KZN MEC for Housing Ravi Pillay has accused the Herald of being a ‘DA agent’.
This was in response to an article in last week’s Herald which highlighted the shocking plight of Francina van Schalkwyk (63) who lives in a builder’s shed on a construction site. She looks after her two orphaned grandchildren, is disabled and sickly. The shed has no basic facilities like sanitation, water or electricity.
MEC Pillay said the article was ‘a shocking piece of DA propaganda masquerading as journalism’.
He also threatened to take the Herald to the press ombudsman.
The Herald concedes that it was tipped off by the DA, but we interviewed Mrs van Schalkwyk ourselves. The story then contained comment from the DA criticising MEC Pillay in regard to the ‘level of service delivery’ and RDP housing in the Ray Nkonyeni Municipality.
The Herald went through the normal channels and phoned Mbulelo Baloyi, a spokesman for the Provincial Government, for comment. Our reporter was told he was not available.
An email was sent on Monday this week to do a follow-up and he responded yesterday (Wednesday). His response was: “The MEC is dealing with this matter.”
Meanwhile, an angry Mr Pillay had already phoned the day after the story appeared, saying his department prided itself on having been recognised as the ‘best performing department in the country’ for three consecutive years.
“KZN has surpassed the DA-run Western Cape in housing delivery by a long way. Over the past five years, KZN has built over 140 000 houses. The Premier of the Western Cape is on record as all but giving up on meeting their housing targets.”
In his response, he mentioned nine housing projects in the Ray Nkoneni Municipality:
Louisiana, Masinenge, Merlewood, KwaXolo, Ezinqoleni, KwaMavundla, KwaNdwalane, Oshabeni and Kwamadlala (despite the fact that some of these projects have gone beyond their completion deadline).
“This record of service delivery is a big part of the reason for the ANC winning more than a two-thirds majority in the recent local government elections in Ray Nkonyeni Municipality,” he said.
MEC Pillay added that the DA’s Dr Rishigen Viranna had embarrassed himself with his ‘lack of knowledge of the projects’ in the area as well as its geography.
“He was accused of abusing four elderly people by making them wait the whole day in Pietermaritzburg and misleading them by telling them they would get houses. They had to be told that they would need to go back to Port Shepstone as their DA public representative did not know how to help them.”
Mr Pillay said his track record of over 40 years spoke for itself.
“It’s quite irritating having to deal with an uninformed novice seeking to develop a profile in an area where he does not live and which he clearly does not understand.”
He said the 2011 census revealed a backlog of 630 000 houses in KZN. This was never going to be dealt with overnight. He blamed this on urbanisation.
“Having completed Louisiana and significantly dealt with Masinenge, the last major informal settlement will be Mkholombe. This is in the planning phase and will have to await budgetary allocation.”
MEC Pillay said Eskom was also in the process of electrifying Mkholombe as part of making people’s lives better.
He also said that they were looking into the sustainability of current housing policies
“We have never been populist and won’t start now. People from Ray Nkonyeni Municipality have confidence that housing delivery is happening and that their turn will come.”
To view the full letter from MEC Pillay, click here: Ray Nkonyeni Municipality response
Editor: We concede that we should have given MEC Pillay more of an opportunity to reply, but we deny that there was any ulterior political motive on our part. The Herald is certainly NOT ‘a DA agent’… or one for any other political party, for that matter. For the record, we were more concerned about Mrs van Schalkwyk than promoting any political party agenda. No doubt there will soon be another tit-for-tat comment from the DA. Meanwhile, Mrs van Schalkwyk and her grandchildren still live in squalor.
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