RDP houses: Lim’s story of backlogs and price tags
The Department of Housing in Limpopo, which recently won the overall national Govan Mbeki housing award, has the majority of its RDP houses occupied by foreign nationals.
LIMPOPO –Â Several hundreds of other houses had been abandoned by constructors at foundation phase leaving more than one million people gasping on the waiting list.
Investigations by CV revealed some houses are currently at the brink of collapse due to poor workmanship. It was further established that hundreds of the houses remained unoccupied for years.
According to the department a total of 500 RDP houses had been abandoned by constructors either at foundation or slab phase in the 2014/15 financial year. The houses were taken to the Eastern Cape which had a dire need.
Through housing MEC Makoma Makhurupetsa Spokesperson, Razwiedani Khathutshelo the department blacklisted all service providers who abandoned their houses.
Ironically, the questionable state of events happened but a few months after R465 million was budgeted for the construction of RDP houses in the province’s five regions: Peter Mokaba, Mopani, Vhembe, Sekhukhune and Waterberg regions.
The money was part of an amount of R1,2 billion budgeted for the construction of RDP houses this year. It was returned to treasury after the department failed to spend it within the specified time.
But Razwiedani, also acting as spokesperson, blamed the situation on having appointed service providers “too late as a Section 100 was imposed on us”.
Phuti Seloba, Limpopo Provincial Government Spokesperson said the province has applied for a rollover from the national treasury and that an amount of R398 million had since been redirected to back to the province’s purse.
During a visit to Mopani this week, more than 50 houses were found to have been abandoned by service providers in the slab phase. Most of the houses are situated in Phalaborwa, Baloon in Hoedspruit, and Bolobedu in Tzaneen.
A resident, Maxon Mongwe of Lephepane village, shares a dilapidated single roomed house with his wife Joyce and his 23-year old son and three siblings.
Another resident, Mamaropeng Baloyi in Bolobedu claimed her 22-year-old daughter had left the house to live with a boyfriend because as they shared one thatch mud house with five siblings.
In 2008 while under the tutelage of the MEC and ANC Provincial Secretary Soviet Lekganyane, the department launched an investigation into the illegal sale of RDP houses in the province. This, after over 1 000 houses in Extension 74, Greenside near Polokwane, Lephalale, Thabazimbi and Musina near Beitbridge were found occupied by mostly Zimbabwean nationals.
“The allocation of houses is done in cooperation with local and district municipalities. We only allocate the houses to legitimate South Africans but we have since discovered some have put a price tag on them,” said Seloba.
A visit by the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) saw the Chairperson in the cluster, Cathy Dlamini, praise the construction level of houses in the province, saying it “was out of this world”.
