The right to housing in post-apartheid South Africa: Why some of the nicest plans

can sometimes go wrong Christopher G. Thomas Phd Student: Sociology Department, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Lecturer: Sociology Department University of South Africa Box 392 Pretoria 0003 Republic of South Africa tel: 27-012-429 6560 / 6301 fax: 27-012-429 6491 e-mail: thomacg@unisa.ac.za FIRST DRAFT: NOT TO BE QUOTED OR REPRODUCED WITHOUT AUTHOR=S PERMISSION Abstract From the European mercantilist age, South Africa was visited with colonial conquest and white settler dominance. Through three centuries this conquest wrought upon blacks land dispossession, economic underdevelopment, proletarianization and poor wage conditions, impoverishment through loss of assets, and political oppression. Several forces acted together to produce an aberration in the black proletariat=s experience of the proletarianization phenomenon in the modern world, namely: the era of industrialization beginning around 1870 and the mechanisms of acquiring cheap black labour; a unified white controlled state that from 1910 incrementally disenfranchised blacks; and, the imposition of segregation and apartheid policies from 1910 to 1990s. Given these forces, the black proletariat=s migration to urban economic opportunities was brutally controlled by policy and legislative measures that included the minimal provision of housing units for blacks. The right to housing was a prominent mobilizing demand of the black masses during the resistance to apartheid. Recognition of the right to housing in a new constitution is a positive gain in the struggle of the black masses. However, realisation of that right has been frustrated by the outcomes of an overarching development and macro-economic strategy, problems with governmental institutional capacity, and coordination with banking institutions. Civil society formations have pressured for a review of the housing policy. The key areas identified regarding problems impacting an adequate housing policy and emanating from a post-apartheid policy are the size of the national housing budget, the increase of the housing subsidy in relation to inflation particularly building material costs, bureaucratic capacity and the problem of underspending, the questionable quality and lifespan of the structures produced, the relation between the macro-economic strategy and growing unemployment problem, apartheid era land acquisitions and the legal restraints on making land available, and the emphasis on market mechanisms overlooks conditions prohibiting lower-income groups realising their housing rights. Nationally, realising the right to housing remains a politically volatile issue. Gauteng Province, is the country=s economic hub and has the second highest provincial population, and events suggest that it is perhaps the Amost challenged@ province despite receiving a large proportion of the national housing

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budget. This paper is a critical reflection of the state, civil society, and business sector discourses on realising the right to housing in Gauteng Province. KEYWORDS: constitution, provincial budget, ownership, exclusion 1 INTRODUCTION South Africa underwent a historic political transition in April 1994, a full two years before the Heads of State and Government assembled to endorse the Istanbul Declaration on Human Settlements of June 1996. It was a transition after three centuries of successive generations of black inhabitants of this land had endured political exclusion, economic subordination, and social marginalisation. The black majority were deprived of basic rights like shelter, amongst other hardships that debilitated their everyday lives. It was a transition in which the spirit of the various struggle charters and the culmination of popular expectations of the newly enfranchised electorate, synonymously with the Istanbul declaration, were that the new government would be one of those committed to Abetter standards@ and assuring people lived in Alarger freedom@. The Istanbul Declaration was an undertaking to:

Aendorse the universal goals of ensuring adequate shelter for all and making human settlements safer, healthier and more liveable, equitable, sustainable and productive@

and, Aconsidered, with a sense of urgency, the continuing deterioration of conditions of shelter and human settlements@, thus goverments undertook to Aimprove the quality of life within human settlements, we must combat the deterioration of conditions that in most cases, particularly in developing countries, have reached crisis proportions. To this end, we must address comprehensively, inter alia, unsustainable consumption and production patterns, particularly in industrialized countries; unsustainable population changes, including changes in structure and distribution, giving priority consideration to the tendency towards excessive population concentration; homelessness; increasing poverty; unemployment; social exclusion; family instability; inadequate resources; lack of basic infrastructure and services; lack of adequate planning; growing insecurity and violence; environmental degradation; and increased vulnerability to disasters@ (http: www.unhabitat.org/declarations/ist-dec.htm)

Shelter and housing may be studied as one area of a state=s spectrum of social policies and the forms of interventions a state makes in the production, distribution, availability, or occupancy rights. The unfolding of such policies may be attributed to the democratic nature of the state and how groups bargain with the state to intervene in ways that delivers houses to affected communities. Or, the focus could be on the reproduction of social inequalities through a housing policy, as well as the consequences of legitimating the state to the working class through its housing policies, and of the financial constraints on the extent of welfare provision (Clapham et al 1990: x, 1-9). Developments relating to South Africa=s (SA) housing policy have produced a form of social exclusion despite the constitutional spirit to advance democracy, social justice, address past divisions, improve quality of life in a framework of guarantees to certain rights (Preamble, RSA Constitution 1996). This paper is a descriptive exploration of events surrounding SA=s new housing policy and touches on the outcomes which suggest the need for

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a reform of the current housing policy. It has a critical orientation in the sense that it is concerned with the restructuring of a social order such that human emancipation and liberation is enhanced (see also Dunn 1993: 274-7). It is part of a broader study on the evolution of social and economic citizenship rights in SA=s celebrated new inclusivist democracy,1 and realising the right to housing is a central issue prompting a more >positive= state role in redistribution and undoing the legacy of generations of inequality. Realising the right to housing would represent a concrete improvement in the lives of SA=s poor (Sarkin 1998: 629). Developments around that right are puzzling though as housing is one aspect of people=s evaluation of the quality of their life where few say they have experienced real changes for the better in their lives since 1994: the national total is 16%; for Africans it is 20%; for coloureds it is 13%; for Indians it is 2%; and for whites it is 3% (Møller 2000: 26). The consolidation of a new democratic order and the legitimation of the SA state require more than just regular elections, but also significant material improvement of the circumstances of those communities impoverished over three centuries. Those improvements are occurring in a context where there has hardly been a fundamental change in property and social relations. The paper is descriptive because of the Asense of puzzlement@ (Escobar 1995: vii) that emerges when one observes actual developments and senses that the discourse on housing has semblances of a nightmare and it must be interrogated. Qualitative description may be a fruitful route towards developing a critical discourse that works alongside the once disenfranchised and impoverished communities and engages those institutions about the puzzlement around the right to housing and alternatives to these developments (Jaworski & Coupland 1999: 6-7, 33, 35). 2 SHELTER FOR ALL: GOING UP IN FLAMES! An actual continuing deterioration in developments around adequate and safe settlements and the urgency by which the housing situation in SA needs to be addressed is expressed in events that shattered the lives of inhabitants of Cape Town in the late afternoon of Sunday March 14, 2004. Local newspapers reported these events as follows:

AEight people died yesterday in a fire that razed about 1000 informal housing structures in the Joe Slovo settlement in Langa near Cape Town, Johan Minnie of Cape Town Disaster Management said.@ ATen fire engines were used to quell the fire, but not before thousands of shacks were destroyed.@ (Business Day, 15 March 2004 )

President Thabo Mbeki visited the site of witnessing the aftermath of material loss and agonising death as told by a fireman:

AYou can=t imagine how hard it is to pick up a charred body and it falls apart in your hands. I picked up six bodies and they were so charred I couldn=t tell whether they were adults or children.@ (Adams 2004)

It was sadly yet another incident which adds to the inhabitants= protracted woes; the same settlement had been hit by at least eight fires during the preceding year:

1 The author is currently registered as a Phd. student in Sociology at the University of

Witwatersrand for a dissertation entitled ADiscourses on the Right to Housing in Gauteng Province, 1994-2004".

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AA fire has swept through homes in the Joe Slovo informal settlement bordering Langa for the eighth time this year and has left about 200 people homeless.@ (Hartley 2003)

Attempts to mitigate the constant fire hazards in the lives of these people by regulating the spacing between their shacks, by warning inhabitants about the dangers of gas and paraffin stoves, and calls for the stopping of sales of sub-standard paraffin stoves and contaminated paraffin (Ndenze 2004), are not the solution to the problem. Cape Town unicity Mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo, reported that at least 25, 000 families per year were arriving in the city, mostly from the rural areas of the Eastern Cape province and occupying any vacant space in the vicinity of black townships. The Western Province region had a backlog of 316 000 houses and the whole province contended with an influx of 20 000 to 30 000 families per year (Smith 2002). Understandably, the flow of people to dangerous informal settlements persists:

AThe Disaster Mitigation for Sustainable Livelihoods programme said yesterday a pilot project for fire mitigation in the Joe Slovo informal settlement had inadvertently increased its desirability for occupation, increasing the density in the area.@ ADr Ailsa Holloway, a director at the University of Cape Town, said that in some blocks the density had doubled in less than a year.@ (Business Day, 31 March 2004)

Two weeks later, the Cape Town newspapers headlines carried the story of a further three disasters:

AWeekend shack fires leave 4 dead, over 900 homeless@ (Cape Times, 29 March 2004)

