GRAY MAGUIRE: Government fails dismally to address national housing backlog
It is almost as if we have collectively resigned ourselves to the expectation that state service delivery will remain an abject failure
Much was written about Johannesburg’s Albert Street fire in the days after to the tragedy. Concern about inner-city decay, legacy issues from apartheid-era spatial planning, how the stringency of the Prevention of Illegal Eviction Act creates a fertile ground for property invasion, how a culture of nonpayment and not complying with municipal regulations fosters a permissive mindset that erodes municipal service delivery and so on.
While all these points of view have their merits and deficiencies, what I have not seen sufficiently covered is the dismal position of our state-supported housing programmes 30 years after the end of apartheid. It is almost as if we have resigned ourselves to the expectation that state service delivery will remain an abject failure. ..
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