Residents of Skirliek outside Klerksdorp in the North West, tired of waiting to be allocated homes as promised, have moved into RDP houses that were abandoned by the contractor three years ago.
The defiant residents, many of whom live in shacks, said the government had promised that they would occupy the two-bedroomed houses but now, the unfinished structures are unoccupied and already falling apart.
The contractor left 124 foundations incomplete and 140 houses unfinished.
There is an accumulation of long grass in the yards of some of the houses, and the locals fear that criminals could use the spaces to hide and commit crime.
Among some of the the occupiers of the RDP houses is Martha Mokoena, a mother of two children, the youngest of whom is a month old.
“It’s pouring and we’re living in a shanty, but we have a brick home in our yard that we can’t move into because it lacks windows and doors and I don’t have the money for such things,” she explained.
Dimakatso Motlhaolwa said that she bought windows with the child support grant and now occupies the RDP house with her family.
“I just moved into this unfinished house a week ago. At least now my children won’t experience the cold that comes with living in a shack in the winter,” she remarked.
The walls of many of the incomplete houses were collapsing because they had been left unattended over a period of three years and the residents still feel unsafe living in the structures.
Tuduetso Modirapula, the granddaughter of the 85-year-old Rosy Modirapula is very protective of her grandmother and said even if the government came and finished building the house her grandmother had been waiting for so long, she could not let her live there because of the shaky foundation.
Former North West Human Settlements MEC Lenah Miga encouraged officials in the department in April last year to expedite unfinished housing projects, stating that immediate attention was required to resolve issues that affected the residents.
Miga, who visited Kanana township, 20 kilometers from Skirliek, at the time, said the department has faced many challenges over the last three years, including developers who left sites owing to the COVID-19 outbreak and other internal administrative challenges.
The current Human Settlement administration couldn’t come up with answers to what has been done since Miga’s request nearly a year ago.
