years of pro poor development 1983 2018 - besg · 2018. 10. 11. · north, in 1990. this was...
TRANSCRIPT
years of pro-poor
development
1983-2018
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THE RESISTANCE YEARS: 1983-88 The city is arguably humankind’s greatest achievement. It enabled natural and human resources to be
concentrated in a defined geographical space, thereby creating efficiencies in the movement of people,
goods, and services and the promise of a better life. In South Africa our cities reflect the racial divisions that
were promoted by the policy of separate development, and which created inherent inefficiencies and
massive socio-economic inequalities based purely on the colour of a person’s skin. Indigent Africans
specifically were subjected to a raft of legislation for three generations that restricted not only their right of
occupation of land but also their movement. The “grand apartheid” plan, realised in the form of the Group
Areas Act (1950), led to the widespread ethnic cleansing of entire neighbourhoods, with new, racially
classified residential areas separated by “buffer strips” of industry, forestry, and simple distance. Forced
removals were the order of the day, and continued for decades.
As the grand apartheid plan cemented, popular resistance was ruthlessly crushed. The 1960 Sharpeville
massacre and the 1976 Soweto riots are but two landmarks that remain imprinted in our global memory of a
pariah state that was held together by securocrats in the police and army. A shift in the balance of power
began with the July 1985 State of Emergency. While the African National Congress sought to intensify the
armed struggle and economic sanctions from without, the United Democratic Front (UDF) internally was the
first broad opposition platform for decades that had mass support and an amorphous ability to frustrate the
apartheid regime and render the townships ungovernable. The government was rapidly losing its iron grip.
Africans began moving into our towns and cities in search of economic opportunity, which led to an explosion
of informal settlement. In the face of local resistance and international condemnation, and the sheer tenacity
of communities to resist relocation, sweeping liberalisation of the previous restrictions on the movement and
residence of blacks was promised.
In KwaZulu-Natal there was an added factor to accelerated urbanisation, as the government sought to use
the Inkatha Freedom Party as a surrogate force to undermine the progressive forces that organised under
the banner of the United Democratic Front, and attack suspected supporters of the African National
Congress. Whole communities fled so-called “black-on-black” violence, causing massive displacement of
individuals, households, and whole communities who sought sanctuary in our urban areas. It was in this
context that the Built Environment Support Group was born in 1983, by academics from the then-University
of Natal Faculty of Architecture and Allied Disciplines, to protect, support and promote the right of indigent
communities to seek safety, a better life, and a permanent future in our towns and cities.
The beginnings of BESG’s outreach work in communities can be traced back to a settlement named St.
Wendolins near Pinetown, owned by the Mariannhill monastery. The apartheid government planned to
rezone this settlement and declare it an Indian area. This would have resulted in thousands of residents
being evicted from their homes.
A number of academics conducted a study on the effects of the proposed removals on the community. The
fieldwork was carried out by nurses and a young researcher named Protas Madlala. The results of this study
proved overwhelmingly that forced removals would adversely affect the community. It provided the basis for
a Supreme Court action on the community’s behalf, resulting in the government’s plans being overturned.
There were some concerns in the university establishment, from departments whose professional views
encouraged a more conservative line in South African politics, such as the Department of Quantity Surveying
and Building, regarding the political aspects of BESG’s work. BESG was subjected to routine scrutiny by the
Security Police, who warned the university about the anti-apartheid activities of some BESG staff and
associates. A police spy was soon discovered and kept away from sensitive matters. According to
Prof Rodney Harber this created quite a divisive situation within the Faculty.
BESG’s work expanded because of its relevance to urban challenges being experienced at that time. It soon
needed resources from outside the university. It soon proved itself, and organisations such as The
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Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Anglo American Chairman’s Fund, and the Kagiso Trust
provided BESG with financial support.
Project work at BESG fell into five main categories:
1. Policy Aid: Aid provided to community organizations in the formulation of policy and strategies to improve
their environment.
2. Community Defence: Assistance provided to communities in their struggle against actions, which they
perceive to be detrimental to their well-being and development.
3. Planning Actions: Technical assistance given to community organizations in the range of planning issues
related to their environment. This included collecting of planning data such as surveys and interviews as
well as physical plans and proposals.
4. Community Building: Advice and assistance in the preparation of building briefs, sketch plans and cost
estimates for a range of community buildings such as clinics, schools and halls.
5. Training: The training of community workers in built environmental activities.
The organisation grew as more communities called for assistance. It became necessary to employ full time
staff. Protas Madlala was the first employee, appointed in August 1986 as Liaison Officer responsible for
liaising with communities, communicating technical advice, and forming democratic groups in communities.
He was subsequently joined by S’bu Ndebele, directly after his release from Robben Island. Clive Forster
was appointed Projects Manager in January 1987. Town planning and architectural services were provided
by Lulu Gwagwa, Renėe Rayner, and Georgina Sarkin. An Executive Committee was formed of Dr Errol
Haarhoff (Chair), Ms Jessir Biriss (Treasurer), and Clive Forster. Other office bearers included
Prof Mike Kahn, Dr Michael Sutcliffe, and Prof Dan Smit. Many of these founding members of BESG are still
household names in politics, government, and
development consulting.
From 1987 BESG became involved in a longer-term
development project in St. Wendolins. The community
leadership actively assisted other communities facing
forced removals. BESG extended its technical support
to giving advice on alternative planning and
development options, and began focusing on training
and education as a means of transferring knowledge
and technical skills in a sustainable way. Through this
communities were empowered to conduct social
surveys, skills audits, and enumeration studies.
Toward the end of this period the “Built Environment Action Movement” emerged. Groups within the
movement comprised young technicians from disadvantaged backgrounds who would get together and
tender for government projects. BESG continued building and advising on the construction of community
centres, schools, resource centres, clinics, and halls, amongst other things, as well as helping communities
affected by political unrest.
In 1987 serious floods devastated Natal. The floods proved how different organisations could work as an
effective collective unit and BESG was well placed to respond, despite its paucity of resources. During this
year BESG also networked with several progressive development organisations from across South Africa,
with the aim of establishing a national coordinating body. It was the early nexus of what in the mid-1990s
was to become the Urban Sector Network.
During these years tensions arising from the UDF-Inkatha conflict made many communities suspicious about
community projects, and BESG became more cautious about the projects it chose to undertake. The
difficultly surrounding community improvement projects seemed to be too much for other organisations, and
those failures undermined morale and confidence within the group. The direction that BESG would take in
future became of concern, as it records in the 1987-1988 Annual Report:
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“The difficulties involved in engagement suggest two other paths as well. The first is greater emphasis on
policy related thinking and action. As we have suggested, our development projects are constantly
constrained by this policy environment. We need to spend more time on analyzing this environment,
developing alternative policy approaches and disseminating and acting on this information. The second path
is to consider greater involvement in project implementation. This is obviously a difficult area, not least
because of time and resource constraints.”
