Industrialise rural parts, says MEC
THE MEC for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Nomusa Dube-Ncube, has called for “industrialisation” of rural areas, saying this would improve infrastructure and ease the influx of rural job seekers to big cities.
Dube-Ncube was speaking at the official launch of the 52nd Isocarp (International Society of City and Regional Planners) Congress at the Durban ICC yesterday. The conference, held in Africa for the second time – the first was in Kenya – is a gathering of town planners from across the world to share new and innovative ideas in town planning.
Of more than 500 delegates attending, about 200 are internationals from 41 different countries.
Hundreds of papers on town planning are to be presented and debated before the conference ends on Friday.
Dube-Ncube said the conference was important for South Africa as it still grappled with town planning challenges that dated from the segregational planning of the apartheid government.
“The current towns were not designed for the people to live in them. It was always envisaged, by the apartheid government, that the African people would eventually go back to their rural areas and some would go back to their homelands.” The MEC said it was better to create employment in the rural areas.
“Industrialisation of rural areas is beneficial for both rural residents and our cities, where continued urban migration is placing undue pressures on scarce resources.”
She said good urban planning should effectively link employees and job seekers to job opportunities, and residents to secondary services such as hospitals and schools.
Durban’s deputy mayor, Fawzia Peer, echoed DubeNcube, saying: “After 22 years of our democracy and detailed planning, the spatial segregation is still evident and leads to economic exclusion of the majority of South Africans.
“Planning was once a powerful political tool in the hands of the previous government.
“This has led to a stubborn spatial pattern where the majority of poor South Africans still reside on the peripheries of major urban centres and away from major economic opportunities.”
MEC for Human Settlements and Public Works Ravi Pillay said he would scrutinise the reports to see what his department could use to attend to planning and developmental issues.
He agreed that eThekwini was under pressure from the constant influx of people.
About 25% of Durban’s population lived in informal settlements and about 4 000 people migrated from the rural areas to the city weekly.