For too long, so many of the cities most vulnerable inhabitants have suffered this fate:

AResearch conducted in 1999 showed that 1612 informal dwellings fires were reported in 10 Cape Town suburbs Bonteheuwel, Browns Farm, Elsies River, Gugulethu, Imizamo Yethu, Langa, Mannenberg, Nyanga, Redhill and Wallacedene. The number of fires rose 96% from 213 in 1995 to 418 in 1999.@ (Business Day, 31 March 2004)

Inarguably, the proper solution lies not in the providence of fire education and mitigation measures, but in these people realising access to adequate shelter safe from these dangers. In fact, it is about the realisation of the right to housing as promised in the broader dispensation of the sequel to the celebrated 1994 political transition. The imminence of that solution seems bleak and housing manager of Cape Town unicity where these devastating fires occurred, Hans Smit, two years earlier acknowledged and described the housing shortage in the metropolitan area as Aacute@ (Business Day, 31 July 2001). Shack fires as a constant threat in the lives of Cape Town=s informal settlement inhabitants, in the view of the province=s Member of Cabinet for Social Services and Poverty Alleviation, Marius Fransman, really require a holistic solution since it is part of a broader context:

AAlthough negligence and irresponsibility cause some of these fires, they also need to be seen in context. Thousands of people stay in overcrowded, badly built shack areas because they can=t afford proper houses. Though most of these areas are electrified, some of the residents can=t afford electric stoves, heating

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and lighting equipment. Some residents still use open flame stoves and candles, which lead to some of the fires.@ ASome light fires inside their shacks to keep their dwellings warm during the cold and wet winter months.@ AOur major battle is poverty and if we can overcome it, most of our problems in this country will be solved.@ AWe need to strengthen our efforts - as called upon by President Thabo Mbeki - to fight poverty.@ AAlthough the department of social services and poverty alleviation has committed R14m for poverty intervention programmes, long-term strategic partnerships around job creation need to be strengthened.@ (Fransman 2003)

Ten years after the first racially inclusive democratic elections, social conditions for many of the recently enfranchised remain dire. The Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry, Ronnie Kasrils, reported to Parliament in May 2002 that:

AAn estimated 4.6 million South Africans live in squatter camps, of whom 2.8 million require running water and an overwhelming majority, about 4.1 million require sanitation services.@ (Business Day, 24 May)

No estimate figures on the number of squatters and informal settlements in the Western Cape province where these devastating fires raged were available at the time of the Minister=s report. Estimates were available for Gauteng province, spatially the smallest, but economically the largest province; it had pulled people into the highest number of informal settlements, 230 rural area settlements loaded with around 440 000 inhabitants, and 305 urban area settlements were weighed down with 2 million squatters. In addition to providing estimates for the other provinces, Minister Kasrils added that:

Athe need for running water was also required by about 4.2 million outside of squatter camps. The total of 7 million with running water needs excluded migrant workers and illegal immigrants.@ (Business Day, 24 May)

This is particularly so for those living in around 1,010 informal settlements in the country and in an additional 569 settlements in urban areas. The acute housing shortage, the mushrooming of informal settlements, lack of basic services like running water, recurrent shack fires along with deaths and material losses, undoubtedly have exacerbated a nasty, brutish and short life that so many of the optimistic, recently enfranchised citizens find themselves enduring well into the democratic transition. The characterization of these people=s lives as brutish is buttressed by an examination of the types of responses of the post-1994 authorities. Frustrated by slow delivery on housing, people in Cape Town have resorted to land grabs. During a two week period in June of 2001 there were six land occupations in Cape Town. The pattern, normally in the form of protest statements, has been that a crowd of homeless would occupy a piece of vacant land for a brief period and erect shacks (though these structures may be symbolically intended), then the council would move in and pull down the structures; sometimes communities defiantly rebuild the shacks. The density of informal settlements and impatience of inhabitants can only prompt land invasions; Khayelitsha settlement was designed for 250 000 people, but actually holds between 800 000 and 1million (Pressley 2002)

AGroups of squatters have since early July occupied state and private land. Worst affected was Khayelitsha, a rapidly growing township, where residents left

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homeless by the flooding moved onto land belonging to government and the London-based insurance giant Old Mutual.@ ALast week the state won a court order to evict squatters. However, the squatters defied the eviction notice, rebuilt their shacks within hours after police tore them down and were finally driven off by police using teargas.@ (Business Day, 7 August 2001)

The housing manager, Hans Smit, declared that the city council had assumed a Azero tolerance@ approach with these types of initiatives. In essence, people had to be patient with the council=s experimentation with as well as its pace of work on land release. Police were called in and used rubber bullets to halt a land invasion by about 350 inhabitants of the Mandela Park informal settlement in the vicinity of the affluent historically white residential area in Hout Bay (Business Day 2001). The use of the police and army to brutally crush protests around housing rights (and sometimes service delivery) prompts, perhaps not ironic, conclusions that the new authorities are seen to be as no different from the apartheid authorities.

APolice and the army would continue to maintain a heavy presence in the Philippi area after chaos erupted early yesterday over demands for housing, free water and electricity. Police were forced to fire stun grenades and teargas to disperse hundreds of people.@ AShack dwellers on the outskirts of Cape Town yesterday shot at the police, barricaded roads and stoned cars in the second clashes in a week.@ AThe trouble began in the morning when about 200 people blockaded a busy intersection with burning tyres and chicken transport cages next to the Sweet Valley squatter camp in Philippi township, some shouting: AWe want houses@. @ AOne man said residents had gathered on Sunday and decided to create a disturbance until the authorities woke up to their plight.@ AResident Patricia Bodwane said: AWe have no electricity, we have no water, we have no toilets. People cannot live like this.@ ... AImpatience over the lack of proper housing has been mounting in Cape Town=s impoverished townships recently.@ (Business Day, 7 August 2001)

In addition to the brutal response of the authorities, homeless protesters face the possibility of legislation outlawing their desperate cries for urgency on housing delivery:

AGovernment is forging ahead with its plan to criminalise land grabs, with the housing minister disclosing yesterday that the amendments to current legislation will include a proposal to impose a maximum two-year jail sentence or fine, or both.@ (Business Day, 11 September 2001)

The Minister of Housing, Sankie Mthembi-Mohanyele, has been resolute that the government will not cave in to land invasions:

AWe regard land invasions as unacceptable and the government is not going to tolerate any unlawful act in the allocation of land and shelter.@ AUnderscoring her point she said: AGovernment believes that land invasions are no solution to addressing the question of landlessness and homelessness.@ (Pressley 2001)

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The conclusion of a similarity between the apartheid and the new government is not ironic too when we observe similar characterizations of an undesirable influx. Organizations that assisted people during the era of the apartheid government=s removal of Asurplus people@ from white SAf are despondent since prominent elements within the new government abide by the same convictions to remove surplus people. Glenda Glover, the Director of the Surplus People Project in Cape Town expresses this despondency thus:

AThe Surplus People Project was established in 1985 to support Asurplus@ people in their struggles to retain land rights and gain access to land for residential and productive use.@ ASince 1994 we have been considering changing our name to something more appropriate to a climate of reconstruction. However, recent quotes from government ministers and officials suggest that poor people might still be regarded as Asurplus@. A AStatements like: AThey must go back where they came from@ - Department of Land Affairs official on SABC=s Newshour (July 8); ALegally the squatters do not have rights@ - Department of Land Affairs official quoted in Sunday Independent (July 8), have unfortunate apartheid echoes.@ (Business Day, 18 July 2001)

In the opinion of some of the province=s parliamentarians, participants in recurrent land occupations are sometimes the members of indigent households that have been evicted from council houses which soon after were put up for auction. Residents of Khayelitsha owed the council R231million in arrear payments for rates and services, though the council resorted to evicting them, the provincial premier was cognizant of poverty as the root of the problem:

AIt is immoral to provide people with free houses knowing they have no income, except for a R500 allowance from time to time, and then expect them to pay rates.@ (Business Day, 26 March 2002).