GROUNDWORK FOR CHANGE: 1989-93 Ongoing support was provided to communities resisting
forced removals in Happy Valley, St. Wendolins, Swapo,
Bottlebrush, and other communities. It came against a
backdrop of continuing ANC-IFP conflict in the townships,
particularly around the hostels. The provincial capital,
Pietermaritzburg, and surrounding areas suffered the
infamous “7 Day War” in 1990. Women, children, and
elderly refugees sought shelter in marginal locations across
the city. The same year became a major milestone in the
country’s transformation history, with the unbanning of the
ANC and the release of Nelson Mandela. Protest march during the 7 day war
The demand to support communities affected by civil violence in and around Pietermaritzburg necessitated
the establishment of a branch office in the city. The Happy Valley informal settlement in Woodlands was
formed largely by women and children fleeing ANC-IFP violence in the Maqongqo (Table Mountain) area
some 20km away. They had occupied a marginal sliver of land between a major public road and a railway
line, and were subject to repeated police harassment at the instigation of the local City Council. It was one of
the first in a series of defence actions to secure the right of indigent communities to live in the city,
particularly in the northern areas, which provided ready opportunities for work-seeking.
Change provides space for innovation. It was a time of piloting
housing projects – different forms of tenure, infrastructure,
housing products, and delivery processes. BESG provided
technical support to several communities who were able to
access “site and service” projects via the Independent
Development Trust. It undertook its first large-scale
infrastructure upgrading project at Piesangs River, Durban
North, in 1990. This was followed by projects in Luganda and
Zilweleni, Southern Pinetown, in 1991.
These communities were amongst the first in the country to act
as community-based developers, pioneering new approaches
to community driven planning and development, mediated by
BESG’s technical support. In 1992, BESG launched the
Housing Training Programme, aimed at transferring skills to
community members acting as housing advisers and domestic
labour contractors.
The rapidly changing political environment meant that past
state policy on urban development was in complete flux. BESG
made contributions to the development of national and local
government policy toward the end of this period. At local level, Pietermaritzburg Co-ordinator Anton Krone
participated in the City Council’s Low Income Settlement Task Team, established to respond to the rapid
urban influx of people from areas affected by chronic poverty and/or civil conflict. It was one of the first
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initiatives at local level where there was a genuine attempt to achieve inclusive solutions to the development
challenges facing our cities. Norah Walker, then full-time Director, served on the National Housing Forum
that created the National Housing Subsidy Scheme.
RECONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT: 1994-99
South Africa held its first free elections in April 1994. The democratisation process provided rich
opportunities for development, growth, and diversification. The incoming ANC government committed to an
ambitious programme to transform the country in its first 5 years of office – the Reconstruction and
Development Programme (RDP). Among many other pledges, it committed to building 1 million homes.
BESG became a significant player in community-based, low-income housing and infrastructure development
during this period.
The National Housing Subsidy Scheme was adopted as the instrument to address a key pillar of the
Freedom Charter to provide “housing for all.” It provided a government grant to enable the poorest of the
poor to access services such as water and sanitation, and “assistance toward a basic shelter.” The rationale
for this policy was to enable the fiscus to be spread to as many households as possible.
Many of the communities whom BESG had defended from the police and bulldozers had developed a deep
mistrust of their local municipalities. They knew that BESG had staff with technical as well as organisational
development1 skills, and approached BESG to assist them in accessing housing subsidies and driving their
own development. In 1994 the Happy Valley informal settlement in Woodlands, Pietermaritzburg, became
the first in situ upgrading project to be undertaken under the new National Housing Subsidy Scheme, in
association with a community based partner, Ntuthukoville Development Trust. The project was officially
opened by National Housing Minister Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele in 1995.
Ntuthukoville was also the location for a
pilot project in “mutual help” housing
delivery. Developed for self-build projects
in Costa Rica, it simply adapts the
contractor-built approach of training
households in co-operative production
teams, which shortens the pre-construction
training. The trick to quality control is that
no-one knows which house they will be
allocated until the last roof tile is in place.
In late 1994 and early 1995 BESG secured
housing subsidies for three projects in the
northern areas of Pietermaritzburg –
Azalea (later to be renamed Tamboville), Q-Section, and Thembalihle. The Q-Section community lived in a
nearby blue gum plantation that was too steep to develop, and negotiated to relocate to land adjacent to the
other two communities. A city councillor then persuaded the communities that housing was too complex for
them to manage, and promised that their development would be fast-tracked if they asked the City Council
for help.
In similar manner as the government turned to the private sector to deliver the majority of its 1 million RDP
houses, the municipality did not have any experience or capacity and contracted BESG to manage the
development, known as Glenwood 2. It was the largest public housing project ever undertaken by the city,
1 Referred to by some Non-Governmental Organisations as “Institutional Social Development.”
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comprising 1500 households in the first three phases. Our current Executive Director, Cameron Brisbane,
spent 9 years managing the project, continually unblocking bureaucratic obstacles and navigating issues of
contention between the municipality and resident communities.
In 1996 BESG supported the Southern Pinetown Joint Venture (SPJV) Housing Project. It was one of the
first housing projects approved nationally under the Consolidation Subsidy mechanism, for households who
had previously received serviced sites from the IDT, and was driven by a consortium of community-based
development organisations (CBDOs).
In the years leading up to and in the early part of the new dispensation, BESG had formed informal alliances
with seven other NGOs located in the main urban centres of the country that largely shared common
interests in human settlements, governance, and sustainable livelihoods work. They also shared a common
funder in the European Union (EU), which encouraged like-minded NGOs to establish more formal networks
or structures that could be funded collectively. This gave birth to the Urban Sector Network in 1995. The
Network handled R35m of funding in its 9 years of collective existence. Many of the partners continue to
collaborate on national platforms and projects to this day.
Those heady years were fruitful grounds for experimenting with innovative development models that had
emerged from other countries in the South, as well as alternative models of tenure to “one house, one plot.”
This resulted in several innovative projects:
• The Pietermaritzburg Northern Areas Housing Support Centre, which was only of only two such centres in
KZN piloted to assist beneficiaries with free plans and construction advice and materials supply. Established
in 1997, it was an organic model developed with the resident communities of Glenwood 2, most of whose
housing subsidy had been spent on high quality infrastructure, leaving them with insufficient funds for a
formal house. The aim of the Housing Support Centre was to help households stretch their subsidy to at
least an extension, or stabilising an informal wattle and daub structure against storm damage. It had the
secondary aim of building and consolidating design and construction knowledge within communities, so that
they could improve or extend their houses over time as resources permitted.
• The Ubunye Co-operative Housing project, which was the first “transitional” housing project in KZN province.
Redeveloped from a former working men’s hostel in the Pietermaritzburg CBD, it was designed to provide
affordable, secure, short-life housing for transient persons and families earning R800-R1,500 per month.
• The Community Based Maintenance (CBM) programme, which
provided a street cleaning, grass cutting, refuse collection, roads
maintenance, and environmental education services to 4600
households in Msunduzi, when the municipality did not have the
resources to extend conventional maintenance and refuse collection
services to newly developed areas in the city. The project was case-
studied by the then-Department of
Provincial and Local Government as a
model for alternative municipal
service delivery, and won awards
from the Impumelelo Innovations
Trust, the Green Trust, and the
World Bank Development
Marketplace.
• The Shayamoya social (rental) housing project, comprising 320 walk-
up flats in Cato Manor, was an attempt to move away from the “one
house, one plot” mindset and experiment with medium density rental
housing. It started on site in 1999 and was opened by National Housing
Minister Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele and Provincial Housing Minister
Dumisani Makhaye in 2002.
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BESG not only acted as a development resource organisation for communities. It used a combination of
hard coalface work and research to advocate changes in enabling policy, where existing policy was found
wanting or was “missing the target.” It has been, and remains, a contentious area of work. Our knowledge,
services, and ability to innovate are highly rated and valued by, among others, policy makers in government.
