Doringkop housing project outcry

Residents of Sakhamkhanya in Doringkop, outside KwaDukuza, are threatening to protest over the slow progress of the R208 million housing project in their area and the lack of information from the authorities.

They want to know why only one contractor was assigned to the project when they had been told there were two, and they also believe that money has gone missing.

Resident Syabonga Khuzwayo said the project started in 2015 and out of the 2274 houses, about 335 houses have been built.

“In our last protest in June, we were expecting human settlement MEC to address us, but an official from the department accepted our memorandum and promised that MEC will be back with answers before the end of July. However, that did not happen,” said Khuzwayo.

Approached for comment, human settlements department spokesperson Mbulelo Baloyi said it had been decided at a public meeting held in April that the main focus would be on completing the backlog of partially-built houses. The casting of slabs and walls would be put on hold.

Baloyi denied that money had gone missing.

“Regarding the mismanagement of money, the budget only pays for work done and on our records shows that there is no money that has been mismanaged.

“There was an investigation done and there is proof of all payments that were made and there is also a budget that was allocated for the project which is sitting with treasury and the project still has a budget for this financial year,” said Baloyi.

He said two contractors were appointed originally but they could not perform and the contracts were terminated.

“One of the contractors then took the municipality to court so it was not possible to appoint a second contractor until the court matter had been finalised.

The community has also raised questions about R47 million which was allocated for infrastructure that was supposed to be used by June last year.

Baloyi said the R47 million referred to in the memorandum is part of the total budget for the project which includes VIP toilets, stormwater control, water reticulation, sidewalks along the existing roads and sewer connections.

“Due to unavailability of bulk sewer line and obstruction caused by construction of privately built houses not following the approved layout plan, the services cannot be installed and part of this budget is currently being used to build VIP toilets. The money is still available.

“The process of re-designing is at the stage where the municipality, traditional councils and the department need to meet and agree on how the allocation of people should be done following the approved layout plan.

“The challenge currently is how Eskom have done the installations and Izinduna allocating sites and not following the approved layout plan. Also, the roads that were built that did not follow the approved plan.

He said the KwaDukuza municipal leadership engaged with the MEC of Human Settlements and requested to take over and resolve issues.

He claimed KwaDukuza municipality held a community meeting on August 8, but resident Khuzwayo denied that a meeting had taken place.

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