Zille makes land plea in final Sopa

PREMIER Helen Zille made a plea to President Cyril Ramaphosa to release land for housing in her last State of the Province Address (Sopa) on Friday.

“My challenge to President Ramaphosa today is this: give us an urgent public commitment to release these properties, along with the necessary budget, and we will apply our better living model for game-changing affordable housing on these sites. The model is now in place and we can move quickly.”

Zille said the nationally-owned mega-properties in Cape Town and District Six demonstrated something very important.

“The national government is also responsible for developing District Six, but 23 years later the prime land remains mostly undeveloped, save for just 139 units,” she said.

This month, the DA in the province vowed to continue pushing for the mandate for District Six land to be transferred to the provincial government. The debate surrounding who controls District Six heated up at the end of last year after the standing committee said an agreement had been reached between the provincial standing committee on human settlements and the Department of Rural Development to transfer the budget for District Six to the provincial Department of Human Settlements.

A day later, the department denied such plans existed.

Shahied Ajam, chairperson of the District Six Working Committee, said: “The duty of government is that they are mandated to restore the land of District Six. And what we have seen over past 24 years is that they have failed. I have to agree with her, pass the mandate to local and provincial government so that they can get the job done.”

This month, the department will be back in court with the working committee.