However, events can sometimes take an unexpected turn. In 1999 we undertook a national research project
entitled “Toward the Right to Adequate Housing,” which found conclusions, and made recommendations for
addressing the challenges, of poorly located, under-sized, and badly built “RDP” housing with no vision that
people need to live in communities with access to work, schools, health facilities, transport…it is the vision of
“integrated human settlements” that children were so able to express in an art competition we ran in
conjunction with the research project, but which still evades us in practice.
The government knew about many of the shortcomings that had arisen in the rush to build a million homes,
and introduced National Norms and Standards for subsidised housing.
The new regulations prescribed a minimum house size of 30m² and
provision for basic infrastructure (standpipe, on-site sanitation,
gravel/graded roads) which could be “topped up” by a municipality at
its own discretion and cost.
BESG’s findings resonated with the shift in government policy, but the
funding intermediary for the project had commissioned a public
relations company to secure media coverage for the work it was
financing. A headline in a weekend newspaper appeared above a
story on BESG’s research, declaring, “Government housing delivery a
failure” – hardly the language of academics. It took two years and the
personal intervention of the Director of the Urban Sector Network to
thaw the entire network’s relations with the Director-General of the
Department of Housing as a result of that one article. Two years after
that, much of the vision in the Right to Adequate Housing became
official policy in the form of Minister Lindiwe Sisulu’s “Breaking New
Ground.” Such is the nature of advocating on behalf of those who
have no voice.
THE CONSOLIDATION YEARS: 2000-04
BESG continued to consolidate its housing support work during this period. However, a major paradigm shift
was forced on the organisation with the promulgation of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) 1999
and the Municipal Systems Act (MSA) 2000. The latter gave the mandate for development to local
government, the tier of government “closest to the people.” It put local municipalities into a driving seat for
which they were poorly equipped. As the former Minister of the RDP, Jay Naidoo, reflected after the event,
government administration was not designed to innovate, but to regulate. It also inadvertently removed the
space for communities to be in their own driving seat.
While BESG continued work on the Glenwood 2, Southern Pinetown consolidation, Shayamoya, and other
housing projects, the tide was turning as far as entry into new projects was concerned. BESG’s reputation
for technical and social innovation was well recognised, and documented in a research project by the
National Department of Housing on People’s Housing Process methodology in practice around the country.
But the advent of the PFMA, which was slow to impact due to the long lead time for housing projects, denied
communities the space to apply to be their own developer – a role which was taken over by local
municipalities in theory, but in practice is outsourced by the provincial department to Implementing Agents,
mostly engineering and construction companies.
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Application based development prior to the PFMA. Public procurement places local municipalities in the
Communities contract with the state via an NGO centre of development, even though most do not
that acts as a Support Organisation have the institutional capacity to fulfil that role
The communities of Woodstock and Peter Hey informal settlements in Pietermaritzburg had been relocated
en masse to Glenwood 2 in terms of a High Court eviction order sought by the Ratepayers’ Association in
the upmarket Indian suburb of Mountain Rise in 1997. The communities were moved onto pegged sites in
the areas known as North East Sector 2, which became Phase 4 of Glenwood 2. The Development
Committee found their way to BESG via the neighbouring communities, whose leadership had participated in
monthly project management meetings at the municipality’s offices since shortly after the development
commenced.
In the same year, the Pietermaritzburg office was approached by the Peace Valley 2 informal settlement in
Plessislaer, to assist them is securing housing subsidy for an in situ upgrading of the area. Both
communities selected to work with BESG to help them develop their areas under a national policy known as
the People’s Housing Process (PHP). It has its roots in a philosophy shared by many progressive and
grassroots organisations internationally, built on sharing good practice: “No development for us without us.”
BESG, and several other affiliates of the Urban Sector Network, used PHP as a tool for skills development
and the physical development of a new generation of semi-formal settlements, through community training,
development and empowerment. We provided the social facilitation, technical, financial, and administrative
means for poor communities to be involved in the upgrading of their areas, and decisions that affect them
materially and often permanently. This was completely in line with national housing policy:
“In May 1998 government approved policy to support people’s initiatives: National Housing Policy:
Supporting the People’s Housing process. This policy and programme encourages and supports individuals
and communities in their efforts to fulfil their own housing needs and who wish to enhance the subsidies
they receive from government by assisting them in accessing land, services and technical assistance in a
way that leads to the empowerment of communities and the transfer of skills. This housing delivery
approach is reliant on subsidies from government and technical, financial, logistical and administrative
assistance from NGOs and support organisations2.”
However, prevailing practice was for PHP to be reduced to a materials supply process, in a paradigm where
households who had earnings in excess of R1,500 per month were either expected to contribute R2,479 to
top up their housing subsidy or contribute sweat equity – and build their own. In the early days the housing
policy was to provide secure tenure, municipal services determined by the municipality, and “the balance
(what became known as the “change”) toward a rudimentary starter home.”
2 Progress report to UN Habitat Istanbul +5: “ The South African Housing Policy: operationalizing the right to adequate
housing” pg4
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The North East Sector 2 (NES2) Development
Committee, which had facilitated the peaceful mass
relocation to Glenwood 2 on the promise of
development in 1997, was forced onto the back foot.
The ANC caucus on the Pietermaritzburg-Msunduzi
Transitional Local Council was concerned about the
amount of finance that had been put into the
previous phases of Glenwood 2, at the expense of
what it saw as higher development priorities in the
Edendale Valley. It had already caused phase 3 of
Glenwood 2 – the Thembalihle upgrade – to be
delayed by nearly two years over a fight for
resources for bulk services.
Glenwood 2—the Thembalihle upgrade
In 2001, the municipality commissioned a study into whether it would be cheaper to relocate the NES2
community and avoid having to co-finance an upgrade of the area. BESG was commissioned to undertake
the study, the findings of which were that Glenwood 2 as a whole was inherently expensive in terms of the
national norms and standards for housing subsidy, but that the community was strongly resistant to being
relocated a second time in 4 years.
The Peace Valley 2 (PV2) community was initially told that the area they occupied could not be developed
for housing as it was an industrial area. In 2000, the provincial administration, which owned the bulk of land
underlying the settlement, stated in writing that it had no objection to the land being rezoned “special
residential.” Both communities – NES2 and PV2 – were ready for development. Both projects had been
prioritized in the municipality’s Integrated Development Plan (IDP). The communities had opted to work with
BESG utilising the People’s Housing Process, in order to extract value from their housing subsidy.
But by the time they were ready for development, the MSA and PFMA had come into effect. Both projects
were put out to open tender by the municipality. Against competition from the private sector, BESG won
both proposal calls in 2001 and 2002 respectively. Bureaucratic obstructions were encountered immediately.
A company competing for the NES2 contract attempted to block BESG’s appointment, citing that its non-
profit status meant that it did not qualify to tender under BEE regulations, as it had no shareholders. The
complaint was dismissed, however, NES2 was then starved of funding for bulk and connector services, as a
result of which it took two years for BESG’s
appointment as Implementing Agent to be
confirmed.
The PV2 project was subject to continual changes in
town planning design. The community had been
settled over a period of over 15 years. Many
households had relatively large plots and a
significant minority had formal structures that cost
more than the value of a government subsidy. In
spite of this, the municipality tried to force its own
norms and standards for low income housing that
were designed for “greenfield” projects on vacant
land. By 2004, BESG had resolved the myriad
The Peace Valley 2 settlement was a remarkable feat of bureaucratic challenges and secured conditional
“people planning” which was both orderly and efficient approval for both projects.
