‘Finish what we started': Simelane urges provinces to complete upgrades to informal settlements
Human settlements minister Thembi Simelane has urged all provinces to prioritise housing projects that have not been completed.
Simelane made the remarks after six family members died when their shack caught fire in Marikana Informal settlement in Kwa-Thema, east of Johannesburg.
She said the department has been inundated after several disasters over the past few weeks, particularly in KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape.
'The unfortunate incidents in our informal settlements are a clear sign that we should accelerate and invest in the upgrading of informal settlements and commit to finishing all the stalled projects around the country. This will enable qualifying beneficiaries to have access to decent shelter, prevent loss of life and improve the quality of household life', said Simelane.
She said the department plans to upgrade just over 4,000 informal settlements during the course of the 2024-29 Medium Term Development Plan.
Simelane underscored the importance of collaboration among all stakeholders in dealing with informal settlements around the country. This includes the government, the private sector, NGOs and communities.
In response to the incident in Ekurhuleni, Simelane has tasked the Emergency Housing Unit, a team responsible for disasters within the department of human settlements, to work with the Gauteng department of human settlements and the City of Ekurhuleni to assist the affected household.
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Mail & Guardian
a day ago
- Mail & Guardian
Moravian Church legal battle at heart of indigenous land rights
The Moravian Church has congregations around the world, with more than a million members. South Africa, with 103 000 members, has one of the largest congregations. (Photos: Jonathan Hendricks) The rural town of Goedverwacht, 145km west of Cape Town and home to about 2 000 people, is not like any other town in the area — it is a Moravian mission station, one of 11 in the Western Cape. It is also one of a number of mission stations where the residents are in the middle of a These battles, which will be precedent-setting, go straight to the heart of land reform and indigenous peoples' rights in South Africa. The Rather it controls entire towns — mission stations — and hundreds of thousands of hectares of land. It even has its own financial services and property management company, MCiSA Holdings. The church, which considers itself the owner of these small towns around the country and the surrounding agricultural land, where residents pay it taxes and levies, and live under its laws, has left many people dispossessed and disenfranchised. Known formally as Unitas Fratrum or Unity of the Brethren, the Moravian Church is one of the oldest denominations of the Protestant Church, founded in 1457 in Bohemia in present-day Czechia. The missionaries who came to South Africa as early as 1737 were German. The church has congregations around the world, with more than a million members. South Africa, with 103 000 members, has one of the largest congregations. German Moravian missionaries set up their first South African mission station in Genadendal in the Western Cape, and their aims immediately conflicted with the colonial authorities. They welcomed people of all races to the church, and to live in safety in their mission stations at a time of genocide, forced evictions and displacement of people of colour by the colonial powers, and in direct opposition to the authorities' dehumanisation of these peoples. Almost three centuries later, the people who lived on the land, predominantly 'The Europeans got our land with three things: with the gun, with the Bible and with alcohol,' says Naomi Julius, who was born in Goedverwacht and is now in her 60s, descending from many generations of Khoi. She farms eucalyptus on a small piece of land. In 1810, Dutch coloniser Hendrik Schalk Burger claimed and settled, with his slaves, on the piece of land that is now Goedverwacht. The Khoi had been living and farming the area for centuries. In his will, Burger left the land to Khoi who had worked the land and his slaves. Rumour has it that this was because he had a romantic relationship with one of his slaves. Goedverwacht started as a Moravian Church mission station in 1889. Residents want ownership and have also declared a dispute because they pay for services they say they don't receive. When the church subsequently bought the land for a meagre amount from the slaves' descendants upon emancipation, it took away all control from the Khoi, who had been living in a self-organised manner for at least 50 years since the farmer's death. 'Growing up, we lived freely like the Khoi did, we had horses, goats, chickens and we were completely self-sustaining,' Julius says. 'When the missionaries came and said they wanted to 'buy the land' from us, we were uneducated and didn't know how to financially value the land, and we were not given any agency. 'We were indoctrinated and mentally abused by the church. They told us we were living ungodly and immoral lives. I didn't even know that we had rights as Khoi people till I was 60.' Goedverwacht is one example of how the church has not been holding up its part of the bargain with the government regarding land reform and the mission stations. In 1996, land affairs minister Derek Hanekom and the Moravian Church signed the Genadendal Accord, which was an agreement of cooperation between the department and the church in South Africa, a declaration of intent to address land reform and land tenure issues at mission stations. But there are no examples of the church aspiring to any of the actions in this document, and several examples of it reneging on them. For example, the accord says the church should 'harness and exploit … tourism and other unique income generating opportunities'. Tourism is the subject of a lawsuit between Julius and other women in Goedverwacht, and the church. One of the other plaintiffs, Lorraine Cornelius, explains that even though the court case centres on what was initially a specific matter — the church closing the mill, which doubled as a heritage centre and museum — it is symptomatic of the greater issue of the church not supporting what was a small but thriving tourism industry. Its remnants are two empty guesthouses. The industry included agro-tourism, tours of Khoi rock art, garden walks, homestays and learning about Khoi and other local culture. Julius and Cornelius are part of Goedverwacht Awakens, an organisation of women, most born in the town, some returning after years working elsewhere, who have created their own tourism attractions outside the town to benefit their community. The best-known of these is the annual Snoek en Patat Fees on the nearby Raaswater Farm, a winter festival now in its 17th year that attracts more than 10 000 people. 