Human settlements gets the job done

KAMHLUSHWA – In dealing with a backlog of unfinished houses in Nkomazi Local Municipality (NLM), the Mpumalanga Department of Human Settlements has been commended for revisiting houses left incomplete by unscrupulous contractors in recent years. This emerged during a recent visit by the Mpumalanga Provincial Legislatures programme called Taking the Legislature to People (TLP) undertaken by the municipality. The TLP programme creates a platform for legislature to undertake an oversight exercise on government’s performance and engage communities on service delivery. During their briefing by the social cluster, members of the legislature applauded the department’s improvement in service delivery and responding to challenges it experienced in recent years. “It is pleasing that the long-outstanding backlogs have been identified and attended to, however, the public will always have issues to raise therefore there is a great need to be prompt,” said the chairman of the portfolio committee on human settlements, Mr Thulare Madileng. Another committee member, Ms Patricia Ngobeni, challenged project monitors to do their work. One of the beneficiaries, 45-year-old Ms Phumzile Magagula, who lives with her four children, says she is grateful that her desire to have a house has been fulfilled. She said, “I’m glad that my family will have a shelter and I wish the government can continue with this good work.” Meanwhile MEC Ms Violet Siwela assured the committee that the department had developed a turnaround strategy to ensure planning was done in a proper manner. “We are in the process of finalising an ideal organisational structure to be in line with our mandate. Furthermore, we have undertaken to do joint planning with the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs and municipalities,” she said. Two contractors have been appointed to complete 163 housing units which were either abandoned or surrendered to the department by contractors in various villages in NLM. “It is important that a contractor and projects are introduced to motivate communities to avert challenges and in the process assist in monitoring,” asserted parliamentary member, Ms Violet Nkuna. All the houses are delivered through the Emergency Housing, Rural, IRDP and People’s Housing Process programmes. The members further urged the department to ensure that it migrated from the narrow mandate of housing to the broadened integrated human-settlements delivery. The department is expected to attend to all issues raised by the committee before and during the visit.