Acquiring land for housing Cape Town=s house hungry is generally stifled by apartheid-like attitudes and the legacy of inequitable land ownership generated in that era, arguably even further back. Often it is the case that land close to workers= places of employment is in affluent white areas or owned by white corporations and there are legal obstacles to freeing up that land since the land reform policy adheres to the free market principles of Awilling buyer, willing seller@ (Rose 2001). AFifty years of apartheid engineering@ and land inequity Pressley 200**) are the immediate foundations of the fiery political problem that housing hunger potentially can simmer into. 3 FOUNDATIONS OF THE HOUSING BACKLOG South Africa=s housing policy narrative must necessarily have an extended >beginning= (Kaplan 1993) - it is much more than the preambles to declarations and legislation made after the 1994 political transition. It is a narrative >beginning= which acknowledges that the acute housing backlog is rooted in three centuries of white minority political and economic domination and resulting in systemic adversity imposed upon the black majority. Accepting that beginning, only then can we reach consensus on some suitable >ending= of the narrative. The adversity imposed upon Blacks had a qualitatively different impact and scope over successive eras of rule. Broadly, in the era of colonial conquest white settlers conquered indigenous communities and claimed land in different parts of the region. Then, by rule through segregation policies after the formation of a unified white controlled state - the Union of South Africa (1910-1948) whites ushered in the infamous Native Land Act of 1913 placing at the

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privileged disposal of white settlers and white corporations 87% of the land. And, by rule through apartheid policies (1948-1994), securing the protected entry of all white groups into the corporate sector while continuing to consolidate the marginalisation, exclusion and repression of blacks. Terreblanche (2002:40) captures the unfolding history of systemic adversity in these words:

AThe centuries-long violent conflict and unequal power struggles that mark South African history have had a very negative impact on the social structures of indigenous people. Although the 258 years of Dutch and British colonialism severely damaged family and tribal organisations, the range and penetration of exploitation during segregation (1910-48) and apartheid (1948-94) were far more destructive. During these two periods the aggressive dynamics of racial capitalism and the insatiable demand for capitalist entrepreneurs for cheap and docile labour showed little respect for the family, cultural, and social life of especially Africans. The elaborate mechanisms of proletarianisation, repression, and discrimination not only impoverished indigenous people physically, but did even more psychological damage. As soon as family and other social structures were disrupted, the disciplinary and civilising effect of these traditional cultures were undermined. In this way a subculture - or syndrome of poverty was institutionalised among poorer Africans and coloureds. And in this way a distinct mentality, marked by deviant behaviour patterns was inculcated into those who became captives of this syndrome.@

The apartheid ideology, refined ideas and policies of its forerunner - segregation, synthesised theories of cultural and racial difference, and spawned legislation which attempted to enforce the physical separation of different >races=. The intensified growth of an industrial economy and the emergence of an African wage labour proletariat during both the segregation and apartheid eras unfolded in a manner such that the African proletariat=s permanently settled presence in towns and cities as work-seekers was constrained (Browett 1982: 18-23 ). Segregation and apartheid policies sought to uphold this constrained flow to the >white= urban centers. This mode of economic organization where the majority of Africans had linkages to productive activities in rural areas or Reserves ensured that African migrant labour was a form of cheap labour. Essentially resting on the claim that Africans were only temporary residents in urban areas, a series of legislation like Pass Laws and the Native Urban Areas Acts governed the right of Africans to residence in urban areas, and really constrained African urbanization. If left unchecked, the full urbanization of Africans would have altered the cheap labour arrangement (Wolpe 1972: 433-439, 447). Progressively, the capacity of the Reserve areas to sustain a growing African population was eroded and the push of Africans to urban centers advanced. Urban settlement also spelled a demand for housing. In addition, the growth of the secondary industrialization and tertiary sectors of the economy demanded a permanently urbanized industrial proletariat; it is also suggested that the latter had no linkages with productive activity in the Reserve areas that supplemented wages earned in urban centers. This is indicated by the growth in the number of Africans employed in private industries from 1940 to 1970, as well as increasing figures on the percentage of the African population settled in urban areas. In 1911, 12.6% of Africans lived in urban areas, in 1946, 23.7% of Africans lived in urban areas, by 1971, around 38% of the African population was living in urban centers (Wolpe 1972: 443). Measures to sustain the system of excluding Africans from the major white urban centers included the decentralization policies of the late 1960s and 1970s, whereby white industries would relocate close to the

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borders of the Reserves and employ commuter migrant workers who resided in the adjacent Reserves (Wolpe 1972: 452). Apartheid legislation sought to constrain the permanent residence of Blacks in >white= urban areas, to eject the unemployed blacks who were not in economic service to white people in urban areas, and to limit them from freehold tenure, but still could not halt the influx of blacks to urban areas. The legacy of the influx was the phenomenon of a growing segment of blacks in urban areas in squatter and spontaneous settlements. Apartheid laws sought stricter measures to limit the number of Blacks with qualifications to live in urban areas, called >Section 10 rights=. Furthermore the amount of dwellings constructed for Black households was minimised (Browett 1982: 21-22). Over time, migrant labour as the basis of a cheap labour system was eroded by other developments: the Reserve areas became incapacitated in terms of their agricultural output, the amount of common land available for livestock grazing was over-utilized, and the growth of the urban manufacturing industries increased the demand for African industrial labour (Wolpe 1972: 444). The acquisition of housing, particularly in urban areas, by blacks during the different periods of white rule was influenced by the demands of industries for a stable workforce and consequently a number of houses were built for blacks and new townships started (Hindson 1987: 56-64, 91-94; Mashabela 1990: 11-13). The recognition of the urban permanence of Blacks, however, did not mean a matching commitment to house all blacks. Shacks, squatter camps, and informal settlements were an inescapable outgrowth of policies prior to 1994 and are part of the right to housing and housing backlog problems that the post-1994 government has to deal with. Housing policy for Blacks during the apartheid years entailed a continuation of an ideology of maintaining the territorial separation of officially defined race groups, and a policy of settling urbanised blacks into townships with small houses to shelter these >temporary sojourners= in >White South Africa= (Jhatam 1991: 225-227). Between the years of 1948-1962, an average of 11 386 houses per annum were built in these townships. These spartan shelters set the standard of >adequate= amenities matched by an austere budget. Anything more comfortable would discourage blacks from identifying with their >tribal homelands=. Production of black township houses winded down to a total of 5 227 for the years 1968 and 1969, a diminishing trend that continued through to the urban uprisings of 1976. The 1976 uprising prompted a new direction in the production of black housing. The 1976 uprisings signaled that the grand apartheid policy of segregation would be resisted despite the ongoing relocations of people in >black spots=, the removal of >surplus people= from white SA, and the granting of homeland >independence=. A new sector of society emerged as a key player in the financing and production of housing for urbanised blacks - it was the private sector that sought reforms within the apartheid framework. The Urban Foundation (UF) as a pivotal actor in this new black urban housing thrust. Its main business advocates were Anglo American Corporation and a prominent reformist Afrikaner businessman, Anton Rupert (Bond 2000: 125-131; Jhatam 1991: 227-9). Several academics were also drawn into the organisation=s activities. Leading SA business representatives and banks supported the UF initiative as a forerunner of a reform of the housing policy and other services imposed upon urban blacks. The UF organised itself to bring a Ahigher quality of life@ to the townships, and, to this end, it sought reforms within the apartheid framework as well as to get blacks to accept free enterprise values. It is argued to have conceived, via its involvement in drafting the Black Local

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Authorities Act of 1983, a scheme which only meant the transfer of township control to pliant black administrators (Murray 1987: 110, 122-124). It was hoped that this reform would curb repetitions of the 1976 uprising and procure some semblance of political stability amongst the urban black working and middle classes that had developed a measure of faith in free enterprise rather than radical ideologies (Mabin 1983: 4). An interesting issue that surfaced and was dealt with by political activists and social analysts at the time, was the claim of a connection between home ownership through the UF=s activities and the cooptation of a privileged, property owning, black elite or Ablack middle class@. Home ownership acquired through bank loans entails a responsible attitude towards personal debt. Thus the expectation amongst reformist white politicians and businessmen was that a home-owning black urban middle class would be less amenable to militant tendencies:

AWhen people are housed - more especially when they are homeowners - they are not only less likely to be troublesome. They are also likely to feel they have a stake in the society and an interest in its stability.=@ (Zach de Beer, quoted in Bond 1996: 128)

The consequences would be further divisive, urban blacks would become a Asettled middle-class society@, while influx controls would continue to restrict migrant workers from permanent urban settlement (Gelb 1981: 69). But the role of the UF appears consistent with the National Party=s new orientation on the provision of urban black housing - its attempts to shift the burden of black housing provision to the private sector. The National Party would still shape housing policy but it would permit the UF to take the lead in the new approach. The turn to the private sector did not produce spectacular results - between 1975 to 1983 the private sector provided only 2000 houses. And of all the private sector financing, a mere 1 percent went to black housing. Although with a professed interest in the Aquality of life@ of the black workforce, the UF foisted upon blacks architectural ideas reflecting the dominant white views of what was adequate for blacks and their delivery record rendered their patronage as questionable (Jhatam 1991:228-9). The civic movements that emerged after 1976 and the 1980s and battled the apartheid regime have also been observant that the UF, then later the Independent Development Trust, and white bureaucrats surviving from the apartheid regime, since the transition to a new regime after 1994, have attempted to continue influencing black views in a way that lowers their expectations of adequate housing. While the black civic movements had their visions of improvements to the quality of life for blacks, white reformers came from a privileged background and their organisations like the UF foisted upon blacks an undemocratic, non-participatory housing policy that really amounted to a Asite and service Atoilet policy@ (Mayekiso 1996: 241-8). The UF had greeted with great enthusiasm the Urban Areas Amendment Act (no 97 of 1978) since the changes retreated, to a measure, from the view that blacks were Atemporary sojourners@ in Awhite South Africa@. The amendment permitted blacks with section 10 rights to acquire property on a 99-year leasehold. The UF proposed to the administration boards the idea of Aself-help housing@ (Urban Foundation 1987: 63; Jhatam 1991: 229-230). The idea entailed the prospective owner assuming the responsibility of managing the building of his own low-cost home. The building could be done by himself or by local builders who could be trained on the job if required. The services provided included one tap for every eight houses, a bucket toilet system in the backyard, and a coal stove for cooking. Electricity provision was withheld in acknowledgement that incomes were very low and adding that service would increase prices by

