S. African minister's recipe for cities without slums.

Byline: Felix 'Machi Njoku, PANA Correspondent

Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) - The fact that there is a slum around every major city in Africa does not mean that there can't be cities without slums, says Sankie Mtembi-Mahanyele, the Housing Minister of South Africa.

Mtembi-Mahanyele, who is the chair of the World Urban Forum being organised by the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN- Habitat) in Nairobi, said she had learnt from her experience in the huge South African Housing scheme that it was possible to rid African cities of shanties.

"I am saying it is possible because if people in South Africa have been able to get rid of a million informal settlements, then it can be done in any other country in Africa.

"The challenge here is the political will, the determination and focus. It is mobilisation, it is organisation that is central to the success of such a programme," she told PANA in an interview at the forum which entered its third day Wednesday.

Mtembi-Mahanyele led the post-apartheid government's housing programme which delivered one million housing units in August 1999, barely four months behind the five-year deadline.

She said the feat, unprecedented anywhere in Africa, was possible because the government was committed to the programme and was able to mobilise all what it took to achieve the goal in near record-time.