However, the lesson learnt from these prevarications was that the new public procurement regime was
antipathetic to communities having any real say in development. While the new procurement regime
provided for several contracting strategies, the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Housing exclusively uses one
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called “turnkey contracting.” In simple terms it means, “We’ll give you development rights and you call us
when you are ready to handover the keys.” None of the three procurement strategies was aligned to PHP.
Turnkey contracting relieved local municipalities of any real responsibility for development – the precise
intention of the MSA -- and transferred it to “Implementing Agents.” In theory it meant that government could
turn over projects faster using the production efficiencies of service providers who are profit-driven, and who
have capital reserves to carry both operational costs and manage development risk. The requirement for a
“social compact,” to commit municipalities and beneficiary communities to a common objective, largely
became a compliance exercise, and it was not uncommon to find IAs using “copy and paste” and forgetting
to change the name of the beneficiary community from their last job.
In this paradigm, communities were no longer seen as partners in development but rather a “social risk” that
had to be mitigated – along with land-legal challenges, access to bulk services, geotechnical, and
environmental considerations. BESG was no longer a support organisation to communities but rather a
service provider to a local municipality whose agenda was frequently at odds with communities and who, at
least in the Msunduzi context, did more to frustrate than facilitate development in the city.
At the same time, BESG was deeply involved in government support work. Our Durban office was engaged
in township housing work in Fredville, near Cato Ridge, and contracting to eThekwini (Greater Durban)
Municipality to undertake Area Based Planning, which was a tool to integrate development planning based
on a hierarchy of development needs across spatial boundaries. In Msunduzi, BESG was contracted by the
municipality to undertake a community-based mapping exercise of land ownership and tenancy across three
wards of Edendale township that had been in private ownership prior to the 1913 Natives Land Act, as a
precursor to the Greater Edendale Land Reform Programme. Also in 2004, BESG was sub-contracted by the
Durban University of Technology to run a course in housing development and management for provincial
and local government officials over a three year period.
In the tradition of reflective learning, BESG refocused its housing work that relieving shelter poverty in
isolation of other forms of deprivation was not the answer to creating sustainable human settlements. As the
research project “Toward the Right to Adequate Housing” had shown, housing had the potential to entrench
poverty further: RDP townships on the periphery of cities left people without access to jobs, health, and
educational facilities – to which they then had to pay to travel. Households became liable for rates, service
charges, and maintenance, which they could ill afford.
HIV and AIDS were reaching epidemic proportions and the combination of health vulnerability, poverty, and
the effects of inadequate housing were exacerbating community and household health problems. Moreover,
KwaZulu-Natal, which had the highest incidence of HIV and AIDS in the country, saw an explosion in child
headed households.
BESG’s response was to adopt a sustainable livelihoods framework as a strategic tool in development
planning and implementation, and developing community resilience to both day-to-day challenges and
shocks, such as the loss of a breadwinner. This resulted in several new strands of work:
1. BESG assisted in the formation of food gardening groups to work on land that could not be utilised for
housing due to it being too steep or a floodplain.
2. Over a dozen housing stokvels (savings clubs) were established to enable people to extend their starter
homes incrementally; and other poverty alleviation initiatives.
3. We responded to the incidence of child-headed households, and subsequently other vulnerable children, by
pioneering work in “special needs” housing – supported housing for vulnerable groups who do not qualify
under the standard rules of the national housing subsidy programmes, but who nonetheless qualify for
shelter assistance under Sections 26 and 28(1) of the Constitution. The initiative was built on the back of the
KZN Department of Housing’s 2000 “Policy for housing and AIDS.”
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Imperfect as the enabling policy was, in 2004 BESG launched the
first special needs housing project, securing housing subsidies for
the redevelopment of the Mildred Ward Centre in Woodlands, when
Pietermaritzburg Children’s Homes consolidated its three residential
operations on one site. It was also a leading member of the
Msunduzi AIDS Partnership from 2001 until its demise in 2005, as a
result of a restructuring of key personnel at City Hall. The
partnership was recognised by AMICAALL -- Alliance of Mayors and
Municipal Leaders on HIV/AIDS in Africa -- as a model for
collaboration between government and civil society in addressing
one of the biggest challenges threatening the health and social
fabric of the city and indeed the country.
In the interim the staff complement had grown as a consequence of
the rapid growth of its work in low-income housing projects, but its
exposure to projects that were becoming bogged down in
bureaucracy and incapacity at local government level was starting
to bleed the organization. From 2002 to 2004 BESG suffered the loss of substantial capacity and intellectual
memory within the organization through natural attrition. By late 2004 half of the remaining operational staff
in Durban was being deployed to help manage projects in Pietermaritzburg, commuting daily in company
time and vehicles. It was an unsustainable situation.
CRISIS AND TURN-AROUND: 2005-09
By May 2005, BESG faced a liquidity crisis. Planned income was not forthcoming, and the Board was forced
to enter into consultations with staff around retrenchments. That resulted in the closure of the Durban office
five months later, followed by a labour dispute that nearly resulted in the complete closure of the
organisation. Thanks to an aggressive debt collection exercise and the generosity of a key donor, BESG
was able to consolidate its remaining staff and operations in Pietermaritzburg, and begin a process of
healing and rebuilding. With fewer resources than it had enjoyed in past years, a small staff determinedly
worked to redevelop the organisation and increase its visibility both in local communities and in the broader
stakeholder environment.
BESG’s work around vulnerability, HIV/AIDS, and human settlements received its first dedicated funding in
2006, through its long-standing participation in the Children in Distress (CINDI) Network. The Child Advocacy
Project was a joint project between CINDI, BESG, Lawyers for Human Rights, and the Pietermaritzburg
Child and Family Welfare Association. The Child Advocacy Project encompassed a combination of
interventions that was best realised in partnerships rather than trying to be a jack-of-all-trades. It led to
several new strands of work:
1. Underpinned by a research study of unregistered child-care facilities3 and in conjunction with partners from
the social development sector, BESG developed a set of models to provide alternatives to institutional care
for orphaned and vulnerable children. The first demonstration project, of transitional housing for children
awaiting placement in foster care, was developed for Pietermaritzburg Child Welfare in 2006.
2. We developed a programme of tenure security training, focusing on the importance of having a will, in
association with Lawyers for Human Rights. It had become official government policy that beneficiaries of
housing subsidy projects should take out a will when they applied for their subsidy. However, there was no
incentive for Implementing Agents to do the work, no compliance monitoring, and much traditional resistance
3 “No Place Like Home” (BESG 2007)
11
to the idea, as a result of which women and children were too frequently left without protection when a
household head died.
3. In recognition of the poverty that continued to afflict communities, BESG developed a livelihood security
programme to help enhance the resourcefulness and resilience of vulnerable households to address
everyday needs and challenges and also withstand
shocks such as storm damage or the loss of a
breadwinner. It used a holistic approach to
strengthening the resilience of vulnerable
households through training and support in food
gardening, nutrition training, water management,
erosion control, access to free basic services, and
health and safety in the home. For the poorest of
the poor, it was what Housing Minister Lindiwe
Sisulu embraced in the 1994 Breaking New Ground
strategy – to move away from RDP housing
delivery and toward building “sustainable human
settlements.”