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R2 000 to R2 500, thus excluding many people. But much doubt has been cast upon the potential of the idea of self-help for society=s already poor. Such schemes only entrench the inequality situation in a society - it is seen as Anormal@ that the urbanised poor have such innovative ways of coping with housing shortages like building shacks and squatting. In 1983 a new state-led initiative emerged from the Department of Community Development and the Bantu Affairs Administration Boards (Mabin 1983: 4; Hardie & Hart 1986: 17). In the language of the time, it was part of a Anew dispensation@ - the selling of approximately 500 000 state-owned rental housing units to white, coloured, Indian, and black tenants in their respective residential areas. The initiative was also deemed as having cooptive consequences; in the words of a prominent Soweto township politician, Dr Nthatho Motlana, the sale would have potential Astabilising effects@ (Mabin 1983: 4). The offer had both attractive and coercive elements to it. On the one hand, blacks were offered houses at prices well below the inflated original building cost, and, on the other hand, those who did not buy faced steep rent increases. However, by March 1984 only 5 914 had been sold, and by late 1985 approximately 38 000 houses were sold. The low sales figure may be attributed to the low incomes of black households, the lack of loan finance, opposition from township political groups, and official tardiness in surveying sites (Hardie & Hart 1986: 17-20). The initiative was also received by a mixture of perspectives amongst black working class people. Not all saw home ownership as an investment, there was confusion over how prices were calculated, there were suspicions about the possibility that the state could revert on its ABig Sale@ decision causing financial losses. Regardless of the initiative, it did not do one crucial thing about the accumulating housing backlog - increase the stock of housing by building more houses. Though the UF was shut down in 1995, since the passage to a democratic government after the 1994 elections, through its main ideologues - white conservatives as well as white formerly radical academics and political activists, it has left an important residual influence on housing policy (Bond 2000: 127-38). That is, it filtered in a World Bank advocated Aneo-liberal@ economic orientation to housing policy - provision of houses through market forces, nurturing a middle class that incurs personal debt through bond obligations, minimalist state assistance through self-help housing schemes, housing schemes that entail a rudimentary bottom structure upon which occupants would have to complete a top-structure. Implementation of the UF=s policies was facilitated by the Independent Development Trust which gained notoriety for its rudimentary conception of housing for blacks. And the UF=s ideas continued through the ideas of the chair of the National Housing Board, Joop de Loor, and the National Party Housing Minister, Louis Shill before the 1994 political transition. The latter two figures did little about the terrible housing structures that constructors were building for blacks during this high period of NP reform of apartheid. Concurrent, with the political negotiations that begun after February to facilitate a political transition, the National Housing Forum (NHF) was set up in 1992 to be an inclusivist forum coopting the input of the former civic organisation and liberation movement foes of apartheid, but it remained dominated by remnants of the Urban Foundation. The radical elements in the NHF eventually weakened and a conservative neo-liberal faction pushed through a paltry housing subsidy scheme that would not be a burden on the government=s coffers. The ideas of the UF and NHF endured and permeated the post-1994 ANC government=s housing ministry on a neoliberal, market oriented approach to housing delivery, and a subsidy scheme that did not place tremendous on state coffers (Bond 2000: 138-51

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A decade before the ANC=s entry into government office the urban housing shortage was estimated at 583 000, but it has since mushroomed and in 1994 the housing backlog was estimated at a tremendous backlog of 3 million houses, a burden inherited due to the Nationalist Party=s reluctance to build urban houses for blacks in the 1970's and 1980's (Fast Facts no. 12 1994: 1; Lodge 1996: 197). The notion of a backlog and Aadequate@ entailed a qualitative and ethical belief regarding what standards of accommodation families need in order to have a minimum level of healthy, productive, and dignified lives. The backlog estimate includes households using informal housing and backyard shacks without services, people without shelter, and, to a small extent, the Ahomeless@. When hostel residents are added because in their prevailing state they did not represent adequate Aaccommodation@, and when the housing demand in rural areas is included, the total estimated backlog approximates a figure of three million houses. Despite efforts to arrive at a reliable estimate, it has been argued that the rural housing backlog should include an additional 2.9 million informal dwellings since they are not serviced and do not satisfy Aminimum standards@. In addition, natural population growth would add 200 000 new houses per year to the backlog. Other analysts argue that when we consider that 200 000 new households emerge each year there would be five million households demanding housing in the ten years after the 1994 elections (Fast Facts no.12 1994: 2). 4 BUILDING A POST-APARTHEID HOUSING POLICY Realising the right to housing is framed within the workings of a liberal democratic rights philosophy and constitution. Uniquely, a Bill of Rights in the post-apartheid Constitution recognises social and economic rights as justiciable rights which may be enforced in the Constitutional Court. The Constitution has ambitiously attempted a marriage of >negative= and >positive= rights (see Barry 1989: 234, 241) in order to be legitimised (Heyns & Brand 1999: 1, 2). Negative rights oblige states to protect individuals civic and political freedoms and their property rights. Positive rights oblige states to take action to counter the large social and economic inequalities that have surfaced in a society; they are thus redistributivist rights. The promise on housing delivery had been a key issue in the election campaigning for the first racially inclusive elections of 1994, an event culminating in the ANC=s victory. The Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) formed the basis of the ANC=s policies to deal with the legacies of apartheid, particularly the material conditions of the poor, and, consequently, prioritising the right to housing (ANC 1994: 22-28). Given the legacy of systemic impoverishment, legitimation of a new constitution required the protection of social and economic rights as >justiciable= rights - rights that citizens can appeal to the Constitutional Court to have protected. The Bill of Rights recognises the right to housing:

A26. (1) Everyone has the right to have access to adequate housing. (2) The state must take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its

available resources, to achieve the progressive realisation of this right. (3) No one may be evicted from their home, or have their home demolished,

without an order of court made after considering all the relevant circumstances. No legislation may permit arbitrary evictions.@ (RSA Constitution 1996)

But realising these new rights is dependent on the interplay of policymaking and delivery strategies. Two aspects of the government=s aim in the housing policy that it was developing was that eventually all households should have, firstly, a permanent structure to protect against the elements, to give privacy and security of tenure, and secondly, that households should have

13

potable water, electricity and sanitation (Fast Facts no. 12 1994: 1). Realising the right has ranked high amongst the expectations of the ANC=s constituency, certainly for all homeless too, but the realisation of the right has to evolve in relation to budget constraints and the ANC housing policy was faced with the choice of either mass state housing or capital-subsidy approaches to realising the right (Simkins 1996: 87-88). The record appears that the mass state housing approach has lost favour in most parts of the world because it does not reach a large proportion of the targeted groups and creates more fiscal pressures for ongoing subsidies. Furthermore, the capital-subsidy approach is more favoured by the private sector but not always favoured by government. Nevertheless, the approaches of the two ANC housing ministers (Joe Slovo and Sankie Mthembi-Mohanyele) appointed between 1994 and 2004 vacillated between these two approaches. Within the framework of a liberal democratic philosophy of rights and constitutional arrangement, a new National Department of Housing, in consultation, negotiation and deliberation with other roleplayers, has been a central body in developing a legislative framework for the realisation of the right to housing (SAHRC 1998: 174; Indicator SA 2000: 32; Bond 2000: 247-250). The Department worked on legislation like the Housing Act 107 of 1997, as well as the Housing Consumer Protection Measures Act 95 of 1998, the Prevention of Illegal Eviction from and Unlawful Occupation of Land Act 19 of 1999. The National Housing Act 107 of 1997 acknowledges the right to housing in s 26 of the Constitution as the basis to Act 107 which is to facilitate a sustainable development process, or simply the development of a national housing policy, as stated in s1 (xi) and s3 (2) (a). The principles of the development of a housing policy include:

A2. (1) National, provincial and local spheres of government must - (a) give priority to the needs of the poor in respect of housing development...@

(RSA Act no. 107 of 1997) While still in the early stages of the development of a housing policy it was acknowledged that the state would have to play a significant role in helping many people with realising the right to housing. Researchers at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research(CSIR) pointed out that the households in need of housing represent amongst the most dire households. Of those in need, about 78.5% were earning less than R1 500 per month making them very dependent upon state assistance to acquire housing (Fast Facts no.12 1994: 2). These conditions place greater responsibility upon the state in terms of delivery since the ability of any household to afford housing is related to household income and the cost of housing, as well as the ability of the state to grant subsidies. The CSIR as well as the ANC attempted to estimate the costs of provision and reported that delivery of one million government subsidised houses over five years would cost R11.5 billion. The banking sector, for instance, First National Bank, also reported that these households earning below R1, 500 per month would be unlikely to afford home loans (Fast Facts no.12 1994: 2). Increasingly, the dominant trend in the broad reconstruction, growth, and redistribution debate has marginalised the role of the state in favour of market-led solutions:

