Cape Town - Increased attempts to invade serviced land sites to build houses and lack of land are contributing to severe delays in a multimillion-rand Worcester project where people have been on waiting lists for years.
Construction mafias, which result in money being pumped up for security, were also adding to the problems, the Portfolio Committee on Human Settlements heard on Wednesday when the national and Western Cape provincial departments of human settlements briefed the committee about housing service delivery at the Breede Valley Municipality.
Human Settlements MEC Tertuis Simmers and Breede Valley Municipality snubbed the meeting, and instead issued an apology.
However, MPs were disgruntled, with ANC MP Mohatla Tseki saying this was the third meeting Simmers had not pitched up for.
In 2020, Breede Valley councillor Mangali Moses submitted a petition to the national government requesting intervention in what was termed the slow pace of development in the New Mandela Square 652 Integrated Residence Development Programme (IRDP) project.
Human Settlements Deputy Director-General Sindisiwe Ngxongo said since then the various meetings had take place to unlock potential delays.
“The state is that the project has been elevated to the status of a catalytic project, and is expected to yield 8000 units in total, which is higher than what was anticipated.
To date, there are 2546 sites that have been serviced and 800 units, of which 190 are in progress.
“There have been delays in terms of bulk electrical capacity, which requires about R321 million from the department of minerals and energy,” said Ngxongo.
Western Cape human settlement implementation chief director Phila Mayisela said the project was approved in 2002, and the municipality had resolved to break the project into smaller phases.
“About 1800 sites have been serviced as part of the 2002 approval.
The 652 new Mandela Project is part of the sites served as part of the approval. The settlement has grown to about 5000 structures. We need to repackage the project, given the influx into the area, and also on the serviced stands where we were supposed to commence the project, the numbers have doubled.
“In certain instances on one erf there are more than three structures blocking construction. We are sitting with a situation where on properties that were serviced to build houses there are more than 1000 structures,” said Mayisela.
“There is an increasing challenge from the construction mafia disguised as business forums. They start to demand to be given jobs outside the framework that has been established for the project, to the extent that they even threaten local subcontractors and main contractors.
“This is a matter that is not only affecting human settlements as a sector, this is actually forcing us to take the money that was supposed to be spent towards local beneficiation and increase security, so that we can deliver the much-needed service,” she said.
Committee chairperson Machwene Semenya said while they appreciated the work that had been done, improvements were needed.
“The person who started the petition said this project started long ago, but it’s taking a long time to be completed. The municipality keeps on pumping money into this project. We must get answers on why taxpayers’ money is wasted on one project. Another housing project, 662 houses, was supposed to be built in 2018. What is delaying this?”
She said the committee needed to visit the community to make an informed decision.
Cape Times