Scorned shacklands get platform to call the state to account

SA’s 5-million residents of informal settlements still dream of the services other South Africans take for granted. Over the past six weeks the Asivikelane campaign (“let’s protect each other” in Zulu) has reported many residents still share communal toilets that are not regularly cleaned, queue for insufficient taps that are not repaired when they break, and tolerate refuse removal that depends on the whims of truck drivers. This endangers the lives of these residents daily, and during a pandemic the lives of all South Africans.

Nevertheless, the Covid-19 pandemic has suddenly catapulted the fate of informal residents to the top of local governments’ agendas. In the past weeks the department of human settlements has delivered 41,000 water tanks, and municipalities have mostly found money to fill them. The National Treasury found more than R5bn to allocate to informal settlement services, and some metropolitan municipalities are finding innovative ways to distribute hand sanitiser and clean shared toilets daily.

This is a good start, but what is the recipe for ensuring that the government begins to satisfy informal residents’ urgent, basic needs at scale, beyond the crisis? How do we heed Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel’s advice to “make sure this crisis doesn’t go to waste”? And how do we ensure we don’t revert to the status quo of neglect and disdain after the crisis and indeed waste this “opportunity to do the things you once thought were impossible” (the rest of Emanuel’s quote)?

Money alone will not solve the problem. Reading just one auditor-general report shows that pouring more money into the leaky bucket of local government service systems will not mean better services. The institutions meant to fix the bucket — councils, public accounts committees and the auditor-general — have not managed to do so.

That is where the Asivikelane campaign comes in: it helps those closest to the problem, informal settlement residents, to monitor services and begin a dialogue with the government to ensure scarce public money goes to those who need it most, and is spent efficiently.

Here is how it works: every two weeks residents are asked three simple questions and reply by text message: was water available every time you needed it? Were toilets cleaned in the last seven days? Was waste collected in your settlement in the last seven days? The results are collected by Asivikelane partners and the results used to engage local and national governments directly to improve services. The results are also reported on social media using red, orange and green traffic lights.

This growing network already covers 165 informal settlements in five metro municipalities and 10 smaller towns. Asivikelane partners include IBP SA, Planact, Afesis-corplan, the SA SDI Alliance, Development Action Group, Social Justice Coalition, Grassroot and Social Change Assistance Trust.

Recently a municipal official contacted a partner of the Asivikelane network trying to find out why his municipality still reflected orange in the traffic lights of the biweekly Asivikelane publication, even after that municipality had delivered water tanks to informal settlements. Following up with community leaders we found that in one settlement water tanks not filled with water were delivered. In another settlement residents reported that there were not enough water points for the number of households in the settlement and that taps were broken. The municipality dealt with these problems.

HOW DO WE HEED CHICAGO MAYOR RAHM EMANUEL’S ADVICE TO “MAKE SURE THIS CRISIS DOESN’T GO TO WASTE”?

In this way the campaign has built a platform for informal settlement residents to communicate severe water, sanitation and refuse removal shortages during the crisis. Some national and local governments responded well and fixed service problems. Others found excuses to keep ignoring the pleas of the poorest. Still, we continue to grow the network so that other communities join the campaign — and we can apply pressure for better services for many more informal settlement dwellers.

The government’s recent budget acrobatics shows significant resources hidden in the budget system, and through Asivikelane informal settlement residents are helping the government make the best use of tight budgets. But the five loaves and two fishes are not likely to be sufficient and more public money will have to be invested in informal settlement services. Perhaps improved efficiency in service delivery will convince the rest of us to make tax sacrifices needed to change the fate of the 10% of South Africans who still live in squalor. The Covid19 crisis has hopefully taught us we are all in this together.