Govt s new mixed-model housing plan raises more questions than answers The point of the new plan is to move away from providing housing alone, but to put people s fate back into their own hands. FILE Picture: Xolani Koyana/EWN
94 days ago
JOHANNESBURG - The Department Of Human Settlements has decided to add rapid land release – the delivery of serviced land – to its mandate for South Africans who can afford to buy land and build their own homes.
The 2016 community survey found that of the nearly 17 million households in the country, more than two million were still informal and the department says more than half a million South Africans have registered on its needs register for affordable housing.
Weâre keeping score! Our performance report of President Ramaphosa and his Cabinet
By Staff Reporter
PURPOSE
It s been 26 years since the advent of democracy and the majority of South Africans continue to live in poverty. Independent Media has compiled a performance report to help South Africans hold those they voted into power accountable for the promises they made to change their lives for the better.
Below we provide a fair and objective evaluation of ministerial and presidential performance for the 2019 financial year to date, using the Medium-Term Strategic Framework, seven priorities of the Sixth Administration, Budget Speech, State of the Nation Address and the recently signed Performance Agreements between President Cyril Ramaphosa and his Cabinet ministers.
The Minister of Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation, Lindiwe Sisulu, has been criticised for her outburst during an inspection of the fire-ravaged Taiwan informal settlement in Site C, Khayelitsha, where a blaze on New Year’s Day left 500 residents homeless.
It was a sweltering day in Cape Town on Tuesday, 5 January, when Sisulu, accompanied by the MMC for Human Settlements, Malusi Booi, and Western Cape MEC Tertius Simmers, ripped down her mask and began shouting at housing activist and Khayelitsha Community Action Network (CAN) member Nkosikhona Swartbooi.
A recording of the encounter has gone viral and Sisulu on Wednesday issued a statement accusing Swartbooi of being an “opportunist” seeking to “hijack the plight of the poor”.
Senator Francis N. Tolentino
By this time during the past years, Filipinos, especially young people, would be thinking about their new year’s resolutions. The coming of the new year is always an opportunity to reflect on the past and think about ways we can improve ourselves and our lives.
However, it’s different this year. For most of us, it is not an exaggeration to say that 2020 has been the worst year in recent memory. We had to contend with the Taal volcano eruption, super-typhoons and massive flooding, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, all of which claimed countless lives, devastated local economies, and reversed the national economic gains we’ve made. It is not surprising that many are being cautiously optimistic about 2021 and delaying making new year’s resolutions, judging from the funny albeit poignant memes circulating on social media.