With the new proposed developments still in the back of one’s mind the executive mayor’s budget speech leaves a lot of room for debate.
Siyanqoba and Absa Property Development (Pty) Ltd and Emalahleni Local Municipality developments also got a paragraph or two in Cllr Salome Sithole’s speech.
No one needs to be clued up to realise the additional 13 000 stands will put more strain on the municipality’s infrastructure.
For the 2015/2016 financial year the municipality is budgeting R201 042 372 for infra-structure and basic delivery services.
There are also a lot of master plans up the municipality’s sleeve, but these plans are not really elucidated in the speech.
The Regional Bulk Water and Engineering Master Plan has a price tag of R54 987 000 and the Electrical High Voltage Master Plan, which spells out the urgent need to upgrade the substation because it can’t cope with the anticipated townships is also mentioned.
Emalahleni has 270 registered townships and of the 69 informal settlements, 25 are in the process of formalization. The municipality has an estimated backlog of 44 734 houses. There are 14 informal settlements that have to be formalized. The budget allows R90 000 000 for supporting bulk infrastructure for Siyanqoba and Klarinet. There is also provision made for infrastructure in Klarinet for roads and electrification to the amount of R26 000 000 and a town establishment at Nooitgedacht and the formalization of an informal settlement there will cost R6 184 000.
There is not a day that goes by where the Acting Municipal Manager, Mr Theo van Vuuren does not have to please explain water and electricity interruptions on his Facebook page.
Residents have had enough of the lack of basic services.
But then one hears about further developments and when it comes to fixing or replacing aging infrastructure the answer always stays the same, ‘there is no money’.
WITBANK NEWS has been looking into these new developments that are part of Government’s Breaking New Ground Strategy to address the housing backlog in the area.
The new Siyanqoba development will see 9 500 stands occupied. It is located 2.31km North West of Pine Ridge and 4.63km North West of Klarinet. The Absa Property Development (Pty) Ltd and Emalahleni Local Municipality development will see 3 500 stands come to light.
Mr Sikhumbuzo Dlamini, from Wandima Environmental Service, an Environmental Consultant who was contracted by the developer of the Siyanqoba Development, Vipcon (PTY) LTD accused WITBANK NEWS of working as an agent for someone when a closer look was taken into the proposed developments.
WITBANK NEWS posed questions relating to the Siyanqoba Development and this is what Dlamini had to say, “We wish to record that on the environmental assessment side, there is a legislated process called Public Participation Process (PPP) that is designed specifically to allow interested and affected parties an opportunity not only to be made aware of a project but to also get involved in and influence it. This process is costly financially and time wise.
The government being sensitive to this enforces this public participation process using legislated time frames so that developers are not forced to respond to the public concerning the planning and implementation of a project endlessly forever. For this project, that process was rolled out and the acid test as to whether this was done correctly is whether an Environmental Authorisation (EA) was issued or not. EAs are not issued when this process amongst others have not been done properly.”
He went on and said, “It is unfortunate here that it seems some interested or affected party, instead of engaging with the process during the PPP decides to wait for so long before deciding to engage with a process that concluded a long time ago. And more over, instead of openly coming out to the developers with any issues to look for solutions they hide behind newspapers. It is clear that newspaper is working an agent for someone and the agenda of that someone is unknown. Which, means we are shooting in the dark when supplying all this litany of demanded information.”
Instead of answering the questions posed by WITBANK NEWS directly Dlamini referred to annexures but failed to send the mentioned annexure to WITBANK NEWS.
One question that concerns residents is whether the project was advertised in WITBANK NEWS. Dlamini said yes and again referred to yet another appendix.
But a few paragraphs down Mr Stefan Roets, a town planner from Terraplan cc in Gauteng said no, it was not advertised in WITBANK NEWS but in the Provincial Gazette, Beeld and also the Citizen.
Lastly Mr Muntingh Venter in his engineer’s report mentioned the provision of bulk services are all as per the approved master planning currently being conducted by the municipality. The sewage works are being upgraded by the municipality and Rand Water is being appointed for this exercise. The bulk water supply is currently being addressed in close liaison with the municipality.
The municipality has indicated that sufficient bulk water is available for the first phase of the development. The municipality is currently in process with Bigen Africa to look at the utilisation of its water source and possible means to increase the availability of bulk water.
Methods are being evaluated that are in line with the national water strategy and the municipal policies.
All of this is wrapped up in master plans. But it leaves a person to ponder if there is a master plan to fall back on when the whole aging infrastructure gives in.
