Half a kilometre to fetch a bucket of water is too far for someone who is old and is living on their own. Thembelani Mbunge is neither, but the Brakfontein, Alexandria resident is concerned about the living conditions of his neighbours and recently took Talk of the Town on a short tour of the informal settlement on the eastern edge of Nonqubela.
Many residents in Brakfontein carry buckets and containers of water over that distance several times a day. Making life tough for rakfontein’s approximately 1 700 residents is the fact that there are only four taps to serve the 345 shacks in the area. Making life a bit easier is the fact that many of the yards are equipped with rainwater tanks, and there are also several communal water tanks placed throughout.
“But there are elderly people who live here,” Mbunge said. “And if they live alone, there’s no one to help them when they need water. It’s painful to watch an old lady struggle with a bucket of water for the distance between the tap and her house.”
Mbunge comes from Motherwell, Gqeberha. He moved to Brakfontein in 2015, at age 20. Not because there was work for him there.
“PE can be bit rough: something can happen to you any time and you can die for nothing in your own back yard.”
Gqeberha is the most violent city in South Africa, according to an annual ranking compiled by the Mexican Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice in association with the Mexican Commission on Human Rights. In this ranking, it is also the 14th most violent city in the world.
With no employment available, Mbunge started a grass-cutting business. As we walk through the settlement, residents call out to him: “Hey! When are you coming to cut my grass?”
We pass two boys walking up the road with a weedeater and a canister of petrol.
“Those are my boys,” he says. When they’re not at school I pay them to do some of this work.”
It’s baking hot and a dog is drinking from a pool of water under the tap of a 5000-litre communal tank.
“The water truck delivers water to this tank, but sometimes it just doesn’t arrive,” he says.
Water from the four taps, distributed along the settlement’s streets, comes and goes (as it does for the rest of the area).
Many of the settlement’s residents have now been allocated 12m x 17m stands
“At least we would like water to every house, and electricity,” Mbunge says.
What does government policy say?
The draft White Paper on Human Settlements published in the Government Gazette on January 31 this year “aims to modernise South Africa’s housing policies. It focuses on integrated planning, better urban development, private-sector participation, and addressing housing backlogs” (landlordsassociation.co.za).
The document broadly affirms the National Department of Human Settlements’ Upgrading of Informal Settlement Programme (UISP) introduced in 2004. Policy statements include that the NDHS will::
“Implement in-situ, incremental, participatory upgrading of areas with unacceptable living conditions… develop… mechanisms for participatory and incremental informal settlement upgrading that will be carried out in-situ wherever possible… develop… mechanisms for the upgrading of temporary relocation areas that can no longer be deemed to be temporary.
Spatial transformation policy includes that:
“Spatial transformation will be facilitated through alignment of human settlements development plans with economic, transport and planning strategies as this is central in restructuring the apartheid and inefficient settlements spatial form.
“Further, the Department will pursue spatial transformative interventions and explore mechanisms of providing incentives that encourage spatial transformation and mobility… Human settlements will be developed with/or within spaces with economic opportunities and where possible, economic opportunities be created in proximity to residential areas (i.e., jobs to people and people to jobs).”
A White Paper is drafted by a department or task team. It presents more detailed policy proposals than the preceding Green Paper, which is a discussion document. Once it has undergone public consultation, it is put before parliament for discussion before being signed into law. This draft white paper is in the public comment phase. You can find it here: https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/202501/52013gon5801.pdf
RDP housing in the formal township of Nonqubela has been a priority of Ndlambe Municipality. However, questions to Ndlambe Municipality about infrastructure and services provision to neighbouring Brakfontein hadn’t been responded to at the time of publishing.
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This article was first published in Talk of the Town, March 20, 2025. The newspaper serving the communities of Ndlambe and the Sunshine Coast, with a weekly wrap of Makhanda news, is available at stores from early on Thursdays.