AIn order to change the South African economic system into a market-oriented one that will serve the interests of all 45 million South Africans, present power, property (including human and intellectual property), and labour relations will have to be comprehensively and fundamentally restructured. This will not happen in the foreseeable future. But until this occurs, the state has an important role to

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play on behalf of the marginalised and impoverished. This is unfortunately not happening, and a >free marketeer= attitude has taken root. As Heribert Adam et al point out, >the economic debate in the mainstream media reaches hysterical levels when editorials howl at anyone who even mentions that there may be a need for corrective state intervention in an unfettered market= (Terreblanche 2002:60)

Realising constitutionally guaranteed social and economic rights and the right to housing in particular are still heavily contested terrain. In a report by the Community Agency for Social Inquiry (CASE) on the public=s perceptions on the realisation of socio-economic rights it is maintained that there is an absence of a clear definition of rights in the constitution and it is not clear on the concrete obligations of government (Pigou et al 1998: 8). Moreover, the constitution is minimalist in terms of the state=s duties - there is an acceptance in the constitution that the realisation of rights cannot be immediate.

ABy refraining from offering concrete notions of budgets and timeframes, the Constitution, perhaps deliberately, leaves the arena open to contestation between the state, civil society, the courts, and the Human Rights Commission. It is only in interaction between these forces that the specific meaning of socio-economic rights in South Africa will become consolidated in the course of time.@ (Pigou et al 1998: 8)

In a sense, there is a broader configuration of forces pushing for the realisation of housing rights, besides other social and economic rights. Yet developments, raise questions about what impact elements in that configuration can have. In terms of s184 of the Constitution of 1996, provision was made for the creation of the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) whose functions would be to:

A184. (1) (a) promote respect for human rights and a culture of human rights; (b) promote the protection, development and attainment of human rights;

and (c) monitor and assess the observance of human rights in the Republic.@

and, A184. (3) Each year the Human Rights Commission must require relevant organs of

state to provide the Commission with information on the measures that they have taken towards the realisation of the rights in the Bill of Rights concerning housing, health care, food, water, social security, education and the environment.@ (RSA Constitution 1996)

In its report of 2001, the SAHRC contended that the government may be violating the right to housing:

AThe measures ... undertaken ... are relevant to the realisation of housing rights ... . However, the measures remain insufficient ... . As a share of the national budget, the housing budget has been declining over the years. The state is reducing the enjoyment of a right without reasonable grounds for the reduction being provided. AIt is therefore clear that the State is not even able to prove that it is applying the resources efficiently, meaning that housing rights are being violated.A (SAHRC 2001: 301)

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Despite its high profile and incisive criticisms of the actual failings of the state, that the SAHRC as a monitoring body on achievements around realising social and economic rights really amounts to a toothless watchdog is a view increasingly propagated in some circles:

AA recent Human Rights Commission (HRC) conference on extending socioeconomic liberties in SA failed dismally to come up with any meaningful resolutions.@ (Bunsee 2002)

Civil society action and constestation in the courts, as additional elements in the configuration, have also highlighted other problems around the realisation of socio-economic and particularly housing rights. The role of the Constitutional Court was clarified in s167 of the 1996 Constitution and is deemed as still at an early stage of its evolution in the making of decisions regarding citizen=s rights as well as disputes between organs of state, or as Scott and Alston (2000: 206) state it:

A...the Constitutional Court [will] gradually feel their way forward in the adjudication of social rights@.

One case which went the >justiciable= route is that concerning, an indigent group which moved out of the overpopulated Wallacedene squatter settlement in the Cape Town metropolitan area, to occupy an area which they regarded as vacant land. In due course, these people were evicted and resorted to the Constitutional Court, documented as Grootboom v Oostenburg Municipality 2000 (3) BCLR 277 (C). The decision which impacted upon these 390 adults and 510 children was that their s26 appeal in terms of the right to housing and continued occupation of the land was unsuccessful. Alston and Scott (2000: 207-211) contend the Court had acted in a creative manner by deciding in favour of the children=s right to shelter in terms of s28. The possibility of violations of constitutional rights while the state builds its capacities emerges as an issue in this case (Scott& Alston 2000: 255). The Grootboom judgement while dealing directly with housing is also argued to have further implications for socio-economic rights. Two reasons are very prominent. The first is that people were informed that they could not simply demand housing from the state or any other socio-economic right. And, secondly, government was compelled to act >positively= to ameliorate poverty and deprivation (Fast Facts no.3 2001: 2). The Court=s decision really does not confront the state=s performance on housing delivery. It has been challenged in that regarding the right to adequate housing [s26 (1)], the Court restricts this in terms of the state=s measures to use its resources [s26 (2)]. The Court acted squeamishly by opting for this ruling, because it would have had to closely examine the totality of government spending across all the bureaucracies, evaluate competing priorities, and judge on the multitude of possible strategies to achieve those priorities. The spirit of the Constitution to enhance dignity, equality, and freedom were placed second to a technocratic interpretation of the law and squeamishness about an aggressive review of the fiscus (Steinberg 2002) The Court ruling that people simply cannot demand housing from the government and that the state was doing its best with available resources as opposed to the SAHRC view that the state may be violating the right to housing point to tensions within society. The tensions are linked to the accommodation of a new elite as well that elite=s economic policies:

ADefenders of the elite transition may claim that leftward pressure on the ANC also emanates from the Constitution=s celebrated socio-economic clauses. But the 1996 document appears a bit tattered these days, partly because the judges are too frightened to take a stand against the state=s neoliberal policies, ... .@ (Bond 2004)

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The ANC had promised the delivery of one million (>RDP=) houses in five years once in power after the 1994 election. Although not meeting that campaign deadline, nevertheless, after nine years by 2003, about 1.5 million houses were built for low-income households (UNDP 2003: 33). However, it may be that there is still a need for another 4.1 million adequate houses. The annual rate of increase in the housing backlog has shot up from 178 000 per year to 208 000 per year. The general impression of what has thus far been delivered is also not congratulatory:

AAccording to a number of analyses, many houses built with the government capital subsidy scheme are poorly designed, too small, environmentally unsound, unsuited to the local climate, expensive to maintain at a physically comfortable indoor climate and located in aesthetically unpleasant, sterile and socially and economically unsuitable areas.@ (UNDP 2003: 52 fn.59)

In corroboration of the above, a report funded by the European Union Foundation for Human Rights stated that only 30% of houses built with government subsidies were of a suitable standard (SAIRR 2001: 166). Although a mere 30m2 was set as the minimum requirement of government subsidised low income houses, 70% of the houses completed in the first five years of ANC government were below the 30m2 requirement (UNDP 2003: 35). And another commentator likens the construction of houses for blacks under a new regime to those constructed during the apartheid era:

AAn aerial view of these developments resembles apartheid architecture at its worst....(N)ow the infamous NE 51/6 and 51/9 houses are being praised by township dwellers.@ (Donaldson & van der Merwe 2000:52-53)

The ownership of a home and the quality of one=s home appear to play a prominent role in people=s evaluation of their changes to their social status and to gauge whether there has been an improvement in the quality of their life since citizenship status has been formally attained. It appears that the post 1994 housing development schemes may be stirring up some divisions and housing related forms of stratification within Black communities. In the words of Ellen Khuzwayo, a prominent figure in the townships during the years of battling the apartheid state:

APeople are treated well or not by the look of their houses...That=s wrong. Those from posh houses are respected and others are called names - abantu bas=emkhukhwini - people from the shacks.@ (Sowetan 27 February 2002:21)

In local parlance, these newly constructed houses are disparagingly being likened to chicken coops. The small size and substandard nature of houses is basically accounted for in the decreased value of the subsidy, the increase in building material costs (UNDP 2003: 35), and, I argue, the racist legacy of what constitutes >adequate= housing for blacks in South Africa that permeates the housing construction industry and officials in the civil service. Understandably, the political and social stratification ramifications of the consequences are appearing as signals that improvements to the housing policy need to be urgently addressed. For some decades now, the notion of Aadequate housing@ has been contested and the criteria used tend to be very subjective and ethnocentric. Generally, the items included in such lists include size of rooms, types of material used in the construction of a house especially in relation to local environmental and climate conditions, the provision of services like running water,

