Can The Hermanus Housing Crisis wait for the SIU?

Communities are growing impatient with the housing crisis in Hermanus. It has taken 3 years of talking nicely, 1 year of protests, and 3 years of “engagements” to get to the point where the President issued a directive to the SIU to investigate corruption in Overstrand Municipality’s housing department. How long are people going to wait for this investigation? Has it even begun? When community leaders approached the municipality in 2016 there were people who had been on the housing list for 25 years. They have now been on the housing list for over 30 years. How much longer are they going to wait before they can live with dignity?

The community and the councillors have been asking for the results of the Dominic Report that catalyzed the SIU investigation. They have been told that it cannot be shown to anyone until the SIU has completed its investigation. If it is revealed before these investigations are complete it could have a negative impact on achieving the aim of holding people accountable. The problem is that the machinery of government moves too slowly and people’s patience is wearing thin.

In a Special Council meeting held today it was announced that Director of Community Services, Roderick Williams, has been suspended for 7 days and the head of Housing Administration, Frankie Frans, had resigned. As Chinua Achebe said, “When things fall apart, the centre cannot hold”. Things have been falling apart in the Overstrand Municipality for some time now. It is imperative that the SIU starts its investigation immediately and expedites it before the “centre” falls apart completely.

The Land Party has repeatedly requested that a land audit be done of all public land in the Overstrand. The new Mayor, Dr Annelie Rabie, stated that this was one of her priorities. Just how high up on the list of priorities is this audit? While the people wait for houses and access to land there are business people who are running extremely profitable businesses on public land with a couple of jobs being the only benefit to the community.

A foreign businessman continues to expand his farming operations despite the negative impact on the environment and his unethical employment practices. The Paradise Park community has to fight for their rights in an expensive court battle against the developers and the municipality. A controversial piece of land, De Mond, is going to be put out to tender without public participation, again, despite the failure of the last deal which cost the municipality millions in unpaid service fees because the company awarded the tender didn’t have any assets.

Over 200 families were evicted from this land in 2012 and it has basically been lying fallow ever since. A site with serviced plots has been standing empty for a number of years because of poor planning and communication, and a very messy housing list. The Overstrand Municipality is destroying homes but also claiming they don’t have enough money to build homes. They are giving people who have been on the housing waiting list for a couple of years houses before those who have been on it for decades. It is an absolute mess and the people’s patience is wearing extremely thin.

Land Party has approached the Public Protector to ask for all sales of public land in the Overstrand over the last 30 years to be investigated for improprieties, and for the details of these sales to be made available to the public. Land Party has followed up with the SIU to find out exactly what the status quo of the investigation is and will report back to the community with the urgency this matter deserves. Thirty years of waiting is more than long enough.

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