Development on the land which was supposedly meant for the eThekwini Municipality's infill housing programme in Clayfield, Phoenix. The land was allegedly bought by a developer from the municipality for R78,763, and sold for R600,000.
HOUSING is not merely about bricks and mortar. It is about dignity. It is about security. It is about giving working-class families a stake in society, and an opportunity to build a future for their children.
In South Africa, access to housing is a constitutional imperative, not a privilege reserved for the connected and the fortunate. That is why the findings of the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) into eThekwini Municipality's infill housing programme should outrage every resident of this city.
What was conceived as a programme to provide affordable housing opportunities to ordinary families became, according to the SIU's findings, a programme riddled with irregularities, unlawful conduct, failures of oversight, and the diversion of public assets away from their intended beneficiaries. The people who suffered the most were not politicians, officials or developers. It was the poor. It was the working class. It was families who believed that government programmes existed to improve their lives.
