Service delivery comes through the ballot, not the bullet

3 May 2016

Before our very eyes today, we witness the real life effects of our country’s severe housing crisis. 

Fellow democrats, the hope of getting a house is dwindling under an ANC government that is marred by corruption, and unable to deliver quality housing to the most vulnerable members of our society who are left to live in squalor. 

Since 1994, the housing backlog has increased from 1.5 million to 2.1 million units, while the number of informal settlements has increased by 650% - from 300 to 2 225. With each passing moment, the situation is getting worse, and South Africans are losing patience. 

The 18 families present today, who called “the Ark” shelter their temporary home, are joined by millions of fellow South Africans who live without the dignity brought by a home you can call your own. The frightening fact is that these 18 families are considered the lucky ones, just for having some form of shelter.

The lack of adequate housing here in Wentworth is clear for all to see. There is no housing list to speak of, which is simply unacceptable. It is for this reason that residents, like yourselves, are forced to occupy an abandoned SAPS property like this one, just to have a roof over your heads.  

The living conditions found here are atrocious, with over 80 people having to share a single shower and two toilet facilities. The people of Wentworth deserve better. 

But let me tell you, you are not the first to experience this. In 2010, another 8 families occupied this abandoned SAPS building because of a lack of housing in the area. The Provincial Department of Housing then relocated the 8 families to new housing developments. The DA Councillor in this area, Aubrey Snyman, has not given up the fight on your behalf. Cllr Snyman has been raising the plight of these families with the Provincial Housing Department since 2010.

Many meetings and promises have made by Housing MEC Ravi Pillay, amounting to nothing. In fact, MEC Pillay promised to relocate the current occupants of “the Ark” to a housing development in Kingsburgh, just 25kms away from here. However, the MEC now tells us that those houses have been illegally occupied by MK veterans and the department is unable to evict them.

Another example of the “connected few” benefiting from government, while the majority of South Africans suffer. 

Another example of a true housing crisis. 

It is deeply ironic that while the residents of Wentworth have no housing, a mere 230 kms up the road sits one house built for one man, paid for by one country’s tax bill. 

That is the ANC of today. If they haven’t come to build housing in all these years, they’re not going to come and do so now.

It is the same ANC that showed up today – albeit in embarrassingly low numbers - to deliberately disrupt our gathering and divert attention away from the failure to deliver the most basic of services to the people of Wentworth. However, their unhanded tricks did not work. The people of Wentworth know better.

But fellow South Africans, there is a good story to tell, and that story exists wherever the DA is in government. 

In the municipalities where the DA governs, you find the highest access to water. You find the highest access to flush toilets. You find the highest access to electricity. 

In the past three years, the DA-run City of Cape Town has given 15 000 title deeds to make the poor the real owners of their own homes. This is more than any other metro in the country. 

In the DA-governed Western Cape, almost 100% of the nearly R2 billion allocated for housing was spent in the last financial year, through the Human Settlement Development Grant.

In addition to this, the Western Cape government exceeded all of it annual targets, delivering close to 18 000 housing opportunities last year. And this was achieved with a clean audit for the Department of Human Settlements.

Where we are in government, the lives of all South Africans are constantly improving. This is the difference a DA government brings. And we will be bringing this message to all corners of this country: A vote for the DA is a vote for change. Real change, not empty promises.

Come 3 August this year, the people of Wentworth, the people of eThekwini, the people of KwaZulu Natal, and the people of South Africa will have the opportunity to vote for change that moves South Africa forward again.

The power is in your hands!

I thank you.

Issued by Mabine Seabe, Spokesperson to the DA Leader, 3 May 2016