New president gives hope

I write to commend the decisive manner in which our new President Cyril Ramaphosa has spoken about the scourge of corruption now afflicting SA, which was unleashed by the 1999 arms deal.

He has rightly also referred to the contentious and highly sensitive issue of land restitution.

As a resident of Cape Town, he will be painfully aware of the appalling conditions in which so many of our people live.

Yet ironically it is the dysfunctional Department of Public Works that is the largest landowner in SA and holds title to redundant apartheid-era military bases.

There is no shortage of government-owned land.

The 1996-98 parliamentary Defence Review, at which I represented the Anglican Church, included workshops on what to do with these properties, and how to ensure that they would be redeveloped to the benefit of local communities.

Some are in rural areas and are potentially suitable for agriculture.

Others are in urban areas, for instance Youngsfield and Wingfield in Cape Town, which are perfectly located to replace the shacks in Khayelitsha and Du Noon with properly designed and constructed social housing.

In January 1998, the World Bank and US government offered to donate (not lend) $8.5m to fund a pilot project, but then withdrew the offer in October that year after our politicians squabbled over “political turf”. Now, 20 years later, many of the buildings and other facilities are derelict.

The Cape Town City Council estimates that 86% of shacks are on land, much of it wetland in Khayelitsha, that is actually unfit for human habitation.

As the president learned this week from 73year-old Cedric Alberts, national and municipal governments have for decades disgracefully played party politics with the lives of the poor.

I wish Ramaphosa well in implementing action, including recovering monies from foreign governments that guaranteed the fraudulent and unconstitutional arms deal.

The $8.7bn (R100bn) in nondelivered BAE/Saab offset obligations could also help fund some of that desperately needed housing.

Terry Crawford-Browne Via e-mail