Wedela residents call for vacant RDP houses to be given to families in need
Residents urge Merafong City Local Municipality to find a solution for long-abandoned low-cost houses while many families remain without adequate housing.
Residents of Wedela want the municipality to tackle the issue of low-cost houses standing empty after the owners moved away.
A community activist, Lunga Zituta, showed the Herald several empty low-cost houses in Wedela Ext 3.
Although small, these houses are particularly sturdy and solid compared to the low-cost houses being built elsewhere around the Merafong City Local Municipality currently.
“These houses were the first RDP’s that were built by the government in this area in the 1990’s,” Zituta points out.
He explains that most of the empty houses belonged to residents who had left Wedela to go back to their original houses in the Eastern Cape. Many of these people left around the time that AngloGold Ashanti retrenched many of its workers about a decade ago.
One house is empty after the owner was sent to prison, allegedly for raping a relative. It is unclear when he will return from prison. In most cases, neighbours now look after the houses, and they are not being vandalised.
“There are many people without a roof over their heads or who are renting. Why can the municipality not give these houses to people who really need them, instead of letting them stand empty for years,” Zituta wonders.
At least one of the houses has already been taken by a person in need of housing.
“Government is not allowed to re-allocate a property that is registered in the name of a person,” the municipality’s marketing and communication manager, Temba Fezani, answered when asked about the issues.
