The African National Congress (ANC), the ruling party in South Africa since the advent of 'democracy' in 1994, came to power on the back of a policy document entitled the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP). An interpretation of the struggle declaration, the Freedom Charter of South Africa, 1955, formed the basis for this programme. "There shall be housing security and comfort', represents its fourth declaration and the State has already provided some four million houses in the first two decades of its post-apartheid independence. The majority of these are RDP houses, meaning that they replicate the National Building Research Institute's (NBRI) limitations of the four-roomed bungalows delivered during the forced removals in the apartheid days of the Group Areas Act (1950). The NE51/9 - the model apartheid dwelling, based on the suburban nuclear family - represents the equivalent for a 'black nuclear family' - a condition that contradicts the foundations of cultural practice, where the African tradition of Ubuntu ensures extended-family networks.
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