Opinion: South Africa’s Reality Bites

11 09 2009

By: Lisa Crooms | Posted: September 10, 2009 at 6:42 AM – The Root

Sci-fi blockbuster District 9 is all about aliens and spaceships. But its fiction is rooted in the facts about South Africa’s troubled history of housing and immigration.

This summer, I spent six weeks in Cape Town teaching human rights to a multiracial group of South Africans and Americans—many of whom wanted to party on Long Street more than they wanted to study human rights. Still, I managed to get their attention long enough for us to focus on two recurring issues—housing and immigration. Shortly after I got back, I found myself sitting in a movie theater in Silver Spring, Md., confronting these same issues masquerading as entertainment in the major summer sci-fi blockbuster, District 9. Read the rest of this entry »


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Parliament finds that Government fails again to fix N2 Flats

9 09 2009

Committee wants answers on N2 Gateway Housing Project

PRESS STATEMENT (by Parliament committee investigating the N2 Gateway Housing Project)

Parliament, 09 September 2009 – Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts was early today shocked to learn that defects in the houses built under the Western Cape N2 Gateway Housing Project had not been fixed as it was earlier reported by the Department of Human Settlements. Read the rest of this entry »


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Sanity and humanity prevails – for now

8 09 2009
Note: What De Vos forgets though is that the community of Joe Slovo had to fight.  They won this ‘sanity’ and ‘humanity’ through resistance and protest.  So the kudos should go to the poor Joe Slovo residents who travelled all the way to the Constitutional Court to say Asiyi eDelft!
Sep 8th, 2009 – Constitutionally Speaking

When the Constitutional Court granted an order in June, allowing the government to remove the residents of Joe Slovo outside the city of Cape Town to Delft 20 km away, some of us wondered quietly whether the government had not perhaps been as untruthful to the court as it had previously been untruthful to the residents of Joe Slovo. Read the rest of this entry »


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Media: Evictions suspended – shack dwellers reprieved

4 09 2009

04 September 2009
Anna Majavu – Sowetan

THE Constitutional Court has suspended its order upholding the eviction of

FLASHBACK: A cart carrying corrugated sheets out of Joe Slovo informal settlement. The Constitutional Court has suspended its own ruling that called for the eviction of Joe Slovo residents. PHOTO: MARK WESSELS

FLASHBACK: A cart carrying corrugated sheets out of Joe Slovo informal settlement. The Constitutional Court has suspended its own ruling that called for the eviction of Joe Slovo residents. PHOTO: MARK WESSELS

10000 residents of the Joe Slovo informal settlement in Langa, Cape Town.

In March 2008 controversial Cape Judge President John Hlophe ruled that the Joe Slovo shack dwellers must be evicted to make way for the N2 Gateway Housing project.

But community leaders from the Joe Slovo task team took the matter on appeal to the Constitutional Court. In June the court upheld Hlophe’s ruling but ordered that the Joe Slovo residents be removed in phases and placed 20km away in Delft. Read the rest of this entry »


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Media: A welcome opportunity?

3 09 2009
By Karen Breytenbach
3 September 2009, 19:43 – Cape Argus

In an unusual move by the Constitutional Court, a full bench of 10 judges has indefinitely suspended its own order for Joe Slovo residents and backyard dwellers to make way for the N2 Gateway development in a phased in, deadline-driven mass relocation. Read the rest of this entry »


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Media: MEC admits to shoddy N2 Gateway construction

3 09 2009

Eyewitness News | 2009/08/25 08:33:40 AM

The Western Cape Housing MEC has admitted some flats in the N2 Gateway development are so badly built they should be demolished.

Bonginkosi Madikizela says he now understands why tenants refuse to pay rent. Read the rest of this entry »


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Joe Slovo Task Team to hold press conference at 16h30 today

24 08 2009
Anti-Eviction Campaign Press Release
on behalf of the residents of Joe Slovo
Monday 24 August, 2009

Today at 16h30, as the community of Joe Slovo, we will be holding a media briefing around the enumeration of the whole settlement of Joe Slovo.  We have done a detailed survey and we need to share this information with the public because we assert that we, as the community, can do development work ourselves.

This is our first step toward a people-centred development where the people of the community rather than bureaucratic government officials are in control.

The press conference will be held in Chris Hani Hall in the centre of Joe Slovo and community members will be in attendance as well.

We have invited government officials and the MEC Housing has confirmed his attendance for this press conference.

For more information and directions, contact Mzwanele Zulu 076-385-2369 and 082-670-2068


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Opinion: The Western Cape housing crisis can be solved

13 08 2009

an emergency effort is needed

August 12, 2009 Edition 1
Martin Legassick – Cape Times

It is good news that Tokyo Sexwale and Helen Zille have decided to bury the hatchet on the petty squabbling between the ANC and DA (largely, let it be said, initiated by the ANC) over the N2 Gateway project and land allocation in the province.

The spat has hampered housing delivery in the province. We are now told “the three spheres of government are to sit around one table to decide on the future of the project.” (“Sexwale, Zille and city to decide on N2 Gateway,” August 10).

But Sexwale, Zille, Dan Plato and their officials would be making a big mistake if they believed the future could be settled without involving beneficiary communities, through their representative committees, at the decision-making table. Read the rest of this entry »


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Cape Argus: Sexwale puts eviction to Delft on hold

9 08 2009

Note: As usual, the media ignores the actual people of Joe Slovo.  No one bothers to ask what they really think about the billionaire turned politician.

Joe Slovo residents ‘must be given time’

August 07, 2009 Edition 1 – Cape Argus
Andisiwe Makinana

HUMAN Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale has promised the residents of Joe Slovo informal settlement a reprieve, saying they will not be immediately removed from the area to Delft.

Sexwale, who visited a number of the city’s informal settlements yesterday, told a meeting of about 500 people in Joe Slovo that despite the Constitutional Court ruling in favour of the housing department to remove the residents to Delft so that the next phase of the N2 Gateway project could start, he will have the implementation of that judgment postponed. Read the rest of this entry »


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The inner-workings of government bureaucracy: Thubelisha Homes Closure Report

17 07 2009

Note: I may be quite interesting to see how these kinds of government commissions operate in relation to controversial projects such as the N2 Gateway.  There is a lot of discussion but the commission does not seem to know what is going on.  Neither does it have any idea what the truth is.  For instance: They ask many times whether there continues to be structural defects in Phase 1 and never get a clear answer.  But shouldn’t they go visit and inspect the flats for themselves rather than talk about theoretically in these kinds of bureaucratic meetings?  Also notice how Phase 1 flat tenants were not even invited to participate despite Thubelisha’s misleading claim that they were being consulted.  Enjoy this insight into how failed government projects are rationalised as inevitable…

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Thubelisha Homes Closure Report, Joe Slovo Informal Settlement briefings, Management Committee appointment
Human Settlements
Date of Meeting: 8 Jul 2009
Chairperson: Ms B Dambuza (ANC)
Documents handed out: Thubelisha Homes Mandate Presentation Read the rest of this entry »

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