INSIGHT | Covid-19 a wake-up call to rethink service delivery approach

There are ongoing efforts to have at least 2,000 families temporarily relocated from Duncan Village to make way for housing construction and to facilitate a process of overhauling the bulk infrastructure.

The lockdown period has obviously halted the project, with construction expected to commence once the lockdown is lifted.

Duncan Village as a settlement has been a site of many proposed and attempted interventions by the national, provincial governments and Buffalo City Metro (BCM) over the years.

In January 2020, BCM mayor Xola Pakati announced a R220m plan to rebuild Duncan Village with a target of building 5,500 homes in the first phase.

In the same address, it was also announced the area would be prioritised for housing development in both the Human Settlement Development Grant and Urban Settlement Development Grant of the metro.

Due to density challenges in Duncan Village, many families will need to be relocated to facilitate the envisaged development.

However, such a move was bound to attract resistance.

Also, the number of housing units that would be constructed (5,500 units) in an area that has more than 20,000 households in need of housing is bound to cause tension.

Intense and effective social facilitation would be needed to manage the tension and the relocation processes.

The coronavirus pandemic has put a positive spanner in the works for many of the Duncan Village residents.

Firstly, it has halted the relocation process, allowing those who were earmarked for a possible  move to make sense of their present circumstances and plan ahead.

Secondly, it has forced government decisionmakers to respond to the needs of the urban poor and be innovative in doing so.

Thirdly, it has temporarily halted bureaucratic planning processes that come with conventional town planning and is forcing town planners to think outside the box of conventional planning to meet the needs of the urban poor.

It is absolutely clear that  the post-Covid-19 period is going to require city managers to plan and respond to the needs of the urban poor in much more innovative ways than conventional methods have allowed.

News that human settlements minister Lindiwe Sisulu had made available a grant of about R340m to BCM to help deal with challenges in informal settlements, Duncan village being at the top of the list, was received with great excitement.

Over the years, the national government has made available grants to municipalities and provinces for RDP houses.

However, empirical research has repeatedly shown that RDP projects as a response to the housing needs of many cities are inadequate and a poor fit-for-purpose strategy.

Many scholars and civil society organisations, Afesis-Corplan included, argued for a mixed bag of housing solutions that could deliver adequate and decent shelter to many more families than the RDP option.

Strangely, the government always goes for the RDP option irrespective of its glaring limitations.

Threats of epidemics of the nature such as Covid-19 and climate change require that the  government intensifies its efforts and responses to the service delivery needs of informal settlement dwellers.

This calls for exploring alternative housing delivery options with the view to economically accommodate far more people.

It is a clarion call for town-planning to be agile, responsive and innovative. .

The empathy of municipal officials and councillors towards the needs of the urban poor is not under question here, it is the chosen responses to these needs that are sometimes outdated.

While the threat of the coronavirus is real and sad, it is inspiring to see the kinds of service delivery responses that many government institutions have been able to craft and deliver, often circumventing bureaucratic processes that usually take months for decisions to be made and actions taken.

We have seen the government swiftly providing clean and safe drinking water to disaster-stricken areas.

Even Eskom, with all its governance and financial problems, halted load-shedding and provided electricity vouchers for many poor households; systems for collection and distribution of food parcels were generated overnight and food parcels reached the poor in various corners of the country.

Suddenly the poor have become a priority for service delivery and the country has rallied to cushion them just a little against the coronavirus.

It is possible to translate the same approach to a service delivery ethos after the pandemic.

Obviously, the country will then not be in disaster management mode as it is now during the lockdown period.

However, I argue that besides the virus, the fight against inequality is the biggest crisis confronting our government today.

This is demonstrated by the government’s swift action to cushion the urban poor because of the risk they pose to the rest of the country, irrespective of class and income levels.

Covid-19 is a wake-up call for the country to rethink its approaches to service provision.

The proposed Duncan Village project is an opportunity to do things differently, examine the underpinning principles to our approaches and to innovate just a little so that available resources can be stretched a bit further.

The lockdown period has offered all of us an opportunity to reflect.

Qhamani Tshazi is a sustainable settlements programme officer at Afesis-Corplan. He writes in his personal capacity

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