Low Cost Housing Project in Rietfontein

Low Cost Housing Project in Rietfontein

Residents of Rietfontein are questioning the statement by the Local Municipality of Madibeng two weeks ago that they will not be moving more families into the Refentse Low Cost Housing Project in Rietfontein. They have witnessed family after family moving into the project over the past weeks but the municipality says that the people moving in are doing so illegally. According to residents the families are moving in with the help of vehicles including bakkies. They told Kormorant that they and their children have witnessed the new residents of the low cost housing project using the veld as a toilet and doing their washing outside the houses. Another resident contacted Kormorant to say that her employees have told her that the houses in the Refentse Low Cost Housing Project are being sold to the occupiers. “We were opposed to the project at first and raised our objections as part of the Environmental Impact Assessment process. After assurances by the municipality that the project will not affect us in any way we decided to give it a chance. As things are going now we are sceptical that we will not be severely affected,” one resident said. He expressed his concern about the environment and thought that the residents now living in the project will soon turn to the mountain, which is within the Magalies Mountain Protected Area both for ablutions as well as firewood because there is no infrastructure within the project as yet.The residents’ concerns follows questions by beneficiaries and residents of the Popo Molefe informal settlement in Rietfontein two weeks ago about the status of the project and when they will receive the houses promised to them in 2002. They were even willing to take an empty stand from the municipality and to build their own houses because of the desperate living conditions in the Popo Molefe settlement. In response to Kormorant’s enquiries earlier this month the Local Municipality of Madibeng’s spokesperson, Mr. Patrick Morathi, said that the project was still the subject of a forensic investigation by the Department of Local Government and Housing and the NHBRC and that the municipality has not received the report on this investigation. According to him the investigation found that some of the 150 houses completed will have to be demolished while more houses needed some correction. Morathi said that the allocation of further houses, apart from the 10 families moved there by the municipality in April, will only be done once the status of the project has been clarified with the provincial department and this has not been done yet. Kormorant enquired about the new families that are moving into the project last week. Morathi said in response to these enquiries that these families are illegally invading the houses as there has been no official handover of houses to beneficiaries by the municipality. According to him the infrastructure, including the water and sanitation, have not been installed yet and that the municipality is only providing these services to the ten families moved into the front houses of the project in April. Mobile toilets have been provided for these families and water is taken to them by a water tanker on a regular basis. Morathi said that the municipality will not take responsibility for the provision of these services to the illegal occupiers and they would then logically have to make alternative arrangements themselves. He said that the municipality will be investigating the fact that vehicles used by the illegal occupiers are let in at the gate and will take up the matter with the responsible security company. Morathi said that the municipality is considering steps to remove the illegal occupiers.