diminutive for Cosmopolitan City – near Elandsdrift.A total of 12 300 homes are being built there of which 5 000 are reserved to former shantytown dwellers by the government of Gauteng, the richest province of which Johannesburg is capital.The project is ironically being built on the land of a white Afrikaner farmer who advocated the creation of a Boer homeland.One of the beneficiaries of the Cosmo City project is Esther Sibeko, a great-grandmother of 93, who now “has a proper home for the first time in my life.””I am so happy, happy, happy,” she said, her wizened face breaking into an almost toothless grin.”I only worry because I don’t have a refrigerator,” she said speaking in a modest kitchen where a giant but lifeless frigidaire serves as her larder.Meanwhile, the sole white eligible for a free house in the complex is Hans van Tonder, the son of the right-wing Afrikaner farmer who originally owned the land.”My father wouldn’t like me living here as the only white, but he would understand,” the 53-year-old unemployed mechanic said.The free houses are reserved for those families earning less than 3,500 rand a month and for people with dependants and for those evicted from shantytowns razed for development projects.- Nampa-AFP