According to Mr Joseph Gumede, a resident of Ext. 3, his councillor recently contacted him and offered him temporary work on a new project in the area. He also recruited other residents from Ext. 3 for the project, which started two weeks ago.
The new project comprises a new, multi-purpose sports facility for sports like netball and tennis. The eight employees were expected to work through the weekend without any extra pay to ensure that the new facility is completed as quickly as possible.
By Monday, however, the project had been halted and no one was at the site when the Herald paid a visit. At the time, the new facility had almost been completed. Residents were unsure who, exactly, had been responsible for the project, however.
‘We were never told who the contractor was. We only knew that many of the people came from KwaZulu-Natal,’ says Gumede.
He and the other workers were also not sure whether they would be compensated for the extra work they did on Saturday and Sunday.
It was also not clear who would, in fact, complete the work and questions were raised about whether the facility was really needed in this particular spot.
The residents felt the developer should rather have upgraded the soccer field as everyone in the community plays soccer. They expressed doubt that anyone would be interested in playing tennis.
They also expressed surprise that the contractor, apparently, wanted to plant green grass around the facility, which is situated in an open veld where the municipality almost never cuts the grass. At the time of the visit, there was no sign up to say who had been working on the project.
The municipality’s answers to the Herald’s questions failed to bring the expected clarity. ‘The municipality is not aware of the multi-purpose sports field that is being built in Khutsong Ext. 3.
The most recent project is the building of roads,’ a municipal spokesperson said on Tuesday.
