Bid to eradicate informal settlements

ETHEKWINI Municipality is set to spend an additional R199 million this financial year to purchase three parcels of land across the city in an attempt to eliminate informal settlements.

The amount, which is in addition to the R25 million already spent in the same financial year for the same purpose, was approved as part of the Adjustment Budget for the 2018/19 financial year at an executive committee (exco) meeting yesterday.

The purchase of additional land was welcomed by the majority of the ANC-dominated committee, but opposition parties were sceptical about the success of eradicating informal settlements.

This was due to a lack of documentation detailing the plan and the lack of progress in building on other sites which had been identified in previous years.

Mdu Nkosi, the IFP representative on the committee, said the presentation and accepting the “document-less” plan was unprofessional and that issues relating to service delivery should be discussed in committee meetings.

“They told us about the spending without providing any documentation. Whatever plan there is to eradicate informal settlements should take into consideration the fact that some of the

invaders are from the transit camps, and that people invade land because of the failures of government since 1994. The people in transit camps were promised temporary occupation – six months minimum – but they remain in those camps for over 10 years,” Nkosi said.

He said it was “smart” to pronounce monies to be spent on land, yet, there was a backlog in using existing land for housing.

The DA was critical of the plan for its lack of proper documentation. Heinz de Boer said Mondli Mthembu, chairperson of the human settlements and infrastructure development committee, did not tell councillors which parcels of land they wanted to buy.

“He wants to take money from the adjustment budget and purchase additional pieces of land for housing, and in his words, that will alleviate the land invasions. He said all the details would come out in a report, apparently at council or something like that. Even if they buy the parcels of land today, it would still take at least a year to build houses, and that’s being very optimistic, considering that the procurement process can take up to 180 days just to get contractors in place, never mind for them to start working,” De Boer said.

He questioned what the city had done with the other parcels of land that had been previously identified.

“We identified the drive-in site, Albert Park and the Seaside Children’s home for housing a long time ago. Even before 2017, we did oversight visits on those parcels, and yet, we haven’t seen any action. They can purchase additional land, but we know it’s going to take five years, and in some cases, 10 years to actually get housing done there, and by that stage, we’d have 10 or 20 new informal settlements in the places that have been invaded. It’s quite clear from the service reports that we are getting, that the housing, electricity and water departments, are just not delivering on their core mandates; they are way behind,” De Boer said.

Mthembu said the more the council responded to challenges, the more opposition parties complained.

He said the city could not identify the plots as there was a danger they could be invaded before negotiations with the owners could begin.