Names and addresses

The story went something like this, an aid worker narrated: They went to a country with the best of intentions, as international aid organisations do. They wanted to help communities most affected by the worst drought in two decades.

The aid organisation arrived bearing food parcels, water, animal feed, food vouchers, nutritional packages. On the other side of the world, fund-raisers worked to get more money to help the communities and others like them in the region.

Using their own complicated formulas, the aid workers set out to determine the urgent cases, that is, families who had been struggling even before the drought to make ends meet with the little that they grew and reared.

They were now in an even worse position because they no longer had the means even to barter for other essentials.

After determining the most urgent beneficiaries, the aid workers began distributing the supplies and vouchers accordingly.

This went on for a few weeks. As more and more parcels reached the families identified as most in need, other families began to resent the help they were receiving.

It was then that a group of wise women asked for a meeting with the aid workers to discuss their suggestions about how the aid should be allocated.

What the women told them changed the way the agency selected beneficiaries for that programme, most importantly how it determined who were most in urgent need of assistance.

The women told the aid workers that every woman in the region had at least one elaborate "traditional" dress that they wore to weddings, funerals and other important gatherings. Those who had more resources often had more than one elaborate dress.

Even during hard times, the dress was the last thing a family would sell. The dress, the workers were told, was special, a symbol of pride and an indication of a family's financial wellbeing.

So the women suggested the aid workers climb into their Landies and knock on some doors. They told them to ask the women in the households they visited one simple question: If they had their special dress.

If the answer was "yes", they were to move on to the next house. If the answer was "no", they were to help that family.

Others could be helped after these most needy families had been taken care of.

And peace was restored.

That is why I think the Alexandra Bonafides Movement is missing a valuable opportunity to define the terms under which government interventions, such as the awarding of RDP houses, are conducted.

One of the biggest issues in the allocation of RDP houses is the lack of openness about the recipients of the homes.

Why can't a list of people who have applied and qualify for RDP houses, and their position on the list, be made public at municipal offices?

When there is a new project to build RDP houses, a list of the people who will receive them should be drawn from the public list.

If people are moved up or down the list, reasons should be given on the public list.

Before the houses are built the communities should know who they are for.

Any discrepancies between the lists and the allocation of houses would be identified timeously and sorted out.

The community would be alerted to homeowners who apply for RDP houses only to rent them out or convert them into spaza shops.

Residents who are treated as stakeholders in the process are more likely to take an interest in the quality of the houses being built and to alert the authorities to short-cuts and substandard materials.

Until such time as the application for and awarding of RDP houses is an open process that involves the communities, we will have disgruntled people.

I hope that, while the Alexandra Bonafides Movement waits for the findings of the investigation into the 700 RDP stands in question, it sets about defining ways to ensure transparency in the process of awarding houses.

The allocation of houses in secret, with people jumping the queue and bribing their way into the houses, causes all the contestation over RDP housing.