WHATEVER the merits of Tokyo Sexwale’s PWV housing master plan _ and most analysts consider it flawed _ it is to be welcomed. The plan is a serious attempt to come to grips with the financing of mass housing in a country where two-thirds of township residents, either jobless or low-income earners, are considered credit risks by the financial community.
It tries for the first time to give expression to the idea, central to the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), that housing must be the motor of economic revival and job creation. And it recognises the urgency of development needs in impoverished black areas, where expectations are as high as the potential political costs of protracted government inaction. Its weakness lies in its vagueness, and critics are right to warn of the fallout if a programme of this magnitude fails.
The last thing the government or the RDP needs is a large-scale defaulting on mortgage repayments and a bond boycott campaign. It is also imperative that regional housing initiatives take their place within a broader, national approach.
This week’s trouble-shooting encounter between Sexwale and Housing Minister Joe Slovo appears to mean that the PWV programme will not go ahead at once and in its pristine form. Sexwale’s weakness, and Slovo’s trump card, is that state guarantees are central to the private investment the programme requires.
But the philosophy which lies behind the plan will have to find its way into national strategy. Unless the government resorts to further overseas borrowing _ unlikely when 30 percent of the Budget is already devoted to servicing foreign debt _ private sector resources will have to be marshalled on a vast scale to realise the aims of the RDP. And this will entail mechanisms to assure jittery investors, many of whose fingers have been burnt by low-cost housing projects, that their money is safe.
There is also a fascinating political dimension. Sexwale _ by all accounts an ambitious and popular man _ could be positioning himself as a third contender for the next state presidency, alongside Vice-President Thabo Mbeki and ANC general secretary Cyril Ramaphosa.
This is not a great surprise. For one thing, he is probably the most telegenic of our politicians. For another, it follows a common pattern in federal systems for the premiership of the most powerful region _ California in the US, Bavaria in Germany _ to be a stepping-stone to central power.
This _ as symbolised by the low-level spat between Sexwale and Slovo _ augurs well for our infant democracy. A healthy system requires strong regional governments willing to take on both the central state and other provinces in defence of their interests.
Healthy, that is, as long as it does not lead Sexwale down the road of crude populism _ like making housing promises that will backfire.