17

number of taps per dwelling, electricity, flushing toilets, number of persons sharing one toilet, gravel roads (Gilbert 1981:81-83). In some instances electricity is provided but it is non-grid electricity which cannot support electric stoves forcing households to cook over fires or with paraffin stoves and the plumbing used cannot support higher volumes of water for economic activities that provide a livelihood for homes (Hassen 2000:15). With regard to housing the poor one line of thinking with respect to governments= role is that the poor should be helped to help themselves. Elaborate homes that are of high architectural standards and the maintenance they require become a burden on the financial resources of poorer households (Gilbert 1981:84-86). Housing development programmes need to take into consideration the wider needs of communities like proximity to employment opportunities and transport routes (Hassen 2000:14). The notion of Aadequate housing@ has significantly deteriorated from popular expectations. The Minister of Housing, Ms Sankie Mthembi-Mohanyele, stated in 1998 that some contractors had taken advantage of government=s loose definitions of norms and standards, and that from April 1999 the minimum size for low-cost houses government subsidised houses would be 30m2 and, where geographical circumstances limited this, units of 27m2 would be approved (SAIRR 1999: 162). Despite a housing programme it is still a fact that due to overcrowding of dwellings or the number of occupants per room, millions of South Africans are deemed to be without adequate accommodation (Pigou et al 1998: 51). An indication of the expectations of what a housing policy should be can be discerned in the words of a leading activist amongst the civic organisations that battled the apartheid regime, Moses Mayekiso of the South African National Civics Organisation (SANCO), during the debates on a housing policy prior to 1994:

AIt is a major scam. In my view, the whole subsidy scheme must be reworked, because the Z3,600 maximum that is offered is just not sufficient to pay for anything more than a plot, a toilet and some few building materials. We say the subsidy must include a core house, full services and infrastructure. It must be at least 40 square meters in size, with good quality construction@ (quoted in Bond 2000: 249).

What has actually emerged in some instances is characterised as a Ademise of humane levels of service provision@ (Bond 2000: 306). The newly built houses lack water-borne sanitation, there is no reliable source of electricity, stormwater drains or tarred roads. 5 THE ECONOMIC CONTEXT OF A POST-APARTHEID HOUSING POLICY For fifty years the demands in the Freedom Charter and its visions of the principles of a social order liberated from racial domination had fueled popular protest. It is an important historical document that decreed: AThere shall be houses, security and comfort@, amongst other aspirations (du Preez 2004). Unfortunately, it did not prophesy the actual situation of so many of the house hungry of the present. This unfortunate plight is rooted in the unfolding of economic policy once liberation forces were drawn into shaping a post-apartheid economic policy. That macro-economic policy is the >framing= (Rein & Schön: 1993) of the housing policy discourse where different agents would have to impact on the direction, shifts, and outcomes of housing policy. It is the framing which we should evaluate in order to judge whether redistribution or social justice has been achieved for the house hungry and to consider housing policy reforms or a even a broader frame shift.

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To a great extent, a housing policy is realised through budget allocations. Much controversy surrounds these allocations, and the SAHRC=s monitoring of delivery on social and economic rights slams housing allocations as a violation. Expenditure in the 1998/99 Budget amounted to R205 201.9 billion. Of this amount, R3 949. 0 billion or, 1.9% of that Budget was allocated to the Housing Department (Fast Facts no. 4 1998: 5). Expenditure on housing in the 1999/2000 budget was estimated to be R3.5 billion, and for 2000/2001 it was estimated to be R3.3 billion - a decline of 13.4% in expenditure on this item (Naidoo 2001: 33). The decline in allocations is matched by a general decline in the number of small houses being built although a clear connection may need to be established. The South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) monthly reports on new houses smaller than 81m2 being built indicate a progressive decline in the number of such houses built. SAIRR reports that for March 2001 the number of such units were down by 16.0% of the number of units built for the same period in 2000; for May 2001 the number of units were down by 30.0% of the number built for the same period in 2000; for July 2001 the number of units were down by 27.9% of the number built for the same period in 2000; for August 2001 the number of units were down by 30.0% of the number built for the same period in 2000 (Fast Facts no. 4 2001: 5; no 6 2001: 9; no. 8 2001: 9; no. 10 2001: 9). Basically, there has been a decline reported ever since August 2000.

Generally, the root of the problem is argued to be the unfolding of a negotiated settlement, the cooptation of the liberation struggle leadership to a neo-liberal macro-economic orientation - an Aelite compromise@, and the dependence upon market forces to deliver goods and services that systemic impoverishment had denied generations of blacks (see Bond 2000). The unfolding of the macroeconomic policy since 1996 has been accompanied by unimpressive results - poverty and unemployment levels have worsened, thus diminishing the capacity of many households to complement state assistance on realising housing rights. In March 2003 unemployment had reached 31.2% (5.2 million), but in an extended definition of unemployment the figure stands at 42.1% (8.4 million) in a work force of 29.6 million (UNDP 2003: 19-20). In a total national population of 44.8 million (2001), and with a national poverty line of R569 per month per adult equivalent, around 21 million people still live below that line (UNDP 2003: 89). Income inequality, as measured by the Gini coefficient, is worsening showing a increase from 0.596 in 1995 to 0.635 in 2001 (UNDP 2003: 43). Only a small black elite has risen above the inequality of the past, and the ending of white privilege has diminished the circumstances of a small number of white households (Barrell 2000). Through the era of South Africa=s industrialisation beginning in the late nineteenth century and through the twentieth, the white controlled corporate sector enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with the white controlled state and influenced the state in shaping accumulation strategies that were profitable for the corporate sector. Despite the reconciliation process, it has denied culpability in apartheid atrocities and the structuring of an economy that enhanced black exploitation, and has emerged as a key influence on the post-apartheid government=s shaping of an accumulation strategy. During its years of liberation struggle, the ANC and other liberation movements had given scant attention to a post-apartheid economic strategy, providing a strategic opening for the influence of the organised corporate sector (Terreblanche 2002: 65-85). Even before acquiring the reins of state power through an electoral victory in 1994, already in 1993 the ANC leadership (together with the NP) entered into agreements on economic policy effectively committing itself to International Monetary Fund (IMF) sanctioned neo-liberal, export-oriented economic policies. The policy was to be defended as a >redistribution through growth= option (Terreblanche 2002:96-98). This situation has since been disparagingly characterised as

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an >elite compromise=; the ANC leadership realised that they could not overwhelm counterrevolutionary forces that were too wary of its redistributivist rhetoric and acceded to neo-liberal economic compromises that would ultimately exclude many of the poor or about half of the population (a >50 percent solution=):

AThis elite compromise should be regarded as one of the most decisive ideological turning points in the ANC=s approach to economic issues. By agreeing to it, the ANC put in place the first cornerstone of the economic edifice of a post-apartheid South Africa. In effect, it agreed to an economic policy and system that would exclude the poorest half of the population from a >solution= (ie, a >50 percent solution=) that was really aimed at resolving the corporate sectors=s long-standing accumulation crisis.@ AAs soon as the ANC=s leaders agreed to the statement, they were trapped in the formidable web of the domestic corporate sector and the international financial establishment, represented by the IMF and the World Bank. The implications were far-reaching - not only for the ANC but also for the country at large. After agreeing to this elite compromise, the ANC was committed to proceeding down the road of >free marketeerism=, a competitive, outward-oriented economy, macroeconomic balance, and globalisation. In the nine years since then it has become evident that, once the ANC began to move down the prescribed road, it became more difficult for it to address the systemic inclusion of the poorer half of the population through meaningful poverty alleviation programmes.@ (Terreblanche 2002:98)

Despite the popular legitimacy of the ANC as evidenced in its hatrick of electoral victories in 1994, 1999, and 2004, undoubtedly, the balance of power lies with the still white controlled corporate sector. The corporate sector has been the dominant social force in shaping the post-apartheid macro-economic policy despite the inputs of the labour movement and other civil society organisations.

