Weeds Little Boxes on MNet

“Little boxes, Little boxes made of ticky tackey

& the people in the houses

All went to the university

Where they were put in boxes

& they all came out the same”

Except the houses made from cannabricks

the rest all look just the same

MNet

Cape former fire chief hits back at mayor

Cape Town Mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo owes Chief Fire Officer Piet Smith an apology.

In a ringing endorsement for Smith, Sparks adds: "The reason why they are coping at all is entirely due to the efforts of Chief Smith, the officers and the firefighters." Page 1 Cape Argus

DA Pot calling da kettle black

The Democratic Alliance has admitted to selling Big Bay development properties out of hand, rather than by tender, when it was in power in the Cape Town City Council in 2002. Full Story....

Stove man wins award for curbing shack fires

The inventor of a paraffin stove that shuts itself off when knocked over - which could prevent devastating shack fires and many deaths - has won R100 000 for his brilliant invention. Full Story....

Cape residents ready to take to the streets

Some Cape Town residents have warned of more street protests in the run-up to the local government elections if the city's leadership does not deliver on its promises to accelerate service delivery. (Some confrontational, others offering a solution 2003 - 2005. Not.)

In fact, residents of QQ section in Khayelitsha have planned a march to the mayor's office on Wednesday in order to give her "formal warning" of planned protests if the city does not immediately provide them with better access to water, electricity, sanitation and refuse collection.

The Cape Argus visited the community last week to find out if the city had dealt with their concerns, raised during protest action last year. The community took to the streets in July, burning tyres and even blocking the N2 freeway in a bid to highlight the slow or non-existent delivery of municipal services.

Cape fire fund ignites public's generosity

Raising R1,4-million in five hours is no easy task, but when the money comes from Capetonians who winced at watching their favourite mountain go up in smoke, anything is possible. Full Story....

Ethekwini to probe toxic township arsenic

An eThekwini Municipality low-cost housing project in the Verulam area was placed on hold when it was discovered that chemical waste products had been dumped on the site.

The waste in question was a by-product of the herbicide monosodium methylarsonate, which, according to the PAN Pesticides Database in the US, is a heavy metal chemical containing arsenic, which has high carcinogenic properties. It is also a potential groundwater contaminant.

Two decades ago, chemical giant Sentrachem unloaded this by-product on the farm Ottawa, which has been earmarked for 130 residential sites, through the KwaZulu-Natal department of housing (but taken over by the eThekwini Municipality). Read More

SA Street kids

SA Street Kids - Global Youth Fund

Habitat Reporter

Property Snapped up in new 'dream city'

Blacks, whites buy homes in unique project, an ambitious housing plan north of Johannesburg, where people can live the South African dream of racial harmony, is moving from vision to reality.

Cosmo City, is the place where, in terms of the new National Housing Code, low-income, middle-income and high-income earners would live side by side and share the same facilities. Read more

An estimated 70 000 people are expected to live in more than 20 000 units upon its completion in 2007.

In Cape Town, despite moving all funds (including disaster management) into the N2 Gateway project budget... only 2,200 units will be provided...

Why can't Cape Town's Municipality and Provincial government - deliver the same standard as in Johannesburg?

Cape mayor slams chief fire officer

Cape Town mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo has lambasted the city's chief fire officer Piet Smith for complaining to the media about the fire service budget, following the devastating fire which started in the vicinity of Platteklip Gorge and moved across the face of Table Mountain. Full Story....

Pictorial News24's inbox ablaze

Houses ablaze in Table Mountain fire

Firefighters have been dispatched to the area around the lower cable station on Table Mountain in Cape Town after a fire broke on Thursday. "One or two properties were already alight, Cape Town's chief fire officer Piet Smith said. Read More Photo: Inge du Plessis

N2 Gateway dogged by problems

Minutes of a meeting say the N2 Gateway has been delayed by cash-flow problems and is 18 months behind schedule, but council and provincial officials insist the development is "on track".

