‘We have to use a pit toilet,’ RDP housing beneficiary tells delegation

Residents from Soshanguve, Mabopane, Ga-Rankuwa and Winderveldt last week told a provincial government delegation how they had to resort to measures such as using a pit toilet when their RDP houses were left unfinished by building contractors.

“I do not even have a flush toilet but there’s always running sewage in my house,” Wintervedt resident Lindiwe Nkosi told the delegation from the Gauteng Provincial Legislature (GPL) Portfolio Committee on Co-operative Governance & Human Settlements.

The department is being held directly accountable for failed housing projects.

Nkosi said what frustrated her the most was that she is using a pit toilet but somehow has to deal with the sewage problem.

“I have complained about this so many times. But even if they fix it, I know it will not be long before it happens again. This sewage comes from the nearby houses,” she said.

“I had to move my children home because of the smell. I sometimes have to stay away from my own house because of the smell. It’s been six months since it started overflowing again.

“I had to find a way to channel the sewage away from the house because it was ruining things in the house. The only thing I ask is for them to find a permanent solution for this.”

The delegation visited the unfinished housing projects on Thursday.

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Some of the houses were abandoned by contractors at the foundation level while others are yet to be completed.

Residents complained about overflowing sewages in their houses that has not been attended to in months.

A resident of Soshanguve extension 6, William Motseng said he decided he would finish his own house after the contractor left in 2018.

“I was tired of waiting for them, I did not know when they would come back so I decided I would build it myself.”

Prudence Seakhela, whose house was abandoned by a contractor in 2018, said she was told to demolish her shack and that they would build a house for her.

“It is so painful because they left the house at the foundation phase after they told me to remove my shack so that they could build. The shack was in a very bad state after I moved it.

“The community felt sorry for me and they decided to build a structure for me. I feel the contractors misused the money and we have been left stranded.”

The committee chairperson Kedibone Diale-Tlabela said, “There are so many abandoned projects in the city but we are yet to get the exact number of these projects.

“They are categorised, there are those that are called blocked projects where the service provider ran away for some reason or other. We are told that when you build an RDP house most of the money is made at the ground level.

“People leave projects at the foundation level because they feel that there is no money in building the house, so they feel they can just discontinue their contract with the government.”

Diale-Tlabela said some contractors take the money on the pretext that they will do the job and end up not doing a quality job. As a result, people cannot be moved into those houses.

“We need to recoup our monies from some of these contractors, we cannot allow unscrupulous people to benefit unduly from this project.

“As a committee that came into the legislature in 2019, we found that there have been challenges in this portfolio.

“We have incomplete projects dating back from as far as the 90s. We started last year in prioritising our oversight visits, going to incomplete blocks and abandoned projects throughout the province.”

She said some of the projects in Soshanguve have been waiting for for seven years.

“Some of the beneficiaries finished the houses themselves but you can see that they are not in a good condition.

“We are going back to the legislature to get answers from the department on how they are going to resolve issues where beneficiaries have finished the structures themselves but are not in compliance.”

Diale-Tlabela also spoke about the recent killings in Mabopane and Soshanguve that are allegedly linked to government projects.

“There is a rumour that the killings we see happening in Tshwane are a result of government projects. There is no concrete report from law enforcement agencies to confirm this.

“We cannot say it is political killings because some of those who have been killed are not in political structures. I think we should allow the law enforcement agencies to resolve this problem.”

She also spoke about the sewage issue faced by Nkosi in Winterveldt.

“Sewage pillage is a problem and the municipality was there with us and they have confirmed that they are doing something about this issue. We will follow up on it.

“We want to also call on communities not to build in the area where they can see the government are building sewage lines. The department has committed that we can come back in six months to check the projects.”

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