'We want the property back from the church,' says Cornelius. 'We don't necessarily want the title deeds, but this is land we inherited and we want the property to be governed by the community, for the community. It would mean we would be able to use the land, we could farm as much as we wanted, we could pick from the land without having to pay levies to a church that gives us nothing.' Without land to farm and monetise, the residents of Goedverwacht are poor and most have to leave town for work, she says. The taxes and rent that they pay the church are, as per the accord, meant to be used the development of the town but this has not happened. The church owes the Bergrivier municipality R10 million in rates and taxes and the municipality has initiated legal proceedings against it. Cornelius says people have not been drinking the tap water for five years, even though they still pay for it, because the church has not been using the government-installed water treatment plant. This is partly because Eskom has cut off the electricity supply as a result of the church owing the power utility money. Goedverwacht's residents carry canisters to the nearby Berg River and collect water from there. 'People sometimes don't have water for days. When we held community meetings about this, we always invited church officials and they just ignored us, didn't even acknowledge receipt,' she says. 'These people are bullied by the church. They don't even know if they are drinking clean water.' Cornelius says she has sent emails to the town's Reverend Brother Cyril Galant requesting a meeting, but received no response or acknowledgment. 'The decisions about leasing and taxes were made before my time,' Galant says. 'Any issues that the community has needs to go to the Overseers' Council.' He added that he has not received emails from Cornelius or any other residents. The Overseers' Council, a conduit between the church and the residents, is a standard body in Moravian mission stations, but in Goedverwacht, many people have no faith in it and do not consider it democratically elected. Another town deep into a lawsuit against the church is Elim, one of the larger, older and more developed mission stations. It is a three-hour drive from Cape Town and was named after a Biblical place 'with twelve fountains and seventy palm trees'. Church Street, the road entering the town, is lined with small milk-white houses with thatched roofs and walls made of mud. On the little grassy patches outside two or three older people relax on wooden chairs. But what is not visible is that many of these houses are caving in on the inside because the church is not providing the town with maintenance services. Elim has 49 small-scale farmers, and the church owns more than 7 000 hectares of agricultural land. Most of the farmers lease about 10 hectares each. Elim is another town on Moravian Church land where residents have declared a dispute. A life-long resident of Elim, founder of the heritage centre and one of the initiators of the legal proceedings is Amanda Cloete, who refers to herself as a 'walking encyclopaedia' on the area's history, knowing the names of every person buried in the graveyard. 'From 1758, the area on which Elim stands, including the agricultural land, was a farm called Vogelstryskraal, and birth registries show that it was all Khoi, specifically the Hessequa and Chainouqua peoples, who lived here,' says Cloete. Until 1825, all the houses were mud huts and it was only when the church arrived that people were forced into a rental system. 'It is our Khoi history that will win this case,' Cloete says confidently. Here, unlike in Goedverwacht, the Overseers' Council and residents have a good relationship. Residents pay rent to the church for farmland, but pay levies to the Overseers Council, which has had to take on the responsibility for providing essential services that, according to the The council has ensured the town has stormwater drainage, good roads and infrastructure, and even streetlights. When the church began hostile legal proceedings against the council for a relatively smaller matter, it unwittingly opened the door to a greater battle over land ownership and control. Beresford Pearce, a member of the Overseers' Council, says an amendment to the official ownership of the land on which Elim stands will change everything for the town. 'We will be able to govern the town with money currently going from farmers to the church coming back into the community instead. We could develop infrastructure, create jobs and would have investors who now stay away because we are 'owned' by the church. Right now we are living month to month,' he says. Pearce says the church sabotages any financial ventures by the residents, such as harvesting wild flowers and pine trees. And because people have to pay it for agricultural land, very little farming that could be monetised is taking place. Beresford Pearce believes a change in ownership will see the town flourish. Brigitta Mangale is the director of the pro bono and human rights practice at Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, and the primary attorney on the case. She says there are a number of pending matters regarding Elim, but ultimately the main relief has to do with ownership, and that the court finds that Elim residents are the rightful owners of the land from before the time of German settlers and put in place a declarator saying that. 