Blog Articles
Women in Informal Settlements Affected By Poor Service Delivery
Prepared by Wetu Memela and Hloniphile Simelane “We thought we had rights, we thought we had dignity, but when they leave open sewerage all over the settlements are we considered as human beings?” Nobantu Shabangu, Middelburg, Whilst the lockdown has...
Planact Pays Tribute To The Late Auditor General
We, at Planact, are fortunate to have met and shared our social audit work with the out-going Auditor-General of South Africa, Kimi Makwetu, who has since passed on. We are truly saddened by his untimely death and would like to extend our deepest condolences to his...
Women are entitled to own land
Hloniphile Simelane [Opinion] In July 2004, at their meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, heads of the member states of the African Union made a declaration to actively promote the implementation of legislation that strengthens women’s land, property, and inheritance...
Asivikelane 12 Results: Metros could budget more for informal settlement services.
While national government reduced conditional grants to some metros, they all benefited from the R11 billion increase in equitable share funding in the national adjustments budget approved in August. Consequently, we see an overall increase in spending, but not for...
Triumph in U N I T Y – Exciting developments in Masakhane and Benicon in Emalahleni, Mpumalanga.
This week, the Planact team is spending time in Witbank/ Emalahleni in Mpumalanga with journalists from Bhekisisa Centre for Health Journalism to support them with capturing stories on the inadequate basic service delivery in the informal settlement communities we...
Emalahleni Cluster Back to Normal Business
The Emalahleni Informal Settlement Cluster (MASCOM) held its first physical meeting last week in Masakhane after a long break since declaration of the Covid-19 lockdown in March 2020. The Cluster meeting was held on 08 October 2020 under strict adherence to lockdown...
Asivikelane no.11 Results: The next Covid-19 wave will start in informal settlements.
Up to 45% of informal settlement residents contracted the coronavirus in the first wave. This is not surprising because they are sharing dirty taps and toilets. The sharp increase in the number of red traffic lights in Asivikelane 11 makes us worry that the second...
Asivikelane 10 results: Clean taps and toilets will curb the spread of Covid-19 infections
Asivikelane has reported many persistent service delivery problems in informal settlements – some of which have yet not been addressed. This month we also asked residents whether anyone in their households has lost their jobs in the last 4 months. Sadly, but...
Billions allocated for service delivery in Mpumalanga municipalities poured into a leaky local government system
The latest financial audit performance snapshot on municipalities in Mpumalanga province highlights a systemic decline according to the latest Auditor-General’s report titled Not much to go around, yet not the right hands. “The audit outcomes indicate that...
Consolidating recommendations to strengthen advocacy for improved community participation
Advocating improved public participation in local government underpins one of Planact’s projects in partnership with informal settlement clusters in Ekurhuleni and Emalahleni municipalities. Planact’s success in building capacity of these informal settlement clusters...