** Please visit our website: http://www.africanassociation.org **

President thabo Mbeki, whom I respect so much, has a lot of work to do
in order to restore equality in SOUTH AFRICA. The 40-something years
of apartheid governance did untold damage to both economic and social
fabrics of that beautiful country.
He will succeed barring the machinations of scarecrows that JACOB ZUMA
and his white accomplices!

PETER VAKUNTA


By Moshoeshoe Monare


On Friday President Thabo Mbeki flayed unscrupulous "landlords" who
raked in incomes from illegally renting out empty inner-city buildings.

He also said it was time to put a stop to "pro-rich" housing
developments, including gated communities and golf estates, where the
wealthy had the best land situated near the best facilities, and the
poor were relegated to dusty, semi-developed land far situated far
from modern infrastructures.

Referring to recent Bryanston, Sandton, protests in which hundreds of
families were evicted for illegally occupying buildings, Mbeki said
those people who exploited the homeless must be brought to book.

The president was speaking on Friday at the launch of the Brickfields
housing project, which is a a lowcost block of flats in the downtown
Johannesburg section of Newtown.





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The flats were refurbished as rental stock for low-income dwellers
earning less than R3 500 a month.

They are subsidised through a R19-million private-government
partnership programme. There are 3 000 people living in the 646 units.
The rents vary between R1 200 and R2 000 a month.

Mbeki said: "This development demonstrates that it is possible to
regenerate the inner cities and avoid resorting to unscrupulous fly-by
night operations similar to some of those we have seen in this city,
where our people are placed in derelict buildings that have no lights,
no water and no proper sewerage.

"This is done by people who are only interested in making as much
money as possible out of the desperation of our people for shelter.
"We should increase our efforts to bring to book those responsible for
this unacceptable behaviour."

Mbeki said some people were so brazen in their criminal activities
that they even resorted to murder to hijack buildings in order to
extort money from people.

"I would like the city mayor, working together with the police, to
attend urgently to this matter," he said.

The Brickfields project was also an attempt to end racist apartheid
housing patterns in which class determined the geographic location of
rich people and poor people, Mbeki said.

Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa said he believed the Brickfields
housing project was also another way of combating inner-city decay and
tackling rapid urban development.


This article was originally published on page 1 of Saturday Star on
August 13, 2005













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