SABC lies about UN Rapporteur’s visit and state of housing in South Africa

SAPA, Pretoria News and the Mail and Guardian present the appalled reaction of Miloon Kothari, UN Special Envoy on Housing after his recent visit. Mr Kothari himself presents his dismal assessment here. Somehow, though, SABC, the state news agency, has contrived a way of saying precisely the opposite…

Update: The Daily News report, missed at the time is now posted in below the SABC spin….

http://www.sabcnews.com/south_africa/general/0,2172,147874,00.html

April 24, 2007, 12:30

Miloon Kothari, the UN special rapporteur on adequate housing, says South Africa has made significant progress in ensuring that people's rights to adequate housing and other basic human rights are protected. Kothari has just completed a two-week tour of the country at the invitation of the government.

He visited Johannesburg, Pretoria, Kimberley, Polokwane, Durban, Cape Town and other areas. Kothari says the last 13 years of democratic rule have brought much change.

Kothari did however note that there are gaps in the implementation of certain constitutional provisions when it comes to providing adequate housing to citizens. He says there is lack of co-operation between national, provincial and local government.

http://www.dailynews.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3800392

Scathing UN report on housing in SA
Expert makes wide ranging suggestions

April 26, 2007 Edition 1

Wendy Jasson da Costa

A moratorium on evictions, the prosecution of farmers who illegally evicted workers and harsh words for Anglo Platinum, was among some of the wide ranging recommendations by the UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, Miloon Kothari.

After a two week visit to the country Kothari this week shared his preliminary observations with the media in Pretoria saying he would engage with government before releasing his final report on conditions in South Africa later this year.

He said one of the main obstacles in SA was the "disturbing phenomenon" of forced evictions which often occurred without a court order. Often those evictions happened in the middle of the night, property was destroyed and it was accompanied by violence.

Kothari said the moratorium on evictions should be in place until all legislation, policies and administrative actions were brought in line with constitutional provisions and judgments which protected the right to adequate housing and freedom from evictions.

He said apart from prosecuting farmers for illegal evictions "rigorous" human rights education was also needed for farm dwellers.

Top of his list of recommendations was improved co-ordination amongst government departments to ensure an approach to housing which recognised that it would only be adequate when there was proper access to water, health services, employment and education opportunities.

Kothari also had harsh words for Anglo Platinum's PPL mine in Limpopo, calling on authorities to review the mines managing plans, assess the impact of its activity in the area and review its lease agreement.

Kothari said six thousand people had been moved from their ancestral land to township areas while a further 10 000 was in the process of being relocated.

He also recommended that the different levels of government should consider intervening in the housing market to regulate the current high and unaffordable prices and land and property speculation.

The recommendations also call for the provision of "adequate" legal aid funding in civil and administrative law to ensure that people whose rights had been breached had proper access to affordable quality legal representation.

He also said that people with special needs be placed on a separate housing waiting list.

Kothari said he was impressed that the national Housing Subsidy Scheme had already financed the building of 2.4 million homes since 1994.

However, the construction of the homes were often shoddy and the size of the structures were inadequate for the number of people it was supposed to house.

South Africa's domestic violence legislation was also described as inadequate because it did not protect a woman's right to housing while there were also not enough shelters for women, he said.