McGregor residents told Minister of Human Settlements Connie September during a community meeting on Wednesday, 9 April 2014 that the McGregor municipality was practicing housing policies which separated people according to the colour of their skin.
They complained that the council of McGregor had failed to deliver a single house since the 2009 Local Government elections when the Democratic Alliance took control of the municipality. It was alleged that this failure was due to a group of people who had objected to any low-cost development for the coloured and black communities in their backyards.
Minister September said: “It certainly cannot be correct that 20 years in our democracy we still have people who believe in and implement apartheid-type policies that seek to segregate our people according to the colour of their skin. We have at our disposal a variety of progressive legislations and policies that prohibit such practices.”
She added, “the national government cannot become a spectator when some provincial departments of Human Settlements like the Western Cape are failing in their mandate to monitor the implementation of national policies like the Integrated Sustainable Human Settlements, which is the cornerstone of housing delivery in South Africa.”
Minister September said the community’s allegations would be followed up, adding “if we find any truth to them, the provincial government of the Western Cape and the municipality concerned will have to account for this discrepancy in housing policy implementation”.
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