Millions of South Africans still live in shacks

'Some things were better under apartheid'



Millions of South Africans still live in shacks
When apartheid was dismantled in South Africa, many expected the lives of its black population would improve but promises of land distribution and new homes have not been fulfilled, as Hugh Sykes discovered.
In a community of shacks on a hillside near Johannesburg, a man complained to me:
"We didn't like apartheid, but some things were better under apartheid than they are now."
In a community of shacks on a hillside near Durban, a man complained to me:
"Life here under apartheid was bad, but now it is more bad."
I felt slightly unsettled hearing this.
Shack dwellers have to go out to public stand-pipes to fill up containers with drinking water
It seemed like questioning a sacred belief - that apartheid was an unmitigated, 100% evil system.
But there is less idolatry here now, as it dawns on most people that the new South Africa is still scarred by extreme poverty and high unemployment.
No paradise
Of course, Nelson Mandela continues to be lauded as the hero of the liberation of black South Africans from the oppressions of apartheid.

Building houses for all under one programme proved too costly
But he is also being criticised for changing the direction of the South African economy from active state intervention to neo-liberal, free-market economics.
During his presidency, the government switched from RDP - the interventionist Reconstruction and Development Programme - to Gear, which stands for Growth, Employment And Redistribution.
RDP promised paradise - clean water, mains drainage, land redistribution and a million homes - all in five years.
But paradise did not come. The economy of South Africa simply could not bear the cost.
So the finance system switched to Gear.
Part of the thinking was that it would help to develop a substantial black middle class, whose taxes would then trickle down to the poor.
The middle class did develop, but the problem with trickle-down is that it is just that - a trickle.
Houses 'an insult'
Millions of South Africans still live in shacks.

The ANC government now is simply an extension of the apartheid government
"Bricks" Mokolo, former ANC activist
Rain and dust get in, there is no security against burglars and shack dwellers have to go out to public stand-pipes to fill up containers with drinking water.
And there is no proper lighting which - quite apart from the obvious inconveniences - makes it very hard for children to get their homework done on dark winter evenings.
A former African National Congress activist, "Bricks" Mokolo, told me it is still very hard to criticise the government here.
He says everybody has been, as he put it, "made to love the ANC, made to love Nelson Mandela" and "made to feel small" if they dare to complain.
Mr Mokolo tells me angrily: "I didn't wait for Nelson Mandela. I too fought for my freedom. I was tortured in an apartheid jail."
He was tortured so brutally that prison officers thought he was dead. After leaving him in a mortuary fridge overnight, they dumped what they thought was his dead body in a field.
Mr Mokolo says that housing, especially, was better under apartheid than it is now.
He calls the new houses that are being built all over the country an insult because they are significantly smaller than the old matchbox homes that the apartheid government built in the townships.
"The ANC government now," he insists, "is simply an extension of the apartheid government. There's still separate development," he goes on, "there are still townships, 20 years after liberation."
His conclusion: "There were places for blacks in those days. Now they are the same places. They've just changed the word. They've changed black, to poor."

Defective old houses make way for new moladi homes

moladi homes replace old

HOUSING department workmen have demolished two defective 60-year-old government houses in Daleview, Despatch.

A third house still had to be flattened, officials said. The municipality has provided the owners with new RDP houses on the existing plots.

The action is part of a plan to replace old houses that are beyond repair with RDP houses.

Housing and land chairman Andile Mfunda said the municipality had to act quickly on houses that posed a danger to families.

He said there were other houses in Despatch that needed to be demolished.

The demolition project was separate from a government programme to rectify poorly built RDP houses.

Ward 52 councillor Zandisile Speelman said the demolished houses had serious structural defects.

“The owners are excited. They said the danger the houses posed to their children had been reported to the municipality several times.”

He said the house foundations had partially collapsed and been washed away and the side walls were not attached to the foundations.

“They were not fit for people to live in.”

The houses had been built in the early 1950s and had never been upgraded. Most of Daleview’s houses needed to be rectified, he said.

The owner of one of the demolished houses, Charles Hendricks, 46, said he had lived in the house for more than 20 years. The walls were cracked when he bought it, but he had fixed them.

“In time, the foundation started to crack and part of it collapsed. We lived in fear that the house might fall on us – it was even worse when the wind blew.”

He said he was happy the house had been demolished and proud of the new RDP house which was bigger and safer.

Siena Jack, 49, said they had to stuff newspaper in the wide cracks of the walls in their house to stop the wind and rain coming in. “I’m very excited about the new house.”
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