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Mercury: Housing ‘a cause for concern’

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http://www.themercury.co.za/?fArticleId=4646145

Housing ‘a cause for concern’

October 06, 2008 Edition 1

Mercury reporter

A MAJOR housing study released today has raised concerns about apparently high levels of state repression and perceptions of political patronage and rampant corruption in the eThekwini’s municipality’s housing system.

While pointedly commending the municipality for its zeal in building a “considerable number” of houses for the poor, the 200-page report into housing rights and slum eradication in Durban raised several worries. These concern the standard and location of new houses, methods used in evictions and the municipality’s reluctance to properly consult and communicate with those affected.

The report, compiled by the Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, is being released to government departments, NGOs and other organisations.

It says that South Africa as a whole has witnessed a disturbing shift in recent years; from a pro-poor and rights-based discourse regarding shack settlements to one that is more security-based andis sometimes anti-poor.

It cites the KZN Slums Act as a worrying consequence of this shift.

The eThekwini Municipality is building a significant number of houses, but many are of a poor quality and are being built far out, “in a manner that entrenches rather than ameliorates the structural injustice that is the legacy of apartheid spatial segregation”.

There is also credible evidence to suggest there has been severe, violent and unlawful repression of shack dwellers’ organisations, with Abahlali baseMjondolo being a particular target. Unlawful evictions have continued “since the compilation of this report, but there has been a marked decline in reports of state repression of shack dwellers’ organisations. There has also been a clear improvement in the willingness of the city to negotiate directly with shack dwellers’ organisations”.

Among many other recommendations, it moots the idea of independent investigations into allegations of corruption and patronage.

Several development professionals, and one person who had worked in the municipal housing department, complained that the housing process was distorted by party political interests. Academic research had reached similar conclusions.

The centre was told that projects were being blocked in areas not seen as “supportive”. Contracts and access to housing had been directed to people seen as being “supportive”

David Ntseng, of the Church Land Programme, said “the government is obsessed with authority and control . . . it is destroying its political credibility among the poor and destroying their livelihoods by forcing them out of the cities”.

Local shack dwellers’ organisations had reported severe and unlawful police violence against demonstrations. There were widespread perceptions of corruption and political manipulation of housing projects. The centre was given numerous accounts of requests for bribes to be included on housing lists and to avoid eviction.

“People reported paying cash bribes as well as other bribes, such as chickens. In one instance a young woman reported that she had been asked to provide sex to a municipal official in exchange for being placed on the housing list during a forced relocation.”

Most of these accounts named the same official who has now left the housing department.

However, it was clear there was a widespread lack of confidence in the integrity of municipal officials.

“Moreover, given the apparent credibility of the many allegations of corruption, it appears that the department’s oversight and auditing strategies may need to be radically reworked and, quite possibly, handed over to credible independent agencies with an investigative capacity.

“If the claims of rampant corruption are a matter of perception more than reality, this can be addressed by making the process as open and transparent as possible. The secrecy that currently surrounds it clearly encourages rumours,” the report states.

COHRE Report on Housing Rights in Durban

The full text of the report ('Business as Usual') is available in pdf here or on the COHRE website at: http://www.cohre.org/southafrica

COHRE Press Statement

Monday, 6 October 2008

The Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, based in Geneva, today released a report on housing rights in Durban. While recognizing the efforts of the eThekwini Municipality to build a considerable number of houses each year, the report concludes that the houses being built are often located so far out of town as to make them unviable for many people due to unaffordable transport costs to work, schools, and hospitals. The report also expresses serious concern about the size and quality of the houses that are being built and over the failure to provide adequate levels of basic services to shack dwellers while they wait for formal housing. In some instances levels of basic services in shack settlements are inadequate to the point of being life threatening according to COHRE's research.

COHRE's executive director, Salih Booker, said today that, "We have a profound concern about the high number of unlawful evictions carried out by the eThekwini Municipality. Evictions are a routine occurrence in Durban and COHRE researchers did not come across a single instance in which an eviction by the Municipality had been carried out in accordance with the law."

COHRE expresses a profound concern about the high levels of state repression, much of it clearly unlawful, to which the shack dwellers' movement Abahlali baseMjondolo was subject from 2005 until 2007.

COHRE is pleased to note that since the research phase of the Durban Fact Finding Mission was concluded relations between organised shack dwellers' and the Municipality have improved significantly. There has been a dramatic decline in allegations of police harassment and all parties seem optimistic about the current negotiations that the Project Preparation Trust is facilitating between Abahlali baseMjondolo and the eThekwini Municipality. COHRE is also encouraged to note that the eThekwini Municipality is now exploring the prospect of dramatically stepping up the provision of basic services to a number of settlements and of developing two pilot projects in which settlements will be upgraded in situ via the Breaking New Ground policy.

However COHRE remains concerned about unlawful evictions, the current poor levels of basic services in shack settlements and, in particular, the very high instance of often fatal shack fires and the dangers to which residents, especially women, are subjected by the lack of adequate sanitation in many settlements. Finally the COHRE report highlights the dangers posed to housing rights across KwaZulu-Natal by the Elimination and Prevention of Re-emergence of Slums Act.

COHRE is an international human rights non-governmental organisation based in Geneva, Switzerland, with offices throughout the world. COHRE has consultative status with the United Nations and Observer Status with the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights. COHRE works to promote and protect the right to adequate housing for everyone, everywhere, including preventing or remedying forced evictions. COHRE's work includes undertaking fact-finding missions to cities around in the world.

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