Battle to find homes for KZN flood victims hindered by 'racism, greed and bureaucracy': MEC

The KwaZulu-Natal provincial government has vowed to never again work with “racist” landlords who “put profits above human dignity”.

Provincial human settlements and public works MEC Dr Ntuthuko Mahlaba said the department had encountered challenges finding housing solutions for hundreds of families after floods in the province. 

This included a fallout two weeks ago between the provincial government and a landlord in Reservoir Hills who had agreed to lease a building to house flood victims who had previously been accommodated at Truro Hall in Westville. The landlord allegedly went back on his word at the last minute and demanded that the government purchase the property.

That prompted the city to temporarily move flood victims to the Royal Hotel.

“There is an element of racism in these things because some property owners have been staying in the same areas with the displaced flood victims, but when you want to put them in the space where they [property owners] are, they protest. We were confronted with this with the premier on Sunday. They said, ‘You can’t put these people here, they invade our space.’ To me that’s nothing but racism — and I hate and fight racism with passion,” said Mahlaba.

He said the government refused to be cornered by landlords who sought to capitalise on the plight of flood victims by hiking prices above market value or trying to force them to purchase the temporary infrastructure set aside for flood victims.

“The department has decided not now or in the future will we ever work with some of those landlords because we understand how they behave. Even if we are under distress, we will never work with them because you can’t put profit above human dignity.”

The national government had granted them about R325m for the provision of emergency housing, he said. He also confirmed his department had already paid more than R78m to service providers and completed thousands of temporary residential units to date.

He said the pace of moving flood victims out of mass care centres would also be determined by the speed with which they managed to find suitable land to build on, especially in eThekwini.

Mahlaba said there were 23 land parcels being transferred to the city for construction of houses by the department of human settlements and the Palm Beach Hotel will also house flood victims.

However, Mahlaba said he was not happy with the co-operation they were getting from the municipality.

“As a department we were prepared to buy Montclair building for them, but they’re not prepared to come to the party. There are also many buildings unoccupied in eThekwini. We need their co-operation. If we can get more co-operation we will quickly remove our people from the mass care centres.

“If they don’t co-operate, we will have to do it ourselves. The department will have to implement the project itself and we don’t want to do that. Lately I’ve noticed they’re co-operating, but we need much more co-operation because many people who are displaced are in eThekwini.”

Mahlaba said black people had been excluded from meaningful participation in the property industry, which he vowed to address.

“Blacks have been excluded from the property industry and we must correct that. We need to correct it because property owners tend to think everything belongs to them. We must empower everyone to make sure we deal with the challenge,” he said.

“I’m one of those who support expropriation of land without compensation. I will remain in that programme regardless of whatever is said. There are people who own land but don’t use it. Even if you offer to purchase, they double the price because they don’t want you to get access to the land. That is very unfair to our people.”

He said they plan to close the last mass care centre by the first quarter of 2023.

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