'The only reason we are in this legal mess is because the Moravian Church settled on the land at a time when people of colour couldn't own land, and it was in its settling that it came to hold ownership in the first place,' Mangale says. The lawsuit is a tricky one because it is partly based on customary law and, as with so many people of colour in South Africa, the history was not documented. The legal team will rely on the expert testimonies, historians and the elders of Elim. 'We are trying to rectify and bring into the current day the terms of a custom that was in place for centuries before the colonial apartheid system changed this — a custom where the land belonged to the people, where everything that came from it was supposed to be shared and flowed back into the community.' Elim is an example of a general issue with the implementation of the Genadendal Accord, Mangale says. From the signing of the accord, the government had all sorts of planned programmes for land reform of church missions stations, and touts towns such as Pella in the Northern Cape as successes. But the people there are still as poor as ever and have seen no development. She says the accord in itself has not been useful in protecting indigenous people. Wilmien Wicomb, an attorney and the lead of the land programme at the Legal Resources Centre, says: 'The Genadendal Accord's principal intention was to provide security of tenure, that is, secure land rights to the inhabitants of the church land. 'But the accord is not specific as to how the land rights should be secured because, at the time, there was an assumption that as part of our constitutional transformation, our property system — which was entirely based on the inherited Roman Dutch property system based on ownership — would be reformed to reflect the many different ways in which people hold land rights in South Africa.' The apartheid system that prohibited most South Africans from owning land created peculiar land rights. Acknowledging these, plus customary and indigenous forms of land rights, communal, household and individual land rights, the accord wanted to leave space for church communities to define their own preferred property regimes. In Elim, being born in the town is not enough to be a 'citizen' — it is a privilege obtained only after taking citizenship classes. From the age of 16, the children of Elim and adults from elsewhere are required to apply for citizenship. This training takes place annually and during the process the Overseers' Council and Church Council teach candidates the rules of the mission station as contained in its rule book, or 'ordinances'. After completing the training they are sworn in during a church service as new citizens. Members of other Moravian congregations may apply but will be carefully selected and have to show an ancestral link to Elim, and are required to be what the church considers 'good standing members of the Moravian Church'. Ultimately, this means that only someone belonging to the Moravian Church is allowed to live in Elim — or in any Moravian mission station for that matter. This raises the question of the legality of this practice, because both the Constitution and the Rental Housing Act do not allow for property owners to discriminate against people based on religion. And just as with the issue of land rights, this could be quite a complicated matter. Furthermore, research on this topic is not easily available. Tanveer Jeewa, a constitutional law lecturer at Stellenbosch University, says: 'We need to ask the question: if the church only leases its land to people who are members, is that discrimination or mere differentiation?' She says one could argue that just as with any other private organisation, it is generally permissible to give preferential treatment to people who belong to it. In the same vein, being a member of the Moravian Church is a condition that, as a private property owner, it is entitled to impose for leasing purposes. But what about the Constitution prohibiting discrimination on religious grounds? This is not as straightforward as it would initially seem. 'The question becomes: does membership of the Moravian Church amount to a religious requirement, or is it an organisational preference?' says Jeewa. She explains that because the Moravian Church is a denomination within Christianity and does not hold beliefs that are fundamentally distinct from other Christian denominations, requiring membership of the church to lease land may be legally differentiation, as opposed to discrimination. 'In South Africa, courts have generally shown deference to both private property rights and the autonomy of religious institutions in managing their internal affairs. That tendency may also influence how the courts approach this question,' Jeewa says. Lizwi Mtumtum, the president of the Moravian Church in South Africa, did not respond to the Mail & Guardian's questions, saying the church does not usually deal with the media. 'I also wonder how you came about doing this investigation. Put differently, on whose bidding are you raising these questions?' 'Nonetheless, as your questions are of a legalistic nature, I need to refer same to our legal team, especially since we have a court case with regards to Elim on this very matter,' he says. The cases against the Moravian Church are certainly not simple, but are crucial in the move towards real land reform. The courts will have to address not only the issue of customary land rights, but also decide who the accords and laws are meant to protect — the descendants of indigenous people, organised religious institutions or slave-era colonising landowners. 'Our forefathers brought this land to what it is, but this church is greedy and sees it as a business,' says Cloete. 'If we win this case, we win for the people of all Moravian mission stations in South Africa.' This investigation was supported by the Sylvester Stein Fellowship Fund, awarded to the journalist by the Canon Collins Trust.
