Political parties have welcomed the decision by the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) to conduct an inquiry into the realisation of the right to have access to adequate housing in the Western Cape.
The commission said on Monday the inquiry will be held in Cape Town on December 1-4.
It also said the housing challenge persisted amid 650 000 people being on the Housing Demand Database.
“Other realities include the proliferation of informal settlements and temporary relocation areas, inadequate basic services, unlawful and inhumane evictions, insecure tenure, spatial inequality and affordability pressures.”
Historical spatial injustice
The commission stated that the inquiry would assess, among other things, how the national, provincial and local authorities have addressed historical spatial injustice through access to well-located land and services.
“The inquiry will bring affected individuals and communities together with government departments, municipalities, civil society, housing practitioners, researchers and other stakeholders to share experiences, identify barriers and inform findings and practical recommendations.”
The planned inquiry comes less than two weeks after the commission announced that it had lodged an interdict application in the Western Cape High Court to interdict the City of Cape Town in the transfer of 49 municipal properties, pending a review application after it raised concerns earlier this year about the shortage of affordable housing and persistent spatial inequality.
It also comes after the Constitutional Court in July found that the City of Cape Town and the Western Cape government failed to comply with their constitutional obligation to redress spatial injustice by providing well-located social affordable housing in Cape Town.
Planned inquiry welcomed
The commission asked for written submissions from interested parties by November 25.
“Parties may be legally represented, but must make their oral submissions themselves, and may be requested to provide affidavits,” it said.
ANC provincial spokesperson Sifiso Mtsweni said they welcomed the planned inquiry.
Mtsweni said people should participate in the inquiry and expose the DA for the inhumane conditions it has subjected people to.
“Our people have been on waiting lists for decades without access to housing, municipal land has been sold to private property owners instead of social housing, the Western Cape High Court and Constitutional Court have damning findings against the Western Cape Provincial Government for its deplorable record when it comes to housing,” he said.
Echoing Mtsweni, ANC regional chairperson Ndithini Tyhido said: “The ANC further encourages all structures of civil society and community members in the affected communities and informal settlements to submit their submissions and participate in the planned hearings.”
GOOD party secretary-general Brett Herron said the inquiry was welcome because it offered all an opportunity to find solutions.
“I welcome this not as an opportunity to bash the DA for failing to deliver, but as an opportunity for the institutionalised human rights body to confront the human suffering of the unhoused and to measure objectively how the right to housing has been treated and violated,” Herron said.
Frustration over housing waiting lists
“The Premier, and the Mayor, have already conceded in their affidavits, filed with the Western Cape High Court under order of the ConCourt, that they have done nothing meaningful in the decade between the start of the litigation and the ConCourt’s eventual judgment in July this year.
“The Inquiry will thus, in my estimation, confirm this and provide human faces to the indignity and human rights failure, which the Province and the City have to date been dismissive and diminutive of,” Herron said.
He added that the Inquiry will provide the hundreds of thousands of unhoused South Africans the opportunity to express their deep frustration at a waiting list that is growing and also operated mysteriously.
Housing is for living not for profit
In welcoming the inquiry, SACP provincial secretary Benson Ngqentsu said his party maintained that housing is for living not for profit.
“The DA government in the Western Cape treats housing as a commodity, prioritising market value and protecting profits while collecting exorbitant municipal tariffs. Rather than funding housing or social development, the surpluses generated by these tariffs go towards municipal services delivered through tendered contracts,” Ngqentsu said.
Premier Alan Winde’s spokesperson Regan Thaw said the Western Cape Government noted the Human Rights Commission’s announcement of the provincial inquiry into the progressive realisation of the right to have access to adequate housing.
“The Western Cape Government respects the importance and mandate of all Chapter 9 institutions, however, it is concerning that the HRC has elected to limit the scope of this inquiry to only the Western Cape province, when the realisation of the affected right is the responsibility of the national government and all provinces and municipalities in South Africa,” Thaw said.
DA Western Cape spokesperson Matthew Simms said: “This is a WCG (Western Cape Government) matter, not the DA.”
Mayibongwe Maqhina
iol.co.za