Millionaire minister slums it for South Africa (News Feature)

By Clare Byrne Aug 5, 2009, 12:34 GMT

Johannesburg - The black ministerial Mercedes Benz X5 car bumped and grinded its way over the rutted lanes of Diepsloot informal settlement north of Johannesburg and came to a halt outside the local youth centre.

South Africa's millionaire Minister for Human Settlements, Tokyo Sexwale, had come to investigate first-hand what had caused slum dwellers across the country to stage a series of violent protests.

This wasn't the first visit to the slums by Sexwale, a native of Soweto township on the other side of the city and ruling African National Congress (ANC) party stalwart, who returned to active politics this year after 10 years building a business empire.

But this time, he took his reconnaissance one step further.

After a day of meetings with residents and officials, the owner of a 239-hectare wine estate and one of South Africa's richest men, bedded down for the night in the corner of a draughty tin shack by the light of a single candle.

Sexwale, who himself spent his early days in a shack and spent 13 years in prison on Robben Island for resisting apartheid before becoming a so-called 'black diamond', admitted the experience had been a 'real eye-opener.'

Because of the cold, he got less than three hours sleep, he said. That was despite the minister having brought blankets.

Sexwale's initiative, which he says was aimed at 'starting a meaningful conversation with the people,' was widely commended.

'Before they (politicians) only came when they wanted us to vote,' one Diepsloot resident told Business Day newspaper.

The media took particular note of the fact that the minister had planted his shiny shoes apparently unperturbed in a pool of sewage when addressing reporters.

President Jacob Zuma's government is on a mission over the past week to repair the disconnect between the state and the millions of impoverished South Africans still living in squalor 15 years into democracy.

Diepsloot, a community of around 150,000 people, about a third of whom live in shacks, is where the demonstrations that have characterized a 'winter of discontent' in South Africa began a month ago.

Residents torched cars, burnt tyres and pelted police with stones over plans by the municipality to move their shacks away from a burst sewage pipe. The demonstrators were acting on rumours that they would be moved to another province, far from Johannesburg and their places of work.

The riots quickly spread to more than a dozen townships across three provinces, raising fears of a repeat of last year's violence, in which slum dwellers, frustrated at their lot, killed at least 62 migrants from neighbouring African countries.

While the catalysts vary from one community to the next, a leitmotif of frustration over the slow pace of upliftment of the poor and/or corruption among local officials has emerged.

Since 1994, the government says it has built 2.7 million free houses and electrified millions of homes, but townships are still dotted with shacks, some of which consist of a wire structure covered in cloth.

Addressing the causes of the unrest last week, Zuma admitted that the ANC, which was easily returned to power in April elections but with a reduced majority, had grown detached from its grassroots base.

'The ANC is a people's organization, and is supposed to be with and among the people.'

'The protests that have taken place suggest that many ANC branches are failing in this respect,' he said.

After being noticeably absent from the trouble spots last month, Zuma, who campaigned as a champion of the poor, also spent time this week in the affected townships, listening to people's grievances.

And Zuma and his ministers have also begun to level with the electorate.

After creating unrealistic expectations during and even since the election of millions of new, better-paid jobs and improved services, the government, which is grappling with South Africa's first recession in 17 years, is now appealing for patience.

'Give us a chance,' Zuma recently pleaded.