The City of Cape Town has cut its capital budget by 30 percent to free funds for the project. It has also slashed the number of Gateway flats being built for rent from 6 600 to 2 200.

Rental no shack dweller can afford.

The provincial government housing website returns an error when visiting: Rental Housing Tribunal & Western Cape Housing development Board

According to the minutes of a meeting of the N2 Gateway-Symphony Way community, held in December, building contractors "worked at risk" for six weeks. The consortium "experienced a delay in terms of its claims to council for work done", the minutes say... Read More

Money diverted from fire fighters to the N2 Gateway Project has caused this: Cape Town firefighters in open revolt

Firefighters have come out in open revolt - rejecting the City of Cape Town's denial that the fire service was in a crisis - and have defied a gagging order imposed on them.

After a meeting at the central fire brigade in Roeland Street on Wednesday, DA mayoral candidate Helen Zille said: "From our meeting it became apparent that the number of staff in our fire services is totally inadequate, in spite of the City's claims to the contrary."

Considering more homes have been destroyed by fire than what government has delivered, InternAfrica. We have to question the ability of local government's to manage and govern budget allocations, and the habitat environment of the western Cape.

Fire alarm

The potentially devastating impact of uncontrolled fires is graphically illustrated by the fact that more than 9 000 shacks were razed in the city of Cape Town and its surrounds last year, leaving 114 people dead.

It is evident from these shocking statistics that the people on the sharp edge of this particular natural hazard are, once again, the poorest of the poor. These are, of course, the people that our city's leaders tell us they are most committed to protecting and uplifting.

And yet the same leaders have slashed the City of Cape Town's fire services budget to such an extent that right now there are at least 120 fewer firefighters to battle these fires. And right now, with heat and strong winds, we are in the traditional fire season...

David Sasman, a councillor on the city council's safety and security committee, said that the cuts were being made mainly to fund the N2 Gateway housing project because money promised for it by the province had not been received yet... despite Housing officials told not to 'plead poverty' and R800 mill housing budget not spent

Diverting funding to the housing project and yet leaving shack dwellers increasingly vulnerable to fires - and, therefore, increased homelessness - seems to be, well, playing with fire.

The Editor

Chaos erupts as protesters vent their anger

Bloody violence erupted in Mabopane, outside Pretoria, on Monday with running street battles between township residents and the police as thousands of people took to the streets to vent their anger about poor services, and housing delivery.

The street battles, which left 27 people, including 10 children, injured, saw stone-throwing protesters hurling petrol bombs and barricading streets with burning tyres as authorities fought back, firing teargas and rubber bullets at rioters. The protests saw hundreds of policemen flooding the area in an attempt to stem the violence. Photo: Etienne Creux, The Mercury

Housing officials told not to 'plead poverty'

Provincial housing ministers should not blame a lack of funds for slow delivery when they fail to spend their full budget allocation, the chairperson of Parliament's finance select committee said on Monday.

"Don't ... plead poverty," Tutu Ralane told the housing ministers of four provinces who reported on their spending.Before complaining about an inequitable division of resources among provinces, provincial ministers should look at why available funds are not being spent, he said...

He criticised the ministers for not having specific information on challenges they reported on, including skills shortages."Don't come here and generalise again," Ralane said.

"Don't say you lack capacity. Say you lack engineers, for instance, and tell us what you are doing about it."

Ralane pointed to what he termed the "Hollywood" problem, in which "almost everyone is acting". Full Story

Housing MECs Opinion - but little action

A "culture of compliance" is needed to stop homeless people erecting shacks, Parliament's finance select committee heard.

"What is happening now is that anybody just builds anything, anywhere," said Richard Dyantyi, the Western Cape housing MEC. Dyantyi told the committee that urbanisation and the eviction of labourers by struggling farmers was contributing to the province's shack dwelling problem and adding to the low-cost housing backlog.

