Costly white elephants in Soweto

Published Mar 24, 2015

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Johannesburg - The Gauteng Department of Human Settlements spent millions of taxpayers’ money on housing developments at dilapidated hostels in Soweto.

Despite the R230 million poured into the projects, the units in Meadowlands, Dube, Mzimhlophe and Diepkloof have become white elephants while hostel dwellers continue to live in squalor.

Long grass sprouting from the pavement, a yard covered in weeds, a broken gate on the ground, smashed windows and graffiti on the doors bear testimony to how long the development at Dube hostel has been empty.

The situation is no different at Mzimhlophe women’s hostel, a few kilometres away.

The Star reported two years ago that even though the units were completed in 2011, they were empty and vandalised.

On Tuesday, the situation remains the same. The units have gathered dust and some doors are missing. Almost every window has been broken. The taps have been ripped from the walls, possibly sold for scrap.

The units come with stoves, which kept being stolen whenever they were replaced.

A month ago, some Soweto residents, who were angry because no one was occupying the units at Dube and Mzimhlophe, moved in.

Red Ants security guards kicked them out. When they threatened to return to Mzimhlophe, the Red Ants were told to stay put and guard the units so that no one else moved in. The Red Ants remain there.

Last June, a picture of Nomathemba Hlongwane’s naked buttocks went viral. The Star reported how she and others living in Diepkloof hostel protested about their living conditions while housing stood empty next door.

While the unused units have toilets, Hlongwane and other residents are forced to use the bucket system and live in a building that looks like it could collapse at anytime.

At the time of the protest, the buckets had not been emptied for three months.

The Star recently returned to Diepkloof and found that nothing had changed.

Most of the windows of the new units are broken and some have been set alight by residents who protested about not being allowed to move in.

Elina Mazibuko has been living at Diepkloof hostel for 25 years. She said residents were informed that the sewerage pipes had not been laid properly, hence they could not be moved in.

They would be moved on May 4 after all the pipes had been dug up and properly laid.

However, when The Star was there, there was no indication of any work being done on the pipes to meet the deadline.

On the other end of Soweto near Reverend Frederick S Modise Drive, a sprawling housing complex in Meadowlands Extension 11 looks like an abandoned town, with long weeds everywhere. The complex was completed several years ago but is empty.

Roof tiles have fallen off, doors have been ripped out, cables are hanging out of electricity boxes and windows are smashed.

Across the road and next to the building, Meadowlands hostel residents live with raw sewage running through the streets daily. They don’t have toilets and relieve themselves in buckets that they empty into the streets.

Residents in the four hostels said that when the new units were built, they were told they would be the beneficiaries.

But when construction was completed, they were told they would have to pay rent.

Sakha Mabaso has been living at Dube hostel for 20 years. Like all the other men there, he was under the impression that the units were RDP homes. Most hostel dwellers are unemployed or survive on odd jobs.

Despite the units being completed years ago, neither Mabaso nor other men at the hostel have moved in.

Last year Mabaso was home in Estcourt, KwaZulu-Natal, where he decided to apply for an RDP house because he had given up on getting one of the units. He was shocked when his application was rejected.

“They said it is because I have a house in Johannesburg,” he said.

Mabaso finds himself in a position where he can neither qualify for an RDP house nor move into a new unit because he cannot afford the R750 monthly rental.

The Department of Human Settlements and the City of Joburg said all the units were rentals and none were RDP homes. After the department has completed the units, it hands them over to the council, which then allocates them.

Departmental spokesman Motsamai Motlhaolwa said that while the delays were mainly due to connections to mains services and refusal by tenants to pay the monthly maintenance fee, MEC Jacob Mamabolo has requested a report on what could be done to accelerate the allocation of the new units.

The Johannesburg Social Housing Company has started identifying beneficiaries, starting with those residing in the hostels.

The city’s Nthatisi Modingoane said the developments were a social housing project for rent. RDP houses would eventually be rolled out.

He said

the city was fixing the vandalised units to make them habitable, adding that hostel residents would be given priority.

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The Star

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