Putting a floodplain to productive use
The Livelihood and Tenure Security Programme was significant not only for its content, but also its
methodology. It marked a break away from “training workshops” that were intended purely to disseminate
information on the workings of local government, the various housing policies and programmes, and so forth.
It was replaced by a concept of “participatory learning,” which combined training with development facilitation
practice that had been the driving force for innovation in our housing. While BESG provided the context and
initial content, participants were encouraged to be players as well as learners.
This contributed to a process of continually enriching our training material, based on participants’ life
experiences. When you have access to few resources, you either give up in despair or wait for government
handouts, or you learn how to make optimal use of what is available to you. It was the beginning of what
became a cornerstone of both our housing and governance work over the next 5 years – building the notion
of self-reliance and active citizenship.
BESG’s involvement in the Child Advocacy Project led to new collaborations in its own housing work. In
July 2006, one Howard Mkhize walked into BESG’s office with a summons to appear in court on behalf of
1200 families who had been living on private land in Mkondeni, an industrial estate on the edge of
Pietermaritzburg. The landowners had been served with an environmental health notice and responded by
making an application for the eviction of the entire community. An eviction order was granted, without the
community having alternative land on which to settle. BESG’s new-found partnership with Lawyers for
Human Rights led to the latter arranging pro bono legal representation to take the matter to the Supreme
Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein in 2009. The Supreme Court overturned the eviction order and joined
Msunduzi Municipality to the action, which was referred back to the Pietermaritzburg High Court. .
There was an unintended side-effect of this legal process. The original trial judge, Achmat Jappie, in
addition to granting an eviction order, had directed that no building or building repairs could be carried out in
the settlement. In conjunction with the community leadership, BESG had secured funding from SELAVIP, a
South-South solidarity organisation based in Chile, to repair 40 of the most dilapidated shacks where the
occupants were too old or infirm to address their own housing needs. The project could not go ahead
without BESG and Mkondeni Sacca being held in contempt of court.
A successful appeal was made to SELAVIP to allow the funds to be transferred for the same purpose to the
North East Sector 2 housing project. It provided a much-needed boost to that community, which was being
destabilized by the continuous delays on the part of Msunduzi Municipality in securing environmental
authorisation to proceed with development. True to the spirit of communities driving their own decisions, the
NES2 Development Committee asked that we focus on building a one room block house for the most
12
destitute, rather than repairs. They also mobilised a clean-up campaign to rid the area of accumulated waste.
This period saw BESG achieve an important
balance in its core programmes of:
• Building sustainable human settlements, and
• Promoting good governance.
The programmes are inter-linked by the premise
that service delivery to the poor can best be realised
by the demonstration of innovative solutions to
development needs – both human and physical –
and government embracing the challenges of
development in a transparent and participatory
manner.
BESG maintained a low profile in advocacy-based
research, partly undertaken in-house and partly
outsourced. Two important studies were undertaken Volunteers from FNB Insurance Brokers at the North East
in 2006 and 2007 respectively: Sector 2 SELAVIP “Build-a-thon”
• Blockages to PHP projects in KwaZulu-Natal, commissioned by the People’s Housing Partnership Trust, an
arm of the National Department of Housing.
• The right of access to free basic services in Msunduzi Municipality, in a study titled “Seen but not heard.”
BESG also returned to the national policy arena in this period. In 2007, it joined the Transitional and Special
Needs Housing Forum, a broad cross-sectoral grouping of government and NGOs involved in providing or
supporting non-standard housing interventions for vulnerable groups. The Forum was hosted by the Social
Housing Foundation (SHF), another arm of the National Department. Sadly and without sound reason, the
special needs agenda was dropped when in 2009 the SHF was wound up and re-established as the Social
Housing Regulatory Authority.
The second area for national collaboration was in the rewriting of the national PHP policy. A group
comprising former USN partners, the Utshani Fund, and several other development practitioners, were
aggrieved that PHP had been corrupted by private companies into a labour- and materials-supply process,
without any consideration to community empowerment and sustainability. Over 2007, the group drafted an
alternative vision and policy framework, titled “Community Driven Housing Initiatives” or CoDHI. It initially
received a frosty response from the Minister’s Special Adviser, who had a single agenda of ”numbers,
numbers, numbers” (of housing units). There was a
perception that PHP was too slow – in spite of a
wealth of research that demonstrated the
inextricable linkage between community
empowerment and the elusive target of “building
sustainable human settlements.”
Nevertheless, a Chief Director was assigned to work
with the originators of the draft CoDHI policy
document. It was adopted in its entirety by
MinMEC4 in August 2008, with only a change of title:
MECs wanted to retain the notion of a housing
programme “for the people”, and re-branded the
new policy the “Enhanced People’s Housing
Process (EPHP).” Following its adoption, several
4 The Committee of provincial Housing MEC’s chaired by the National Minister.
13
members of the group, including the current Executive Director of BESG, were co-opted by the National
Department onto the EPHP National Reference Group, to help in guiding the roll-out of the policy. Ironically
a change in Minister, a re-branding of the Department from “Housing” to “Human Settlements,” and a
reduction in departmental budget, caused the slow death of civil society participation in the Reference Group
over the ensuing years, and a failure of many provinces, including KZN, to implement the policy in spite of an
initial target to ring-fence 15% of the national budget for EPHP projects.
In January 2009, in preparation for its long-awaited housing projects being unblocked, BESG established a
separate non-profit trading company, BESG Development Services. The primary objective was to protect our
donor funding from adverse development risk. BESG had emerged from the ashes of its near-collapse 4
years earlier on a steady, planned growth trajectory.
A NEW MATURITY: 2010-14
While many NGOs were beginning to feel the effects of the global recession, and flight of donor funding from
South Africa to needier countries, BESG managed to weather the storm -- at least for the next four years.
This pays testament to the value and relevance of its work in post-apartheid transformation. Internally, the
organisation had reached a new maturity. The days when the boundaries between the Board of Directors
and staff were blurred, and decisions were made on grounds that were not always in the best interests of the
organisation, was well and truly a thing of the past. The Board was professionalised and active in its
oversight role. BESG’s programme work continued to evolve in an ever-changing political and social
landscape.
BESG continued with its tradition of policy and research
advocacy work. In 2010 the organisation was
commissioned by the Centre for Municipal Research and
Advice (CMRA) to undertake a benchmarking exercise to
inform an AIDS intervention strategy for several local
municipalities. In 2011 the National Department of Human
Settlements commissioned the production of a paper
entitled “From beneficiaries to citizens: Meaningful
communication with and participation of the poor in human
settlement development”. AIDS benchmarking project for the CMRA
Aligned to BESG’s vision of strengthening livelihood security was enabling vulnerable households and
communities to build resilience to the devastating impact of climate change, with alternating but
unpredictable patterns of severe storms and drought. In 2010 we secured funding from the National Lottery
Distribution Trust Fund (NLDTF) to support a climate change adaptation project in rural communities across
four midlands municipalities -- Msunduzi, Richmond, Impendle and Mpofana – that are most affected by
severe weather patterns. The project was titled ‘Greener
Pastures,’ to reflect our natural escapism to think, when
faced with challenges, that the grass is always greener on
the other side of the hill.
