Cape Town - Issues of land allocation by the national government and queries about nepotism and cronyism in provincial government dominated debate during the legislature’s sitting on Thursday.
In a question to Human Settlements MEC Tertius Simmers, DA MPL Matlhodi Maseko said: “With reference to a written parliamentary question, the national minister of public works indicated that since a Cabinet decision in October of 2019 to release 14 000 hectares of land for the development of human settlements, no transfers of the earmarked land have taken place: What is the impact of this delay on the provision of housing for beneficiaries in the province?”
Simmers replied: “The response clearly illustrates Minister Patricia de Lille’s unwillingness to release the portions of land earmarked for human settlements development.”
“One such example is the portion of the Ithemba site which would have yielded 3 000 housing opportunities as part of our re-blocking project for densely populated areas in the metro. The flip -flopping by Minister De Lille’s department is concerning, as more than 123 468 housing opportunities are now in jeopardy of being completely lost.”
Good MPL Brett Herron said availability of land was not the obstacle to housing and spatial redress.
“MPL Maseko and MEC Simmers would like us to believe that this government is paralysed by the unavailability of land.
“They are willing to play cynical politics with land because the main objective is not to access land but to vent their animosity towards minister Patricia De Lille. They simply cannot get over her and move on,” said Herron.
Later, ANC provincial spokesperson on local government, Danville Smith, asked Local Government MEC Anton Bredell: “What mechanisms are in place to prevent nepotism and cronyism at local government level?”
Bredell said: “There is legislation and regulations that enable me, in my capacity as Local Government MEC, to perform my oversight, monitoring and evaluation role to ensure the prevention of nepotism and cronyism that might impact on clean and accountable local governance.”
Cape Argus