Durban - Despite promises by government officials to intervene in resolving the Lamontville housing project, south of Durban, the flats remain unoccupied.
Six months ago, Human Settlements MEC Jomo Sibiya and eThekwini deputy mayor Philani Mavundla were among those who promised to intervene and resolve the issue of deserted and vandalised flats in Lamontville.
DA provincial leader Francois Rodgers visited the project this week to check on the progress.
He said it was shocking that despite the promises, nothing had happened, and the rightful beneficiaries were still languishing in squalid conditions after they were asked to move and make way for the project in 2019.
Rodgers recently spent two nights with the community in order to get first-hand experience of the hardship of living in a shack. He said he had obtained the original list of the people who were supposed to have been placed in the flats.
He planned to take the list to Sibiya and impress on him to place the beneficiaries in their flats.
One of the beneficiaries, Precious Mndaweni, told the Daily News on Wednesday instead of placing them in the flats, the housing officials from the municipality called them to a meeting and asked them to sign affidavits agreeing they were withdrawing from the list to the flats and promised them to find alternative accommodation at Cornubia.
Mndaweni said the community turned down the request and demanded to be placed in the flats as the original beneficiaries.
“We are aware that they wanted to give our flats to other people, but we will never allow that to happen. We were asked to temporarily move out to make way for the construction of the flats.
“We were even told that it would only take a year and we will return to live in the flats.
“When they were done in November 2020, the municipality failed to give flats to us, saying there were people who were objecting to us moving in,” said Mndaweni.
Sibiya said he was liaising with eThekwini Municipality to establish the circumstances around this project because the beneficiary list was also managed by the city.
The project was estimated to have cost R180 million and was for 30 families who had shacks on the land.
Ladypeace Shezi, one of the people who had her shack on the site, had told the Daily News last year that they were the victims of political fights for control of the ward between the ANC and the DA, adding that their area fell under ward 69, which was controlled by the DA, including some parts of Chatsworth.
Ganas Govender, who was ward 69 councillor, said he suspected the people who blocked beneficiaries were incited by politicians who thought people would thank him for making sure they got houses.
He said the area had now been demarcated and would fall to ward 74, an ANC ward.
The municipality spokesperson, Msawakhe Mayisela, said the city was aware of the problem and was concerned that the delays in placing people in the flats were being caused by members of the public who did not want to respect the government’s procedure for allocating people to houses.
Daily News