Greener Pastures focused on developing knowledge, skills
and resilience to combat storm damage, and promote water,
food, and energy security. It uses a wide range of street
theatre, participatory learning, and demonstration projects in
food gardening and tree planting. In its 3 year lifespan the
project reached 68 schools and 31 CBOS, with a total of
2,350 participants. In 2014 the project won a Mail &
Guardian Greening the Future award for social innovation.
14
Following the 2006 local government elections, a wave of service delivery protests had broken out that
continued to escalate. In 2009 the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs launched
an ambitious Local Government Turn-Around Strategy. It emphasised the need for enhanced capacity to
improve service delivery and, among a myriad recommendations, the need for “improved public participation
and communication including effective complaint management and feedback systems.” However, it was thin
on how to ensure the implementation of measures that were explicitly written into Chapter 4 of the Municipal
Systems Act:
Municipalities have a legislative obligation to budget for both citizen education and public participation in key
activities, including the formulation of their Integrated Development Plan and budget, KPIs for senior
managers, performance management, and strategic decisions related to service delivery. It is an obligation
that is largely given to tick-box compliance. There were no systems in place to ensure that Ward Councillors
committed to holding quarterly community meetings as prescribed in their Code of Conduct. All too
frequently in our Good Governance training we had heard complaints that IDP izimbizo were stage-
managed, and that communities never saw their Ward Councillor once elections had passed.
In response to these challenges, BESG re-branded its governance programme in 2010 as the “Deepening
Democracy Project.” It evolved over the next three years into a dominant programme with multiple donor
funding aimed at local government
transformation. The project moved into high
gear, with the launch of a Strategic Partnership
with uMgungundlovu District Municipality
(uMDM) in 2010. The launch was held at a Civic
Reception in the presence of French
Ambassador to South Africa, Jacques Lapouge,
amid much hype over the pending contest
between the two countries at the FIFA Football
World Cup. The partnership saw the uMDM
ramp up public participation in its affairs, and
create space for local government officials to be
exposed to best international practice in
participatory development and budgeting.
The partnership aimed to build civil society capacity and active citizen participation in developmental
decision-making processes, and promote civil society engagement with local government. In three years
104 Community Based Organisations participated in our local governance training programme. uMDM gave
over its Council Chamber every three months to host the CBOs in Inter-Governmental Relations (IGR)
meetings, so that their issues could be addressed at all three tiers of government. Regrettably a lack of
political will and administrative capacity, as well as poor resource alignment, caused the broader partnership
to dissolve in 2014, although we continued to collaborate over funding opportunities and the District IDP
Representative Forum.
While the uMDM partnership was in full bloom, Msunduzi Municipality, which had for years acted as the
“second seat of power” in the District, went under a Section 139(1) administration order in March 2010 in the
face of near bankruptcy. For the next two years, Msunduzi
was ruled with a rod of iron. This caused huge public
disaffection and produced little in the way of a turn-around
in service delivery. Against this hostile environment,
BESG persuaded Administrator Johan Mettler to address a
landmark gathering in January 2011 in the form of the
Msunduzi Stakeholder Forum. 350 delegates from
communities, ratepayers’ associations, faith based groups,
and the business sector attended the gathering to receive
a progress report from the Administration team and debate
how the municipality could improve citizen engagement
15
going forward. Undertakings were made to work more closely with civil society, and indeed to embrace civil
society as an asset in the rebuilding of the city’s socio-political fabric. Acting Mayor Mike Tarr closed
proceedings by making a simple appeal to the floor: “We need your help.”
The initiative created by the Forum was short-lived. Local government elections were approaching. There
was a consolidation of power within the regional executive of the governing party, and a huge backlash from
some ANC members and alliance partner COSATU to what was widely perceived as an attempt to reinstate
the very politicians who were responsible for the city’s collapse. The incoming administration was openly
hostile to the idea of being helped.
Another casualty of the 2011 local government elections was the Mkondeni Sacca community. After the
Supreme Court of Appeal set aside the judgement ordering their mass eviction and a ban on any building or
repairs, BESG secured a further SELAVIP grant to return to the area with a programme of emergency
housing relief. It did not give much respite to the community, which still faced the threat of eviction. In
February 2011, a high-powered ANC delegation visited the area to assess whether it would merit having its
own voting station. The visit resulted in Finance MEC Ina
Cronje, wearing her hat as “political champion of the
district,” driving a rapid intervention to provide emergency
services and a long-term resettlement plan for the
community. The intervention was stillborn. The
community continues to this day to share two standpipes
between 1200 households and has no sanitation or refuse
collection service. Mayor Tarr requested our assistance
with a long term plan to acquire the underlying land, only to
be frustrated that his officials advised the land was worth 5
times more than the official municipal valuation and too
expensive for low income housing.
In the meantime, in a classic case of one hand not
knowing what the other is doing, the municipality’s legal
counsel had undertaken to the High Court to relocate the
families to an infamous RDP township called France,
commencing in July 2011 and due for completion in
January 2012. The relocation never happened. The new
Municipal Manager, who took up post after the provincial
intervention was withdrawn in January 2012, reverted to
court with a plan to expropriate the land underlying the
community. In 2014 the Department of Human
Settlements provided R71m to begin a process of
acquiring the underlying land. Mkondeni Sacca – 2 standpipes for 1200 families
Meanwhile the communities of North East Sector 2 and Peace Valley 2 had been waiting over 15 years for
development. The development of NES2 was finally granted environmental authorisation in March 2012.
However, in May 2011, a major corruption scandal broke out over the awarding by KZN Human Settlements
of a R2.1bn rural housing contract in Vulindlela, outside Pietermaritzburg, to a politically well-connected
developer, Dezzo Housing. The Department approved funding under the Enhanced People’s Housing
Process in order to facilitate the IA, Dezzo Housing, not having to go through an open tender process which
had been cancelled twice in a short space of time. Resident communities did not rejoice at the pending
development but marched in protest that Amakhosi were in the pocket of the Implementing Agent, after they
were suddenly seen driving around in brand new 4x4 double cabs. BESG, who had been undertaking
Housing Consumer Education in the area, was one of a series of complainants to the Public Protector. By
June 2012 the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) had been appointed to undertake a forensic investigation into
the project. Officials in the Department of Human Settlements, both nationally and provincially, closed ranks
in the wake of the scandal. For two years Vulindlela was showcased as a model PHP project, while KZN
Human Settlements denied the right of communities to choose the same procurement route.
16
Meanwhile BESG Development Services, which had taken transfer of the housing development portfolio,
was being tacitly frustrated in its attempt to bring NES2 into implementation. In November 2011, a friendly
official had undertaken another act of whistle blowing, and intimated that a plan was afoot to pay off BESG
for the work it had done on both NES2 and PV2 and appoint an alternative service provider. There was a
not-so hidden agenda to drive BESG out of development work in retribution for its opposition to the
Vulindlela contract. In May 2012 we lodged a complaint of prejudicial conduct with MEC for Human
Settlements and Public Works, Ravi Pillay. A tripartite meeting at the MEC’s office in June exposed collusion
between senior provincial and municipal officials, to find technical reasons to disqualify BESG from
undertaking the projects it had won at open tender. The MEC found in our favour. The decision, however,
did not pave the way for a smooth relationship and, as events subsequently unfolded, Msunduzi officials did
everything in their power to obstruct and derail the projects for as long as they were under BESG
management.
