Ruling African National Congress (ANC) deputy secretary-general Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele today slammed ”self- appointed” politicians who were resisting resettlement of people in overcrowded urban areas.
In Talk Back on the SAFM radio station this morning, the former housing minister said that about R50-billion had been spent during the ANC’s rule on housing support and eight million people had benefited from the programme.
However, she acknowledged that there was still a big housing backlog, with
9,35-million people still awaiting housing. ”More than 60% of the population are young, so we have to gallop.”
Mthembi-Mahanyele, who was elected deputy secretary general at the ANC national conference in December, referred particularly to the Alexandra township on the East Rand where there were ”instigating forces” who opposed resettlement in a community suffering from heavy overcrowding, where even school land was being used for informal housing.
”I don’t see the benefits of sitting on the banks of the Jukskei river, which could collapse. The river needs to be cleaned up and people resettled to derive the benefits of their own plots, secure tenure and having a place of their own.”
Asked by a caller if the government had implemented policies which allowed for ”densification” close to work areas, she said that where possible this had been done by turning abandoned buildings in city areas — like Johannesburg and Durban — into housing units. However, there was not much available space in
most cities and building projects were forced in many cases to the ”periphery”.
She noted, however, that housing units were being built and had been built around the automotive plants in the Eastern Cape ”just across the road from home”. – I-Net-Bridge