Of all the achievements chalked up by South Africa’s ruling African National Congress over the past 10 years, none seems to match its gains in providing housing for the poor.
As with many other sectors, apartheid left its mark on the country’s housing situation. When President Thabo Mbeki’s predecessor, Nelson Mandela, took office in 1994, official estimates of the housing backlog ranged from 1,4-million to three million units — while the number of people living in shacks was put between five million and 7,7-million.
Sixty percent of the population was without electricity, 16-million had no access to clean water — and 22-million people lacked adequate sanitation. Statistics South Africa, which compiles data for the government, puts the population of the country at 44,8-million.
A decade later, more than 1,9-million housing subsidies have been provided and 1,6-million houses built for the poor. Seventy percent of households have been electrified. Nine million additional people now have clean water supplies, and 63% of homes have been given access to sanitation, according to official figures.
All in all, says Joel Netshitenzhe, head of the Government Communications and Information System, about R45-billion of housing assets have been transferred to the needy since the advent of democracy 10 years ago.
It is an achievement that few can deny. Former opposition leader FW de Klerk, the last president to govern South Africa under apartheid, says the ANC deserves praise for delivering houses to more than a million citizens during the past decade.
“They must be commended. The building of more than 1,2-million houses and the provision of fresh water and electricity to millions of households was one of the government’s greatest achievements,” he told journalists earlier this month.
“It illustrated what can be done when the government and the private sector work in tandem to bring tangible improvements to the daily lives of millions of South Africans.”
In an election year, it is inevitable that these achievements will also be used to burnish party credentials — so it comes as no surprise that the issue of housing is at the heart of the ANC’s campaign. Next month, South Africa will elect a new president and Parliament in its third general election since the end of apartheid.
Images of Mbeki lending a hand to a family building a mud house were splashed across television screens and newspapers, while he was on the campaign trail in the south-eastern town of Pietermaritzburg two weeks ago.
The camera caught Mbeki in a yellow T-shirt and cap bearing the ANC emblem, using a fistful of clay to fill a gap in a wall. It was a useful propaganda gimmick for the country’s 20,7-million voters, the majority of whom are poor.
“Housing is going to be a big issue in the elections,” says Khabela Matlosa of the Johannesburg-based Electoral Institute of Southern Africa. “All [sorts] of social issues are going to feature prominently in the campaign.”
Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele — formerly the minister of housing — was honoured by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN Habitat) in October last year for improving the housing conditions of six million people.
The UN said that South Africa’s provision of homes for the poor had set a new international record for housing delivery.
While the country managed to provide 1,5-million houses to shelter more than six million people within a period of nine years, countries such as Cuba had only provided half-a-million units in about 20 years, according to UN Habitat. (The UN’s statistics were based on Mthembi-Mahanyele’s achievements until the end of last year.)
However, some are treating this success story with caution.
“The figures are wonderful — but that’s only one side of the story. As we build houses for people, we disconnect them from water, and we disconnect them from electricity,” says Adam Habib of the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa — a reference to the periodic cuts in these services by utilities that are trying to make ends meet.
Adds Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, an academic from the Democratic Republic of Congo: “Instead of providing housing, the government should have provided jobs for the poor.”
He was speaking during a gathering of about 200 academics held in South Africa’s capital, Pretoria, last week to review the achievements of the first decade of democracy in the country.
More than 30% of South Africans do not hold jobs, according to official statistics.
In a document issued last year entitled Housing with a Difference in South Africa, the United States Agency for International Development (USAid) said the South African government’s promise to build affordable homes for low-income communities had been kept.
“This achievement is dramatic,” noted the document. “Yet the typical low-cost houses are simple shelters of 30 square metres covered by corrugated zinc roofs, without insulation in the walls or ceilings, no suspended ceilings, and windows are not oriented to sunlight.”
It adds: “Residents often find these houses scorching in summer and freezing in winter. To combat the cold, occupants generally pay high fuel costs in winter to heat their homes with coal or kerosene. The resulting poor indoor air quality threatens family health; children are particularly vulnerable. Incidents of accidents and fire are high.”
USAid also expressed concern about the extent to which this fuel use contributed to community air pollution — and greenhouse gas emissions. These are gases that cause heat to be trapped in the atmosphere, which leads to global warming.
However, through the work of a number of local organisations, the South African Department of Housing had begun to recognise this problem and the need to incorporate environmentally sound building principles, said USAid.
Grace Motsoko, a social worker in the Johannesburg suburb of Emmarentia, is a beneficiary of state-sponsored housing in Soweto, the largest black residential area in the city.
“It was a relief to get the house,” she says. “On my own, I wouldn’t have had the resources to build it.” — IPS