BESG Development Services won its first substantial contract in 2011, not in its traditional area of housing
but in a contract with the Department of Economic Development and Tourism. It developed and rolled out a
business development programme for 17 co-operatives involved in school feeding schemes in Ladysmith/
Newcastle/ Dundee and surrounding areas. The contract ensured the trading entity was a going concern,
and a vital source of income generation for the parent company. BESG continues to undertake minor
consulting contracts, and in 2012 won a tender to run a Water Consumer Education programme in non-
payment “hotspots” across uMgungundlovu District.
One of the by-products of the Msunduzi Stakeholder Forum was a call for more public information on the
city’s housing programme. The Acting Head of the Human Settlements Unit, Radha Gounden, welcomed an
offer that we raise funds to host a housing summit, saying that he had plans but no budget to host such an
event. The Msunduzi Housing Summit was held on United Nations World Habitat Day, 1 October 2012. The
summit was opened by the Chair of the Economic Development Portfolio Committee, Councillor Eunice
Majola. The objectives of the Summit were to:
• Facilitate information exchange about the main fiscal instruments and programmes that have replaced
the old one-size-fits-all “housing subsidy.”
• Enable Ward Committee and CBO members to identify
common issues.
• Enable participants to engage with officials on specific
development needs.
• Give officials the opportunity to present planned projects
and those which are currently being implemented.
Delegates were encouraged to continue to engage with the
municipality after the Summit through community meetings that
Ward Councillors should be holding every three months, and
IDP and budget consultation meetings. The summit was a
resounding success in information exchange and learning, as
one delegate Councillor wrote: “Just a note to say thanks for a
well thought and well informed Housing Summit. It was very
professional. Today many of us as members of the community
and Councillors have received more answers than in the entire
1½ years (while the city was under administration).”
Another landmark change happened in 2012 in response to the adoption of ministerial performance
agreements signed with the Presidency in 2010. In recognition of the long housing backlog, the performance
agreement for human settlements known as Outcome 8 committed the Department, inter alia, to provide
secure tenure and basic services to 400,000 households by 2014. Urban development think tank Isandla
Institute recognised the rich body of knowledge and skills within the NGO sector to work deeply with resident
17
communities, and hosted two capacity building workshops which brought together NGOs, social movements,
and a special purpose vehicle established by the Department, the National Upgrading Support Programme
(NUSP). The roll-out of the Upgrading of Informal Settlements Programme (UISP) did not go according to
plan. A host of 170 service providers tendered for work to undertake rapid assessments in some 45 priority
settlements around the country, but were largely found wanting in their methodology and use of “cut and
paste.”
By the time the 2014 national and provincial government elections took place, the UISP had hardly taken off.
In its 2015-19 business plan the Department simply moved the target, to provide tenure and basic services
to 750,000 households by 2019. It also committed to rectify the transfer of ownership to 900,000 households
who did not have title deeds to their properties. This is a massive undertaking given the number of informal
sales and rentals that occur in newly established townships.
2014 heralded the biggest meltdown in BESG since its near-liquidation in 2006, which speaks to the
vulnerability of NGOs which are largely dependent on donor income. Of three major funders we lost two in
the space of 6 months. The NLDTF, which funded the Greener Pastures project, is not a relationship funder
and expressly disallows re-grants. The Ford Foundation, which underwrote the larger part of our governance
work, changed its country strategy from supporting developmental governance to human rights, and
redirected its funding from several members of the Good Governance Learning Network to a largely new
generation of NGOs whose sole object was to take the government through the courts for service delivery
failures. Half our staffing complement of 14 had to be sacrificed and we had to begin funding our operating
deficit from reserves accumulated from the 2012 DEDT school feeding scheme co-operatives contract.
The North East Sector 2 housing project, which would be the first unblocked project to generate income and
replace the loss of donor funding, was still being frustrated by municipal officials. Directly after the MEC had
given us his blessing to continue work in August 2012, officials from the Msunduzi Human Settlements Unit
declared the area was too densely settled to be upgraded. We asked for the opportunity to demonstrate that
it could be done. We completed a risk assessment in October 2012 and a community facilitation programme
and full business plan for Stage 1 (planning and engineering design) by March 2013. All of this work is done
at risk. In November 2013 the KZN Department of Human Settlements approved the project. The next step
was for province, the municipality, and BESG Development Services to pass resolutions authorising the
signing of a tripartite agreement. In February 2014 the municipal official responsible for driving the process
called our Executive Director and intimated that the Deputy Municipal Manager for Economic Development
was demanding an internal investigation into the circumstances that led to our appointment. It took until
August 2014 for us to be notified that full Council had authorised the Municipal Manager to sign the
agreement, and May 2015 for the agreement finally to be concluded by all parties.
THE DIVERSIFICATION YEARS 2015-18
Diversification is a key to be a going concern, but it was equally a challenge with a reduced staffing
complement and skills set. Nevertheless a balance between our traditional donor-funded community support
work and fee income from the North East Sector 2 and Peace Valley 2 housing projects would have been
sufficient to stabilise BESG while new sources of income were sourced.
That appeared a reality when a consortium proposal under uMgungundlovu District Municipality, for a project
on climate change adaptation, was approved in early 2015 by the Global Adaptation Fund via the South
African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI). BESG’s component, “Climate proofing human settlements,”
aimed to provide support to communities in rural areas who are routinely affected by storm damage, through
a combination of sustainable livelihood training and physical measures to strengthen their informal dwellings
and better manage stormwater. However, SANBI appointed two corporate consultants who failed BESG on
a due diligence exercise. This created a serious fissure in the partnership as SANBI declined to allow BESG
to sub-contract under uMDM, where it was an approved service provider, and they decided to “test the
market” and put our component out to tender.
18
Meanwhile we were busy in North East Sector 2,
securing an extension to the environmental
authorisation for the development due to the long delays
in starting, working with a new Project Steering
Committee, and undertaking a deep facilitation
programme using a system of community block
representatives to work with groups of between 15 and
20 households. In response to the municipality’s
concern that the area was too densely settled, 23
families whose houses were encroaching the road
reserves volunteered to part-demolish in order that
development could proceed for the greater good. We
completed Stage 1 by November 2015.
In January 2016 our Executive Director was summoned to the office of the Deputy Municipal Manager who
accused BESG of forcing people to demolish their homes. No consideration was given to the leaders of the
Project Steering Committee who were present and who stated that the demolition plan was adopted by the
community and the affected families as they had waited 18 years for the development to start.
It was the start of a concerted process to derail the project. Province tried to assist by offering funds for 50
houses to be built on a greenfield section adjoining the settlement. It was a contentious proposal that the
community rejected. Families had built their own houses and built up social capital over the years and did
not want to move. Furthermore the municipality had offered the vacant sites to families living in neighbouring
Tamboville 10 years prior and it had been invaded the prior year, as soon as word was out that development
was due to commence. It was invaded again, but on this occasion municipal security failed to act and up to
the time of this publication going to print the land remains occupied.
The municipality created multiple challenges and delays over engineering standards, funds for bulk and
connector services, and complete confusion over whether existing structures were to be retained, on the
direct instruction of the Deputy Municipal Manager, or demolished in line with the KZN “Slums Clearance”
strategy. For 8 months municipal officials refused to engage on these issues. Our Board resolved to
suspend work on Stages 2 and 3 until there was a clear way forward. Finally, in August 2016, the Acting
Head of Msunduzi’s Human Settlements Unit declared that they had accepted our “resignation” and were
proceeding to tender for the appointment of an alternative Implementing Agent. Province initially objected
but then capitulated to Msunduzi’s unilateral action, citing a breakdown of relationship when the council
official accused BESG of “undermining the municipality for many years” and refused to discuss his position
further.
