Municipality in for high jump over RDP housing conditions

Municipality in for high jump over RDP housing conditions

PARLIAMENTARIANS were less than satisfied with the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality when they found water leakage in Veeplaas during their oversight visit to RDP houses in Nelson Mandela Bay yesterday.
Veeplaas resident Mkhuseli Siganga told them the water had been leaking for more than three weeks and they had alerted the municipality, but nothing had been done.
The chairman of the portfolio committee on human settlements, Nomhle Dambuza, said the municipality had to be accountable for the water leakage and she could not believe, given the water crisis, that it had not reacted immediately.
“We say there is not enough water in South Africa and our people live without water, yet our municipalities allow huge amounts of water to gush out in leakages without repairing them for weeks.”
The committee embarked on a week-long visit to Eastern Cape RDP houses and were in Port Elizabeth yesterday to assess the quality and quantity of houses delivered.
Areas which they visited with municipal and council officials included Matthew Goniwe, Kamvelihle, Veeplaas, Zanemvula in Despatch and Ramaphosa in Motherwell.
Dambuza said issues such as sanitation and water had to be rectified by the end of next year.
“The provincial Department of Housing is still using the old system of building houses where people do not have sanitation and water.”
Dambuza said progress had been slow and she had noticed problems with areas such as Matthew Goniwe still using the bucket system.
Matthew Goniwe resident Nokuzola Dlamini said: “We live without toilets and water. When I have to use the toilet I have to use a bucket then empty it on our grounds. This house that was built for us is not fit for human habitation.”
Dlamini lives with her husband and two children, aged five and eight, in a one-bedroom home.
“They (government officials) have come with promises so many times I no longer believe what they say.”
Siganga said: “We have had problems with our water supply for over six months and our living conditions are appalling because water leaks from the toilets to our front doors.”
Dambuza said: “People must be given water and proper sanitation.”
She said she would report to parliament the defects in the RDP housing system and ensure necessary steps were taken to hold the responsible municipal officials accountable.

Alternative Construction Technology - Low cost housing visit by Nomhle Dambuza

Daily Dispatch Online 2009/10/06

PARLIAMENTARIANS got a first-hand account of life in East London’s low-cost housing projects yesterday at the start of a week-long trip around the province.
Chairperson of the portfolio committee on Human Settlements Nomhle Dambuza said she was pleased with the progress in delivering RDP houses, but unhappy with the living conditions in places like Ducats and Duncan Village.
Dambuza said the provincial Department of Housing needed to unblock all projects that were halted because of poor workmanship and shift towards building sustainable human settlements where people had jobs and proper sanitation facilities.
“They are still using the old method of building houses, and the issue of sanitation is a mess. Something has to be done by the end of the week because it is a health hazard, ” she said.
Dambuza was speaking at a community meeting in Ducats outside East London, where emotional residents expressed frustration.
Resident Zukiswa Siwendu said she had lost two children in consecutive years because they had no clinics or ambulances to take them to hospital.
“We do not have clinics or mobile clinics here, the closest one is in Nompumelelo in Beacon Bay,” she said.
Siwendu said the scarcity of water and proper toilets were also a problem, because everybody shared the same tap and used long drops for ablution facilities.
“When the toilet gets full, we have to scoop everything out with a bucket and dump it in the bush, which causes an unbearable smell,” she said.
Another resident, Bonisile Ngqoyiya , said government should first finish all houses that were badly built before attempting to build more.
“The first RDP house that was built here has big cracks in the walls, even though there is an old woman living in it,” he said.
Ngqoyiya said local RDP houses were built in 2002, but were still unfinished seven years later.
He said the area did not have a proper dumpsite or refuse collectors, so people threw garbage onto the pavement where children played.
“We have been asking the municipality to collect the rubbish for years, but no one seems to care,” he said.
The committee will visit projects in Port Elizabeth, Cala, Queenstown, Whittlesea and Ugie during the week, and present a detailed report to Parliament. -

By GCINA NTSALUBA — gcinan@dispatch.co.za

Low cost housing - Bisho spends R360 million to fix broken homes

Daily Dispatch Online

2009/07/30

BHISHO is spending R360 million to fix nearly 20 000 broken homes in the province while the poor live in flimsy cardboard units and ghost towns emerge from the ruins of disastrous housing projects.
In some areas of the province communities have deserted formal housing settlements because the homes were so poorly built they cannot live in them any longer.
The number of homes having to be repaired is more than the total number of 19662 houses delivered in the 2006/2007 financial year.
While the provincial government tries to rein in its backlog of 800 000 RDP homes, a two-month investigation by the Dispatch has revealed how:
Homes were built in areas which people have long since left;
One project in Seymour became State-sponsored “holiday homes” for people who live in other cities and only return in December;
Residents in Burgersdorp were moved into cardboard houses when their RDP homes began falling to the ground, and were then asked to clean up the mess themselves;
One project of 600 homes in Tarkastad has been standing empty, while a waiting list to house people continues to grow;
Depopulation and inferior construction in places like Venterstad has led to the emergence of ghost towns; and
A community near Bhisho is still waiting after five years for electricity and water because the government refuses to provide the services until it has finished the housing project it started eight years ago.
The biggest victims in the province’s housing fiasco are among the most vulnerable in the population.
Like two pensioners, Loki Makeleni and Ngqukuse Nonxaza, who have been living in a flimsy cardboard home for seven months while their shoddy RDP house in Burgersdorp is repaired.
“The government doesn’t care about people who live here. We’re going to die in these houses. I’m just waiting for my coffin right now,” said the elderly Makeleni.
To rub salt into their wounds, the local Gariep Municipality wanted the same residents to clear the tons of rubble lining the streets – for free.
The problems in Burgersdorp are far from unique – in fact, all but one of eight housing projects visited by the Dispatch are being rebuilt .
In many cases inexperienced contractors have been blamed for the problems .
Two weeks ago Housing MEC Nombulelo Mabandla vowed to blacklist incompetent builders and recover funds from them where necessary.
But she said her department would never forsake emerging contractors and would do all they could to mentor them in future.
“ That is why we have developed a training programme for them, called the Emerging Contractors Development Programme,” she said.
Seymour and Venterstad are two examples where RDP homes have been deserted or remain unoccupied because there are no local jobs, or poor workmanship has made the buildings unsafe.
Yet the reverse has happened in Tarkastad, where more than 600 residents are on a waiting list to occupy low- cost homes in a nearby project that is standing empty.
Derek Luyt from the Public Service Accountability Monitor in Grahamstown said the department’s Service Delivery Charter and Service Delivery Plans for 2009 and 2010 highlight its pitfalls.
“Staff shortages and lack of sufficient skills have severely hampered the department in the past, and it will not be able to deliver sufficient houses of adequate quality unless it solves its human resources problems,” Luyt said.
Democratic Alliance spokesperson Pine Pienaar said the huge backlog, lack of monitoring and under-spending in the department was a direct result of the department’s inefficiency to fill critical posts in technical and finance departments. - By GCINA NTSALUBA. Pictures: THEO JEPTHA