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The KwaZulu-Natal Slums Bill: An Illustration of an Institutional Shift in Democracy

by Mikelle Adgate, Scot Dalton, Betsy Fuller Matambanadzo, Perspectives on Global Issues, Fall 2008

In August 2007, the provincial government of KwaZulu Natal in South Africa passed the KwaZulu-Natal Elimination and Prevention of Re-emergence of Slums Bill (hereafter referred to as the “Slums Bill”). The Slums Bill seeks to progressively eliminate slums and slum conditions and to prevent their re-emergence in the province. While the provincial government has argued that this Bill is a natural step in the democratic progression of South Africa and international efforts for poverty and slum eradication we strongly disagree. In this paper we illustrate that the secretive nature of the Bill’s development and passage, not only marginalized imjondolo (shackdweller) communities, but echoes apartheid legislation. We also discuss the socially democratic values of housing policy legislation in the 1990s and identify how the Slums Bill illuminates a radical institutional shift in South African decentralization efforts. While we argue that this institutional shift is inherently undemocratic in nature, we offer multiple recommendations for the province and South Africa to return to a more
inclusive form of social democracy.