While the Eastern Cape human settlements department has spent years pumping hundreds of millions into RDP housing projects meant to bring relief to impoverished families in Buffalo City Metro, many are still living in dire conditions, while their houses are either hijacked, vandalised or still stuck in the construction stage.
Recently, the Dispatch has been inundated with complaints from BCM residents, especially from Duncan Village’s ward 2 and 6, Gonubie, Vergenoeg, Mdantsane’s NU2 and Ilitha township, where millions have been spent by the government to build and refurbish their RDP houses.
They told the Dispatch that the human settlements department and implementing agent BCM, had failed to deliver on their promise to provide them with decent housing.
In the past financial year, the department failed to spend R338m allocated for housing developments by the national government.
That money was then reallocated to other provinces, even though more than 100 townships in the province had been earmarked for upgrades.
Sindile Booi, from BCM’s ward 6, is one of 800 beneficiaries still waiting for their houses to be completed in nearby Chicken Farm.
He alleged that their houses were being vandalised by criminals, while they lived in appalling conditions.
“We were promised these houses in 2008 and in 2013 we received our site numbers.
“We have been waiting since then. They started building roads and other infrastructure, then the project stalled.
We were promised these houses in 2008 and in 2013 we received our site numbers.
“For years there was no work being done on site.
“Last year, people started stripping the houses, stealing aluminium windows and doors,” said Booi.
He said they had raised this with BCM, and had asked that people whose houses had been finished be allowed to move in so they could help safeguard the other unfinished homes.
“The municipality declined because there was no water, sewerage systems or electricity on site.
“But people don’t care about services, and we suggested to BCM to provide us with temporary toilets and water tanks so we could live there, because right now we are watching our homes being demolished,” said Booi.
BCM spokesperson Samkelo Ngwenya did not respond to queries sent on Thursday and Friday, despite promising to do so.
Gonubie’s Mzamomhle township housing project steering committee chair, Elvis Mzwali, on Friday said after 540 residents from G-section informal settlement were approved for housing in 2009, “we are still living in dire conditions, renting shacks, while people are watching houses stuck in the building phase”.
Mzwali said the project was meant to be implemented in two phases.
The first phase saw 200 houses being completed and occupied.
The second phase was meant to have seen 340 houses built, but only 70 were completed.
Of the 270 remaining, about 100 houses are complete, but have no services, while others are still being constructed.
Mzwali said he had since written to the public protector and Legal Resource Centre, but “no-one has done anything to help us”.
The Dispatch has seen all the correspondences sent since 2011.
Even those who have moved into their house don’t have electricity and water.
“Even those who have moved into their house don’t have electricity and water.
“Old people living in these houses have to walk at least 25 minutes to fetch water,” said Mzwali.
Pensioner No-Ankile Nqamra, 83, who rents an RDP house in Mzamomhle, had applied for a house in Beacon Bay’s Nompumelelo township in 2011, but every month she has spend R1,500 from her R1,850 grant to put a roof over her head.
Her daughter Phumza said: “We sacrifice buying food to have shelter, and I sometimes get odd jobs to help pay for our expenses, but it is not enough. If she would get her own house, we’d use the rent money to buy food.”
Mandlenkosi Veli, from Fynbos in Vergenoeg, said residents had been living in temporary structures since 2012.
This after they were told to move from their shacks, because they would receive RDP houses.
Their houses were hijacked by people who were not beneficiaries.
“We have been waiting for BCM to evict those people, because the matter went to court and BCM was told to give us our houses, but till this day, we are still living in temporary shelters,” Veli said.
Provincial human settlements spokesperson Yanga Funani said the department only implemented the Mzamomhle project while the rest were under BCMM and the department provided an oversight role.
He said the Duncan Village “re-development initiative" had challenges that “prompted huge delays" due to contractual disputes which were resolved in court in 2018 between BCMM and Affordable Living Solutions Africa (ASLA) which is an Implementing agent.
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