A... the corporate sector took the neo-liberal dogma about the alleged merits of the liberal-capitalist economic system and the beneficial employment and redistributive effects that would result from a high economic growth rate after the political transformation to the informal negotiations, and propagated it vigorously. The distance between corporate myth and South African reality could hardly have been greater. At these negotiations, leaders of the corporate sector subjected ANC leaders to a propaganda onslaught with only one purpose in mind: to entrench and promote its vested interests, irrespective of the general interests of South African society at large.@ (Terreblanche 2002:65)

For many analysts the country=s inherited economic situation and the financial circumstances of many households are the basis of pessimistic arguments that the realisation of social and economic rights is unlikely yet other analysts conversely suggest that the fiscal situation of the government and its spending capacity appears more optimistic. Soggot (2001: 2) reports that the National Treasury=s revenues have improved - for June 2001 it was up by 32% on the same period last year. If the trend is to continue there may be a budget surplus. However, in some cases, government department=s have not been spending all their allocations and subsequently have had to surrender millions of rand budgeted to them in the previous year - the Department of Social Development underspent R197.7 million apparently because of inadequate managerial capacity (Fast Facts no.3 2001: 2). The optimism that surrounds this expected improvement in the budget surplus may misleadingly cause speculation that SA could be an exception to the

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phenomenon of a fiscal crisis with regard to social spending and that it is resistant to the constraints that eventually eroded the European welfare states. 6 THE HOUSING QUESTION IN GAUTENG2 Though I have introduced events in Cape Town - shack fires, invasions, evictions, and clashes with authorities are episodic occurrences in Gauteng province too. They are also notable occurrences at squatter settlements with similar names - Slovo Park in western Johannesburg and Mandelaville in DiepKloof, Soweto. Indicative of the pressure on delivery of services in the urban areas are the trends in population growth. SA=s population is growing at a rate of 2.1% but the urban population is growing at a rate of 3.2% (Fast Facts no.8 2000: 1-2). Compared to any of the other provinces, Gauteng province has the highest level of urbanisation or 98.1% and a high proportion of employed people earning less then R500 per month in 1996 or 15.5%. Of the 1 964 169 households counted in 1996, only 62% were classified as formal dwellings while 23.8% (about 467 472) were classified as informal dwellings. The 1998 housing shortage figure for Gauteng stood at 836 784 (Fast Facts no.2 2000: 4). Given its stature as the economic hub of the country, it is understandable that it would be most pressured by an urban pull to jobs:

APeople want to be close to a source of jobs, and with 50% of SA=s GDP centred in the smallest province of Gauteng, an enormous amount of pressure is being placed on a small amount of land in urban and peri-urban areas.@ (Rose 2001)

Despite predictions that government delivery may become biased towards urban areas like Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging because people here would be more easily mobilized when dissatisfied (van der Berg 1998: 254; Fast Facts no. 11, 1994: 1), in this highly urbanised province there is significant dissatisfaction. In Gauteng Province a reasonably high proportion of 59% of respondents maintain that the government has not kept up its promise to deliver houses to people. This is despite the fact that Gauteng receives the highest proportion of the national budget, namely 31%, and that the province receives more housing funds than KwaZulu province which has a larger population - almost one million more people. In 1999/2000 R737.12 million was given to Gauteng and R579.2 million was given to KwaZulu Natal (Indicator SA 17 no.2 2000: 32). It is also puzzling when the government announced in January 2000 that there was to be a cut in provincial budgets for urban areas allowing government to focus on rural areas and poorer provinces (SAIRR 2000: 165). The shift may seem inconsistent with a trend of increased informal dwellings in urban areas and relatively stable numbers of informal dwellings in rural areas as reported in the most recent Statistics SA data on types of dwellings in SA.

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 Informal dwellings urban 9% 16% 15% 14% 17% non-urban 5% 5% 5% 5% 6% (SAIRR 2001: 164; Statistics SA October Household Survey 1999: 38)

2 It is the responsibility of provincial authorities to deliver housing within the framework of national

policy and my Phd. gives more attention to developments in Gauteng Province.

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In a context of impatience with slow delivery, land occupations appeared to be an ominous alternative when squatters were mobilized by persons linked to a rival political party, the Pan Africanist Congress, to form the National Landless People=s Movement (LPM) and occupied privately owned land in the Bredell area in Kempton Park, east of Johannesburg (Modjadji 2001:13; wa ka Ngobeni & Deane 2001:6). The LPM claimed to represent all homeless people across South Africa (Modjadji 2001: 13). It also echoes predictions that the mobilisation of communities against the government=s slow delivery on services may occur in proximity to urban areas (van der Berg 1998:254). The organisers sold land to about 150 squatters at R25 a portion of land (wa ka Ngobeni & Deane 2001: 6). The Housing Minister, Sankie Mthembi-Mohanyele, and the municipal mayor of Ekurhuleni, Bavumile Vilakazi, were chased off by an angry crowd when they showed up purportedly on a fact-finding mission to Bredell (Cook & Mothibili 2001). The Bredell occupation was challenged by Groengras Eiendomme, who claimed to be the lawful owners of the land occupied by the squatters. The matter was heard in the Pretoria High Court which ruled that the Bredell squatters must be evicted. Other than evictions which followed the Pretoria High Court hearings, government response to these mobilizations has been to deliberate new legislation to prosecute persons found guilty of land invasions as well as the organisers of such campaigns (The Star, September 11, 2001:1). But the establishment of new squatter type or informal settlements appears to be quite a contentious issue as is the case of the Kanana community in Hammanskraal north of Pretoria which was started in January 2000. In this instance, the ANC office together with the South African National Civics Organisation (SANCO) sold land to occupants of this informal settlement at prices ranging between R90 and R500 (wa ka Ngobeni 2001: 8). Apparently, amongst these 200 000 residents many are regarded as proud of their structures which Amake the government=s Reconstruction and Development Programme houses look like matchboxes.@ The situation later brought conflict between the ANC and SANCO entailing claims of SANCO demolishing ANC offices, and claims by SANCO that the ANC was selling plots on land earmarked for schools and other facilities. A government minister who visited both the Bredell and Kanana squatter camps responded differently to both situations. When the Minister of Safety and Security, Steve Tshwete, visited Kanana he is reported to have overlooked the illegality of the settlement and promised the occupants water and electricity. But in the case of the Bredell squatters he threatened them with eviction. These events raise questions concerning the management of possible sources of opposition to the government with regard to the realisation of socio-economic rights. More specifically, the question is - is the situation such that if the ANC organises people to set up informal settlements in the absence of houses, it is acceptable? But if there are instances where rival political organisations and civil society organisations organise people to do so, it is unacceptable? The Bredell incident served to highlight another difficulty encountering housing delivery - private ownership of land. In the nearby Ekurhuleni metropolitan district the council has a housing backlog of 250 000 houses but there is no land for development in the area - most land is owned by private developers (Xundu 2001a). And private ownership of land is another divisive issue. In another incident of land invaded in the Benoni district of Gauteng, a squatter settlement grew to about 4000 households on the land of a white farmer. The government (Land Affairs Department) has been reluctant to buy the land as a means of restitution to the farmer. In support of the farmer, a commentator says this is setting a precedent because the government effectively sanctioned this resettlement without paying a cent (Kruger 2001). sadly, not enough attention is given to the long history of privileged disposal of land to whites over decades of legislation sanctioning this privilege.

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The Bredell land invasion accentuated the urgency of land reform and has prompted a reexamination of the capacity of the government bureaucracy. The land reform process is held back by lack of capacity:

AGeoff Budlender, who has dealt with land issues firsthand as a former Land Affairs director general ... says the problem lies in the fact that there are only 700 people employed nationally by the department working on implementing land reform and restitution.@ AThere is no way that 700 people can hope to deal with even the administrative tasks required of them,@ he says. AA greater staff component is a non-negotiable element for speeding up land reform.@ (Rose 2001)

That capacity problem is part of a larger capacity problem and the delivery of services. Simkins (1996: 85) relates with regard to the ANC=s plans to deal with the apartheid legacy, the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP):

AThe RDP Monitor of August 1995 reported that more than R1.7 billion of the R2.5 billion allocated to the Reconstruction and Development Fund in 1994-5 had not been spent in that fiscal year, and estimated that at least 20 percent of the 1995-96 allocation would not be spent. The major reason for this is lack of state capacity.@

On the other hand, there is debate that the public service needs modernisation and it is under consideration by national government. It is an imperative since its poor functioning hurts the poor most - and is a necessity for socio-political stability (Abedian 2004). But it is anticipated that this modernisation really means an effective downsizing. While for some it may be because of a Afailure of delivery@, on houses in this instance, that events like the Bredell occupations occur, Friedman (2001: 24) cautions that the housing backlog inherited cannot be resolved in the time since 1994 to the present. Pressures for speedy delivery can only result in poor products being dumped upon people. To avert situations where political rivals mobilise communities due to the government=s apparent failure to deliver, the government needs to consider the co-optation of communities into some form of partnership and understanding around the availability and use of resources, thereby minimising possible opposition. A despairing aspect to Friedman=s analysis of the situation is his gloomy outlook on some people enjoying the right to housing: ASo, whatever the government does, for some time to come, some of our people will, alas, be homeless.@ (2001: 24). 7 THE FIRES NEXT TIME: HOUSING RIGHTS AND CLASS WARS It has been argued that widespread home ownership is more than just an issue of a right to shelter - it contributes to maintaining social order, it is about co-optation of citizens, it is a means of practical incorporation into capitalist society (Agnew 1981: 458-61). However, this incorporation may be to different degrees amongst different groups. The things that people own extend to them some measure of status and are a means of self-evaluation. Those who share in societal power through home ownership may develop belief systems and behaviour patterns that contribute to social order - they are less susceptible to oppositional ideologies or from mobilisation by rival political organisations against the shortcomings of a government=s housing policy. Besides providing shelter, housing may also be viewed as an asset and source of income which poor people may utilise to help deal with the effects of poverty (Indicator SA 2000:

