Category Archives: Lindiwe Sisulu

Waiting for the state: politics of public housing in South Africa

by Saskia Greyling & Sophie Oldfield, The Conversation

The South African Bill of Rights states that citizens have a right “to adequate housing” and that housing is a basic need. The state is obligated to take reasonable measures to realise this right, confirmed through the Constitutional Court qualification in regard to available resources.

The funding and building of more than 3 million housing units in the post-apartheid era to date reflects this national commitment. Yet, for the majority, waiting to access housing is the norm.

Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu has noted that there are 2.2 million households living in 2700 informal settlements and backyard shacks across the country. As the number of households increase by 350,000 annually, the yearly delivery of 140,000 houses leaves a significant deficit. Continue reading →

SACSIS: Lindiwe Sisulu and the New Denialism

http://www.sacsis.org.za/site/article/2178

Lindiwe Sisulu and the New Denialism

by Richard Pithouse

In 2005, early in her in her first term as Minister of Housing, Lindiwe Sisulu announced that the state had resolved to ‘eradicate slums’ by 2014. This was a time when the technocratic ideal had more credibility than it does now and officials and politicians often spoke, with genuine conviction, as if it were an established fact that this aspiration would translate into reality. It was not unusual for people trying to engage the state around questions of urban land and housing to be rebuffed as troublemakers, either ignorant or malicious, on the grounds that it was an established fact that there would be no more shacks by 2014. Continue reading →

City Press: A curious case of … Deflection and prejudice

http://www.citypress.co.za/columnists/curious-case-deflection-prejudice/

A curious case of … Deflection and prejudice

T.O. Molefe, City Press

Who would have thought the day would come when a minister in an ANC-led government would read from the opposition DA hymn book of the pathologies of black culture – and an old, seemingly discarded edition at that?

Well, that’s exactly what happened when Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu this week promised that no person younger than 40 would receive a free house during her time in charge of human settlements.

This isn’t the first time she has said this. Continue reading →

Daily Maverick: Poor-bashing is the new slut-shaming – Zuma, Sisulu & the lazy nation

http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2014-10-23-poor-bashing-is-the-new-slut-shaming-zuma-sisulu-the-lazy-nation

by Sisonke Msimang

I don’t know of a country that gives free houses to young people. Free housing in a few years will be something of the past. (Young people) have lost nothing (to Apartheid). If it is not clear – none of you (young people) are ever going to get a house free from me while I live.

– Lindiwe Sisulu

If I am wrong, come and tell me which country did as we did. Once we were free we said our major focus is to address the plight of the poor. In no country in the world have you seen government giving people houses free of charge because they are poor.

– President Zuma

Policy and administrative reforms will raise at least R12 billion in 2015/16, R15 billion in 2016/17 and R17 billion in 2017/18… This ceiling means that expenditure will continue to grow and the real value of our social spending will be maintained.

– MTEF Statement

Continue reading →

Illegal Evictions in Madlala Village, Lamontville

20 June 2014

Abahlali baseMjondolo Press Statement

 

Illegal Evictions in Madlala Village, Lamontville

Despite the latest Constitutional Court ruling on the 6th of June which is in favour of the poor people of the shack settlement known as Madlala Village in Lamontville, Durban, the illegal demolishing of shacks still continues. This morning at about 09:00 the eThekwini Municipality with its implementing agents was busy demolishing shacks in Madlala village, as a result  70 (seventy) shacks were demolished leaving hundreds of people homeless in the harsh conditions of the winter season.

When the demolishing team arrived in Madlala village the shack dwellers there asked if there was a court order granting the right to the eThekwini Municipality to destroy their homes. One respondent from the demolishing team responded by saying there is none and furthermore he said that they are aware of the recent Constitutional Court ruling but that they were working according to the ward councillor’s instructions to demolish these homes.

Continue reading →