Residents have been fingered as contributing to the housing woes in Alexandra.
This was revealed by the MMC for housing, Bonakele Dan Bovu at a public meeting at Sankopano Community Centre.
At the meeting the community was updated on the city council’s plans for dealing with the ongoing housing challenge including the occupation of the Botlhabela Extension flats in Eastbank. There have been unsuccessful attempts by some residents to occupy the flats after remaining vacant for many months after completion.
Bovu said 5 000 applications for occupation were received and 3 000 were selected, but only 51 were found to qualify financially after credit and other assessments had been done.
“The banks will seek to protect their interests and investment in this housing scheme and people aught to understand this,” he said. “The bond registration papers for those who qualify are being processed, but their occupation will be delayed as the flats need to be repaired after the recent damages from the failed attempts to occupy them.” Bovu added that they were working with the banks to also explore ways of reducing the stringent assessment criteria.
He said damaging property because of frustration was not a helpful way of getting government’s attention to a problem. Instead, it impacted on the limited resources at its disposal for other service delivery programmes.
Govu said the ongoing housing problems in Alexandra had prompted the provincial government to conduct an audit which had revealed the collusion of some of the residents in the unfair distribution of completed housing. “Some of you were allocated houses but are either renting or have sold them to others including foreign nationals while opting to stay in backrooms,” he said. “Others have somehow been allocated more than one house which are being rented. “Some of you were also allocated houses without the required subsidy which contravened regulations.”
Bovu said the audit’s findings which were still to be concluded would help the housing department to clean up the problem, but appealed to the residents and local organisations to collaborate with government’s plan to ensure that the houses were fairly distributed. He said a preliminary indication was that R16 billion was required to address all housing need for the area, including the purchase and development of land elsewhere for those who would be prepared to relocate.