The Herald
3 days ago
- The Herald
Pretoria Zoo celebrates World Giraffe Day by welcoming newborn calf Enzo
When the global community came together to celebrate World Giraffe Day on June 21, the National Zoological Gardens (NZG) in Pretoria had its own reason to celebrate with the arrival of a giraffe calf earlier this month. Born on June 8, the young giraffe is the fifth addition to the NZG's giraffe herd. The birth coincided with World Giraffe Day, an initiative by the Giraffe Conservation Foundation (GCF) to honour the world's tallest land animal on the year's longest day. The calf was born at the zoo to Momo, an 11-year-old matriarch known for her calm and independent nature. According to Carol Thobela, curator of carnivores, pachyderms, and farm yard at NZG, the calf has begun to show a strong personality. 'We named the calf Enzo, meaning 'ruler of the estate'. It's a strong, bold name that suits the energy we have seen. Even though we don't yet know if Enzo is male or female, the name reflects the confidence and spirit of this little one,' said Thobela. NZG director of animal conservation Tracy Rehse highlighted the importance of understanding giraffe subspecies in supporting global conservation science. 'According to new genetic classifications, the NZG giraffes are assumed to belong to the South African giraffe subspecies Giraffa camelopardalis giraffa, though genetic testing has not yet been conducted to confirm this,' said Rehse. 'Understanding subspecies has helped us align our animal management practices with conservation science and ensures we're contributing meaningful data to global conservation efforts' The giraffes at NZG live in an environment tailored to their natural behaviour and health needs. Elevated feeders mimic tree-top browsing, while night shelters and a surrounding wet moat provide safety and comfort, accounting for giraffes' natural reluctance to cross water. The NZG herd includes a mix of distinctive personalities, including: Tiago, who was born in 2020 and hand-reared by staff, is known for his playful and affectionate nature. Azuri, who was born in 2022, is confident and observant and is often found surveying the zoo from his favourite lookout mound. Bonito, the nine-year-old breeding bull, is food-driven and dominant, approaching staff only when browse is on offer. South African National Biodiversity Institute director of marketing, communications and commercialisation Nontsikelelo Mpulo stressed the broader significance of World Giraffe Day. 'World Giraffe Day is not only about admiring Africa's gentle giants. It is a day dedicated to raising awareness and support for the conservation of giraffes, who are increasingly threatened by habitat loss, poaching and deteriorating ecological infrastructure,' said Mpulo. 'While promoting animal welfare and public education, the zoo also plays an important role in national conservation efforts. Though giraffes are locally classified as Least Concern, the species is globally listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, with some subspecies facing a higher risk of extinction.' TimesLIVE
Mail & Guardian
4 days ago
- Mail & Guardian
Teaching is an act of nation building
As we remember and honour the courage of the youth of 1976, we must also celebrate and support those who continue the struggle for justice and dignity in the classroom. Youth month celebrates the activism of young people, but teachers have been organised activists since the South Africa observes Youth month in June to honour the The Despite these oppressive systems, black and coloured teachers have resisted segregation since the early 1900s. They did so not only through protest and activism but also by serving as pillars of critical thinking, dignity and cultural resistance in their classrooms and communities. Teachers were seen as carriers of hope and social mobility. Fast-forward 96 years, in the final year of my undergraduate studies in 2009, I volunteered with two afterschool programmes for primary school learners in Makhanda. Like many South Africans, I had read the shocking statistics about our country's low literacy rates and the poor matric results that dominated headlines year after year — a hangover from apartheid. As I began working with learners in afterschool programmes, I realised that behind their smiling faces lay a real crisis. I saw first-hand how an inability to read kept children from learning new concepts, passing and succeeding at school. One afternoon, I asked a group of grade 2 learners to write letters to their mothers for Mother's Day. A little girl named Chandré asked me how to write the word love. I spelled it out and sounded it out phonetically. She looked at me with a blank stare. She had been in formal schooling for two years but could not recognise letters or sounds. At that moment, I knew I wanted to become a teacher. Teaching holds a special place in my heart; I am a fourth-generation teacher. My great-grandfather, grandfather and mother all served in the profession until they retired. During my childhood I saw the effect they had on others' lives. To this day, when I meet someone who attended Newell or Cowan high schools in New Brighton, Gqeberha, from 1959 to 1995 and I mention my grandfather, Today, I lead a project that works with a network of change agent teachers who remind me of my grandfather. I see them take on roles beyond their job description: acting as social mothers and fathers, emotional lifelines and trusted adults for learners navigating the realities of inequality inside and outside classrooms. Despite their essential role, the narrative about teachers has shifted, but not for the better. Teachers in South Africa often feel undervalued. While remuneration plays a part, value is also communicated in how we speak about teachers. It's in the way parents frame educators to their children, in how we as society recognise or ignore their efforts. In a As we remember and honour the courage of the youth of 1976, we must also celebrate and support those who continue the struggle for justice and dignity in the classroom. It's time that we rally behind our teachers in a way that truly appreciates the value of the teaching profession. We need to support teachers in ways that translate both on the ground and at policy level. Andisiwe Hlungwane is the project lead of Teachers CAN, a network of change agent teachers.