Peace Valley 2 suffered a similar fate. The project had been subject of a protracted Environmental Impact
Assessment from 2008 to 2013. In January 2014, changes in the National Environmental Management Act
removed the need for an assessment and BESG was given the green light to update the Project Description
(pre-feasibility study). The project was unable to proceed because the municipality had, since going to
tender on 2001, failed to apply to Province for the transfer of the bulk of the underlying state land. The issue
was raised in half a dozen progress reports and a presentation to the Economic Development Portfolio
Committee through 2014 and 2015.
In April 2015, we eventually enlisted the help of the Housing Development Agency, a special purpose vehicle
established by the National Department to unlock state land for housing development. Much as they were
willing, the municipality refused to make a formal written request for assistance and by October we were
forced to abandon work again after carrying work at risk intermittently over a period of 12 years since we
secured conditional approval. As we go to print, the matter is now in court after the municipality reneged on
a written offer to pay us for the work done on the project.
BESG undertook two micro-projects with funding from the Foundation for Human Rights (FHR) over the early
part of this period: In 2015, we worked with 15 communities across uMgungundlovu District to develop and
facilitate written submissions on their development needs. Many of their submissions have been
19
incorporated in their local municipalities’ IDP, and it gave weight to the empowerment of communities
through knowledge transfer when the IDP imbizo process had failed to recognise them for years.
In 2016, the FHR funded a Community Mapping project in Siyathuthuka Phase 1, Richmond. A Livelihood Security programme undertaken in the area in 2012 had identified that the community was living in housing with failed foundations, cracked walls, insecure roofs, and areas with outflows of raw sewage. Province had sent inspectors from the National Home Builder’s Registration Council into the area, resulting in funds being approved for a rectification project. The initiative failed and officials were unwilling to engage with us or the community which was by that stage visibly angry. In May 2015 Minister Lindiwe Sisulu announced the closure of the rectification programme in her budget speech.
“Amarightza 2015” – IDP training
We trained 15 unemployed youth to undertake a door to
door survey of the extent of the problems. In a
community report back meeting in January 2017, the
community demanded that we lodge a complaint with the
Public Protector. Before we could do that we had to
exhaust all administrative channels for seeking redress.
The initiative was lost temporarily in June when Ward
Councillor Sifiso Mkhize was gunned down in a political
killing. Nevertheless the Provincial Department of
Human Settlements facilitated a meeting to receive our
report and recommendations, which were to undertake a
pilot in situ repair and rehabilitation project which would
be far less expensive and invasive than the former rectification programme. They requested that Richmond
Municipality write to them formally requesting assistance from the Department. After 14 months, the letter
was still not forthcoming due to instability in the municipality, and it did take an appeal to the Public Protector
to elicit the required response.
In February 2016, faced with a static donor market and contracts that were not generating their anticipated
income, BESG took the decision to sell its office at 371 Jabu Ndlovu Street. The initial motivation was to
raise working capital to support the North East Sector 2 development, but as events rapidly soured we were
forced into a distress sale in August 2016. In the same month we relocated to rented office space at
331 Bulwer Street.
This was a turnaround moment in more ways than changing location. In June 2016 the Board approved a
restructuring and succession plan for our Executive Director which realigned the staff complement to our
operational needs. This was completed in May 2017 with the appointment of Melusi Nxele as Manager:
Operations & Programmes. We also strengthened our internal governance after two resignations and the
passing of our Deputy Chair, Brian Bassett, in April. In August 2017 the Board was given a fresh injection of
blood with the arrival of four new directors with diverse backgrounds in housing, research, public policy,
monitoring and evaluation, and enterprise development.
Two positive developments toward diversification of our work occurred in this period:
In 2016 we secured the first funding for our governance work in 3 years through a national consortium
project, Accounting for Basic Services. It was the first collaboration in 12 years between 3 former members
of the Urban Sector Network and Isandla Institute, who are all members of the Good Governance Learning
Network. The project was funded by the European Union Delegation to South Africa, whose mission is to
20
support the roll-out of the National Development Plan,
and the Heinrich Böll Foundation. It involved intensive
work with two communities in Mpolweni, uMshwathi,
to secure free basic services, and KwaNxamalala,
Msunduzi, to secure employment on a R6m roads
construction project, through municipal budget
submissions and performance monitoring. These are
cornerstones of the provisions for public participation
in the Municipal Systems Act. The project began
winding down in July 2018
In October 2017 a joint venture between BESG
Development Services and Swelihle Agricultural and
Environmental Group, a by-product of the UKZN
Faculty of Agriculture, won a tender for R2.8m with uMgungundlovu District Municipality to undertake work
on the Umgeni Resilience Project. This was the same Climate Proofing of Human Settlements component
that SANBI had insisted be put out to tender – we had won back the right to implement our intellectual
property.
We remain committed to providing technical services to vulnerable social groups, and to that end packaged
two special needs housing projects, to renovate the Khayalethu Shelters for street children on behalf of
Youth for Christ KZN, and redevelop the Sunset Overnight Shelters for street homeless adults for Project
Gateway. While historically we have carried out Housing Consumer Education in an impartial manner,
giving communities full choice in the options they choose, we have to counter the lack of choice provided by
the state when it precludes genuine community participation from processes that directly affect them.
Our forced withdrawal from state-driven housing implementation has caused a period of deep reflection by
the Board and staff collectively. Much as our mission committed us to work collaboratively with government
and communities, we are living in an environment where factionalism within the governing party, corruption,
struggles for control of key positions, and political killings have undermined the confidence and trust of many
communities in government.
They have also closed down space for independent civic organisation. In June 2017 we entered into a
Memorandum of Understanding to provide training and technical support to two social movements and their
members – the Landless People’s Movement, who support farm dwellers on land restitution and land reform
projects, and shack dwellers’ movement Abahlali baseMjondolo, which has over 50,000 members living in
informal settlements, of which the largest concentration is in eThekwini. Tragically an emerging relationship
between the 2016 administration of eThekwini Municipality and Abahlali has been destroyed by ongoing
shack demolitions, the murder of a 17 year old protester, several politically motivated murders of Abahlali
leaders, and open war talk by senior politicians.
There have been many other instances where communities feel alienated from the state by the lack of space
for engagement. One community member, whose RDP house has failed, summed up the situation when
asked why they do not ask their absentee Councillor to a meeting to address their problems: “People are
scared, they are being killed.”
In this toxic environment, BESG has followed in the path of the internal resistance in the last days of
apartheid when progressive leaders were either in exile or in prison. We have called on the churches. An
emerging partnership now exists between BESG, three social movements, and a faith based movement with
a mission of social justice, the KZN Christian Council. Such alliances will undoubtedly be labelled “counter-
revolutionary” by some elements within the governing party. However, they are simply a response to the
state’s failure to implement its own legislation that enshrines participatory democracy, and international
protocols such as the New Urban Agenda, adopted by members of United Nations Habitat in October 2016,
which acknowledges the natural forces of urbanisation and the reality of informality in our towns and cities.
331 Bulwer Street,
Pietermaritzburg 3201
P.O. Box 1369,
Pietermaritzburg 3200
Tel: +27 33 394 4980:
Fax: +27 33 394 4979
Email: [email protected]
www.besg.co.za