Carlo Petersen
A CITY initiative aimed at upgrading 7 700 council units on the Cape Flats has hit another snag, leaving 48 Manenberg families to endure three more months of living in shipping containers.
The residents from Dinah and Eva Courts have expressed dismay after the city had initially told them it would take six weeks for their flats to be refurbished.
“We are now entering our seventh month of living in these containers, and the council has not come to inform us what is happening,” said Martha Bowman, 35, who has been living in Manenberg all her life.
Bowman said workers from Good Hope Construction (GHC) had initially downed tools in January, when GHC management said the refurbishments, which began in August, were halted because of gang violence in the area.
GHC had taken over the project from Filcon Projects, to restart in June last year.
Yesterday, GHC employee Earl Solomons told the Cape Times the company’s management had lied to them.
“They told us to stop working because of gang wars and that they were worried about our safety, but now we hear it was because of lack of funding,” he said.
GHC chief executive Raziek Rajah said they had halted the project in October due to ongoing violence in the community, but that the reasons for downing tools in February and in March was due to “default payments”.
Mayco member for human settlements Benedicta van Minnen admitted that additional funding approval processes had proved challenging.
“Dina and Eva Courts are the last blocks which need to be completed in Manenberg.
“The additional funding approval processes were required for repairs to the vandalised buildings, costs of delays and the additional security, (and) have proved challenging.
“We are pleased to report that we received approval of our funding application earlier this week,” Van Minnen said.
Rajah confirmed that workers would be told to come back to work next Tuesday.
“We are happy we have received assurance that there will no more defaults in payments, which we felt was highly unacceptable.
“I have since told the managers to inform the workers that they must get back to work next week Tuesday,” he said.
Van Minnen said: “Our overall project completion date of June 2015 is still achievable,” Van Minnen said.