State short-sighted in dealing with poverty

from The Independent On Line

By Staff Writer

If programmes to alleviate poverty are to have any real impact, they have to be sustainable beyond "the first generation" so that the children of the poor stood a chance of improving their lives.

In a paper delivered at the Living on the Margins conference at Spier, University of Cape Town poverty researchers, Sue Parnell and Edgar Pieterse, said the government was short-sighted in its attempts to help the poor.

"There is no question the political will to help the poor exists," Parnell said. "What is a problem, is that many of the steps being taken now will not improve the lives of future generations of the poor."

She said the Development Facilitation Act allows for compromises on the usual laws that govern the establishment of communities in areas zoned for low-cost housing.

'There is no question the political will to help the poor exists'
"It makes it legal to cut corners to keep costs down."

While this introduced a host of controversial issues in the development of low-cost housing, Parnell and Pieterse's concern is that the act unwittingly maintained the status quo with the poor destined to remain poor despite the attempt at a leg-up by government.

"Any relevant development by the formal sector within these communities becomes impossible because the infrastructure to support development doesn't exist or has been compromised.

"A major shopping chain couldn't build a complex within a low-cost community because, for example, the pipes used for sewerage might be to small to support the development," Parnell said.

People living in new low-cost communities were destined to a life of spaza shops and street trading, never enjoying the benefits of the first economy.