Acknowledgements.

It is my pleasure to welcome you all to this important occasion in which we launch our logo which represents the marketing icon of our programme.

The launch comes at a very significant time for me personally as the Executive Mayor's designated political champion of MURP. I have just returned with his Special Advisor from a South African Cities Network conference where we were exposed to the latest research on international urban renewal and an assessment of the South African situation.

I can confirm that what we have achieved since this Programme - referred to in the new literature as an area-based intervention in an exclusion area -- was announced in 2001 shows we are on the correct path.

That path is for me sometimes an emotional journey. Emotional because I was there when my father's house was bulldozed in Duncan Village. I was here when the housing programme - if you can call it a programme - started. I still live in Mdantsane today and experience first hand the harsh effects of post-apartheid life in a formerly marginalized area.

But development, Programme Director, cannot be constrained by emotions and personal circumstances and by emphasizing the wrongs of the past.

The objective to integrate Mdantsane's physical, economic, social, institutional and cultural dimensions has been underway for a long time.

But it took more concrete form following the announcement by President Thabo Mbeki in 2001.

The planning started in 1996/96 with a comprehensive framework and a detailed plan covering a 10-year period. A total of R163-million was spent in a seven-year period, R60-million alone on upgrading electricity.

The overall strategy has been to attain a holistic and integrated development of the community and to expedite urban renewal through the identification of priority projects around which community and local economic development will take place.

This is under way and the focus has been on the water supply and storage facilities, sanitation, roads and storm water drainage as well as an appropriate and adequate transportation system.

The strategy has sought to ensure maximum participation by communities in the economic opportunities presented with a focus on beneficiary groups such as the unemployed, women, children, youth, the disabled, the aged and HIV-Aids sufferers.

We have come some way with this intervention and this function is largely designed as an information sharing opportunity while the Executive Mayor will unveil the logo which represents the icon for social marketing of our intervention.

I am sure everybody present here today understands why we had to make this political intervention and where we are with this intervention.

In theoretical terms, we analyse our intervention by asking several questions. In this way we are to contextualize MURP: What do we see here in Mdantsane or what is the urban renewal typology because there are basically three types of urban upgrade scenarios.

There is inner city regeneration like we would be doing in the East London CBD area; there are informal settlement upgrades and there are exclusion areas which include areas like Mdantsane.

Among the other questions we ask to contextualize Mdantsane are: what caused it and what are the effects; what are we trying to do here in terms of policy objectives and what is the legislative and regulatory framework in which we are making our intervention; where do we start and how do we intervene?

There is also the question of our institutional arrangements, funding and the performance management system we use to see whether we are in fact achieving our objectives.

Mdantsane is a long way down the line with these questions as will be shown by the presentations here today.

I have no doubt that before lunchtime, we will all be clear about the context of this important intervention and there will be sufficient consensus that we are on the right path to the political cleansing of Mdantsane and for a just rebuilding and reconfiguration of an area that is home to more than 300 000 of our people.

We must not only, I believe have consensus on this intervention. We must all have the passion to drive it otherwise history will judge us harshly if we fail.

I thank you.

Sizwe Dikimolo.
MAYORAL COMMITTEE MEMBER

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