The problem of fires and floods in shack areas presented the government with a daunting challenge.The province is engaged in efforts to relocate people living in "stressful areas" to vacant land, but this involves thousands of people and is not an easy task, Dyantyi told the committee." SABC

Cops accused of pistol-whipping squatters

A group of informal residents from a Cape Town suburb say police have brutally assaulted them during a raid on their settlement. Full Story....

Attacked: Booi Davids, 41, is one of several informal residents who say they were struck by Wynberg police during a raid late on Friday night. Photo: Andrew Ingram, Cape Times

CT Mayor's Big Bay BEE self-enrichment

Cape Town Mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo has strongly defended the city's black empowerment policy after critics slammed the Big Bay BEE initiative as a "dismal failure".

Black-owned companies were given the opportunity by the city to purchase 65 erven at Big Bay as part of an empowerment initiative.

But instead of developing the plots in line with Mfeketo's aim of "furthering the city's strategic objectives of increasing broad-based and effective participation by black people in the economy" the black-owned companies simply put many of the plots back on the market - making profits of R80 000 to R200 000 each.

Critics have now suggested the transactions were nothing but "handouts" to a select few who have now been enriched. They argue this is not empowerment. Read More

Darkest Africa's Travellers' Tales

You need a bagful of clichés and stereotypes to write about this continent,
says Binyavanga Wainaina

Some tips: sunsets and starvation are good. Always use the word Africa or Darkness or Safari in your title. Subtitles may include the words Zanzibar, Masai, Zulu, Zambezi, Congo, Nile, Big, Sky, Shadow, Drum, Sun or Bygone. Also useful are words such as Guerrillas, Timeless, Primordial and Tribal. Note that 'People' means Africans who are not black, while 'The People' means black Africans.

Read More

Hoekom is jy op die boom? vra jy - Hoekom is jy daar onder ek se!

Looking at why 'boom' makes sense, is becuase it delivers.

Grows, and always shows up as useful:

Bio-Tech, Carbon efficient, fire-proof Cannabrick Homes

Housing MECs fail to deliver

The select portfolio on finance has given housing MEC's a tongue-lashing for not showing up in Parliament today. They were supposed to be there to account for how they have spent their housing budgets. But aside from not turning up, many seem to have underutilised their money. Sporadic protests on non-delivery of housing have escalated in provinces across the country.

The reason given for the non-delivery is that there is not enough money. But the treasury says there is. The Western Cape alone has under spent its budget by R800 million.

Parliament heard that the other big under-spenders are Limpopo, Free State and Mpumalanga. Tutu Ralane, the chairperson of the portfolio committee, says he is disappointed that only the Free State turned up.

"We don't want to hear generalisations about capacity ... we want MECs to start identifying areas where they lack capacity and then focus to address it."The provinces that have spent their money are the Northern Cape and North West. Ralane says they want provinces to share experiences on how best to deliver houses. SABC

Send your Budget Tips to the taxman

South Africa's National Treasury has once more invited members of the public to give Finance Minister Trevor Manuel tips on how they want the country's money to be spent.

The Department of Finance has launched its latest Tips for Trevor campaign to give South

Africans from all walks of life a chance to write to the minister with advice on what they would like to see in the Budget for the 2006/07 fiscal year.

How to send your Tips: E-mail your suggestions to tipsfortrevor@treasury.gov.za, post them electronically on the Tips for Trevor page, or fax them to (012) 315-5126.

According to the ministry, some of the suggestions made by the public will be referred to by the minister when he presents his Budget speech in Parliament - for an amazing 10th time - in Cape Town on 15 February. SAInfo

Cape fire buget cut

The City of Cape Town's fire services budget is to be cut again after being slashed by more than half last year.And the "desperate" staff shortage is expected to become worse. The service's R120-million budget was slashed to R52-million in June and it is set to be cut by R10-million more.

It's decreasing mainly to fund the N2 Gateway Project. Money promised by the provincial government hasn't been received yet - that's why they're cutting back," said David Sasman, a councillor on the city council's safety and security committee. Cape Times