Durban - The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Human Settlements has issued a stern warning to beneficiaries of government-built or Reconstruction and Development (RDP) homes that selling the properties was a “betrayal” that undermined the government’s efforts to provide housing to the poor.
The department was reacting to an advert on social media in which an RDP home in Sweetwaters, outside Pietermaritzburg, was put on sale for R65000.
It costs the government about R120000 to build a single house.
The Mercury understands that beneficiaries of RDP houses, especially in townships, can legally sell houses after seven years when they have received their title deeds.
However, the department’s spokesperson, Mbulelo Baloyi, said: “This is a betrayal and dishonesty on the side of the beneficiary. They are selling the house for almost nothing. It’s clear that they didn’t need the house.”
Baloyi said the government still retained first rights to the houses and those who no longer needed them should hand them back so that they could be allocated to those who were still in need.
He said to date, the government had built close to 5 million houses that should be accommodating about 20 million people.
“But we know that some of these houses are being used for other functions. Beneficiaries are renting them out while they move back to informal settlements. Some are being used to run tuckshops.
“There are incidents of people living in informal settlements, like Kennedy Road, who are beneficiaries of housing elsewhere. They’re the ones leading community protests damaging government infrastructure and demanding government builds them houses,” he said.
Baloyi said by providing RDP housing, the government aimed to restore the dignity of people who genuinely deserved them, but this was being abused. “Some beneficiaries mistreat the RDP housing because they have no moral attachment to the house. They didn’t feel the pain of paying and treat it as free,” Baloyi said.
He said there were many individuals who did not need houses but demanded them regardless. “There’s the mentality some people have that is a problem, that if something is free, they want it,” he said.
Mqapheli Bonono, of shack dwellers’ movement Abahlali baseMjondolo, said it was important for the government to engage with beneficiaries about where the houses would be built before building them, as that would stop people living in shacks while renting out their formal houses.
“People want to live close to where there are opportunities of employment and where it is cheaper to travel to work.”