Residents of Cyferskuil, north of Hammanskraal in
the North West, have brought a housing project in the village to a standstill.
They believe the process used to allocate the 100 homes was unfair and excluded
most of the poor in the community.
Soon
after construction began, with only the foundations of several homes being laid
last week, residents protested, preventing workers from operating at the site.
This
followed a meeting between disgruntled residents and Moretele Local
Municipality Mayor Andries Monageng where a memorandum listing their concerns
was handed over. The meeting became chaotic when Monageng took the memorandum
and left without reading and signing it first, said residents.
“We have
decided not to allow the construction of the houses to continue until this
matter is resolved. It is turning community members against each other,” said
community leader, Jan Motshegwa.
“We
welcome the RDP houses but our problem is that there are many poor people who
really need and deserve them who were left out. There are residents who can
afford to build their own houses who are also receiving RDPs,” he said.
Motshegwa
said there were many elderly residents in the village, some of whom cared for
orphans and relied on monthly social grants to survive. “They deserve RDP
houses,” he said.
GroundUp
visited the village on Thursday. Construction workers were busy disassembling
parts of the foundations for several RDP houses.
Makie
Sesana, 43, who is set to benefit from the project, said she was excited about
owning a house for the first time. Sesana is unemployed and lives with her two
children in a one-room shack. When workers left, they had only dug trenches on
the site where her home is to be built.
Sesana
said construction workers told her that they were leaving the site in
Cyferskuil because the community didn’t appreciate government’s efforts.
Moretele
Local Municipality spokesperson Mothupi Malebye said they tried to explain to
the residents that the municipality could only afford to build the 100 houses
in Cyferskuil.
“There
are many other villages in Moretele that also need houses. This is why for now
only 100 houses were allocated to this village. We were trying to explain this
to residents at the meeting, which unfortunately degenerated into violence,”
said Malebye.
He said
it was unclear when construction would resume.
Dineo Thapelo, spokesperson for North West’s Department of Cooperative Governance, Human Settlements and Traditional Affairs, said the department was investigating the matter. She said that “municipalities through ward councillors are responsible for identifying housing needs which they submit to the department.”https://www.groundup.org.za/article/north-west-housing-project-halted-angry-residents/