23

32). Although the right to housing in the SA Constitution does not imply ownership, it may be argued that the realisation of the right through whatever policies adopted by the state may have similar consequences that Agnew (1981) claims that ownership contributes towards - maintaining social order. While the right to housing and shelter is constitutionally guaranteed, it is >framed= in a macro-economic policy that is thwarting the realisation of that right by many of the newly enfranchised. Realising that right is argued to be adversely affected by a despairing increase in unemployment in the years since 1994. Noting the complexity of the situation in reference to massive joblessness that is compounding the housing crisis, Khuzwayo says:

AHow can one afford a home without the means to buy one?@ (Sowetan 27 February 2002:21)

The impact of unemployment and poverty on the right to housing is multifaceted - not only does it mean inability to buy a home as Khuzwayo states, but it also causes many people to default on payments, to abandon homes, to crowd homes, to sell homes to criminal elements. Non-ownership of houses is also tied to the history of land dispossession in the slogans and marches of the Landless People=s Movement an organisation which mobilises people who need land for housing or farming. The angry marcher=s slogans: AHow can poor people buy their own land back?@; their questioning of evictions: AWhy are we moved from shack to shack?@; their likening of evictions to apartheid policies: ADown with forced removals@ aptly captures the inability of today=s generation of impoverished though enfranchised citizens to own land and houses, and partly explains their distrust of the new political establishment: ADown with political parties@ (Mngxitama 2001). LPM organiser, Andile Mngxitama=s views captures the distrust his movement and adherents have of the new elite in a deracialised polity:

AI sometimes even wonder why they did not give black people parliament long ago, because they really did not have to fight so hard if they knew that their privileged positions would be protected by a black government.@ (Jacobs)

Acknowledging the poor performance on redistributivist policies like housing, Nhlanhla Ndlovu a spokesperson for SANGOCO (South African Non-Government Organisations Coalition Organisation) condemned government housing policy as Aan onslaught on the poor@ and stated that poor people are entitled to free housing from the government (Radebe 2001). A clear redistributionist line of thinking underlies Ndlovu=s thinking on what the government must do in order that people realise the right to housing: Athe government should find mechanisms to get the rich to contribute more to low cost housing rather than charging the poor@. For the president of the Institute of Housing in South Africa the situation is also seen emotively as a Aland issue time bomb@(Jenvey 2001). The class divisions and inequalities, to a measure manifested in the disproportionate enjoyment of the right to housing, have broader ramifications for political stability:

AAlmost all poverty - physical and human - and almost all opportunities and socio-economic power are concentrated in the hands of the upper class, while the lower class experiences all kinds of deprivation and destitution. This deep class division - which has deepened even further over the past eight years - has the potential to destabilise South African society. It is not possible to base a system of democratic capitalism and a prosperous South Africa on such sharp

24

inequalities in the distribution of income, power, property and opportunities.@ (Terreblanche 2002:445)

Fires at Joe Slovo Park in Cape Town, Slovo Park in Johannesburg, evictions of land invaders at Mandela Park in Hout Bay, at Mandelaville in Johannesburg, service cuts to the inhabitants, are certainly at odds with the expectations of the poor in these squatter settlements. These settlements are eponymous for revered heroes of the anti-apartheid struggle, of the first post-apartheid Housing Minister, and indicators of erstwhile popular support for the ANC. But they are hotbeds of recently growing disillusionment with the party and anger at its policies that criminalizes their protest actions (Legassick 2004: 1-2, 15). The incomes of these households make them the poorest in society that are at odds with a political leadership and small black economic elite whose circumstances have drastically improved. Sharper class antagonisms are developing amongst these social poles. Although land invasions in Bredell may have been mobilised by maverick members of rival political parties, in Cape Town it appears that land invasions are the spontaneous actions of communities hungry for housing (Pressley 2002). Regardless of the minimalist nature of the state=s obligations as the constitutional clauses may be interpreted, the expectation remains that the state is the most suited agent to play a dominant role in the realisation of these rights given the magnitude of poverty related problems:

AThere can be no question that a strong state is a prerequisite for any strategy to lessen South African poverty. By themselves, market forces are unlikely to make good the consequences of decades of state-reinforced material inequality@ (Lodge 1996: 197),

and, with implications for the stability of a post-apartheid government, a dire warning is issued in reference to a situation where the worsening Gini coefficient is so alarming and the task of redistribution so enormous:

A...effective delivery of social reform will be crucial if the government is to retain its public credibility@ (Lodge 1996: 201).

When black communities were battling the apartheid state, it was very apparent to the ruling elite then that home ownership was a means of coopting troublesome black and procuring some political stability (see De Beer quoted on page 8 of present paper). There is growing disenchantment with the idea that the growth of the >black middle class= and its political and economic leadership role would be beneficial for all (Hoeane 2003). Problematic developments around the right to housing fuel wider dissent as the trade unions themselves are expressing that sentiment:

AThe emergence of a black bourgeoisie in South Africa is compromising the national democratic movement, the South African Municipal Workers= Union (Samwu) has charged. And there are Aforces@ within the [democratic] movement that are not supportive of the interests of the working class.@ (Kindra 2003)

Though there has been much celebration of the indicators of democratic consolidation like the third round of inclusive national elections, there is also doubt about the extent to which these have really legitimated the government. Social movements to the left of the parties in the elections did not regard any of the parties as expressing the will of the poor. The Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF) and the Landless People=s Movement (LPM) chose to reject the normal proceedings of the 2004 elections and mobilise the poor around basic socio-economic rights (McKinley 2004). The APF called upon those who did vote to spoil their votes, and the

25

LPM pushed for a boycott of the elections in a ANo Land, No Vote@ campaign. The outcome raises questions about the proceedings when we examine figures on the actual declining voter turnout over three national elections, spoilt ballots, and the decline in the vote for the ANC in Gauteng Province. The institutions whereby the newly enfranchised were to realise their right to housing, the monitoring role of the SAHRC - though denouncing the state for violating that right because of decreased allocations to housing - it is nevertheless deemed a toothless watchdog, and the weight of the Constitution and Constitution Courts are in serious doubt after the latter=s judgement on whether the state was reasonable in its social and economic policies:

ADefenders of the elite transition may claim that leftward pressure on the ANC also emanates from the Constitution=s celebrated socio-economic rights clauses. But the document appears a bit tattered these days, partly because the judges are too frightened to take a stand against the state=s neoliberal policies.@ (Bond 2004)

Ten years on, the landless and homeless live a different reality in post-apartheid SA where, in the February state of the nation address, President Thabo Mbeki cited statistics on housing subsidies and houses built, services connections, and other social spending achievements. But there was shrewdly no elaboration of these statistics as it would have gone against the tone of the address which effectively stated:

AWe have delivered; beat that if you can@ (Tsedu 2004) Given such a congratulatory report, there was no need to announce new and major policy initiatives but a continuation of current policies. For how long can the new political leadership assure citizens that Athe country is politically and economically stable@ (Michaels & Phahlane 2004) while a large proportion of citizens are jobless, their impoverishment is worsening, and they do not enjoy the constitutionally guaranteed social and economic rights like housing? And it remains a concern as the President failed to articulate a strategy that addresses poverty and unemployment (The Star, 9 February 2004). On the other hand, besides social movements linking housing and land issues as the focus of their popular mobilisation, even the unionists are expressing their sympathies and warnings of how volatile the overarching land redistribution problem remains with the potential to explode into a situation akin to that in raging in Zimbabwe for the past four years (Business Day 2004, 28 May). Civil society organisations played a strategic role in the demise of the apartheid regime and the stageing of conditions for a negotiated settlement (Terreblanche 2002: 449-51). After 1994 many of those cadres were lost to government positions. Consequently, for some time there was a lull in civil society protest. Their loss to government appears to have not resulted in a situation where the liberation charter demands of the masses have been satisfied. That form of cooptation of the civic organisation leadership, like the South African National Civic Organisations (SANCO), may also be part of the problem. :

AIf SANCO remains a vibrant, community-oriented national coalition even while many of its leaders are drawn into the new governments, and if the traditional South African civic perspective is maintained even under conditions of corporatism elsewhere in the polity, the movement will remain inaccessible to co-optation@. Bond (2000: 253)

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Sadly, the role of SANCO as a crucial organiser within civil society may have been diminished. It is argued that the civic movement is no longer consulted despite having been an ally of the ANC and it is that very alliance which prevents the civics from protesting against the ANC (Ndletyana 1999: 37). And, as Bond (2000: 295) states later:

ABy 1999, it was evident that most of the Ahouses@ built since 1994 were substandard and located vast distances from urban opportunities. To blame are not only policymakers, but also social movements which failed to galvanize protest against the neoliberal policy and, in turn, the ANC government for demobilizing those movements.@

But since around 2000 there are signs of the revitalisation of civil society. These social movements organising the house hungry and landless are only mobilising people around rights that they do not have ten years into the formal consolidation of a democracy through three rounds of inclusivist elections. In transforming the housing and land policy discourse, these movements still have to assert their legitimacy as participants in that discourse Rein & (Schön 1993: 157) as the official responses of the new ruling elite remains resort to legislation that criminalizes land invasion and arrest of their organisers.

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