Soweto residents took their complaints to Human Settlements Minister Mmaloko Kubayi’s imbizo in Rockville, where some of them, mostly the elderly and women, said they have been waiting for houses for almost 30 years.
Scores descended on the local cricket stadium in Rockville, many carrying personal documents and enquiring about the status of their applications.
Some of the residents have been on the waiting list for houses since 1996 like Lucas Mthembu who said he was shocked that people who applied for houses recently and some foreign nationals are occupying the houses.
“How can I not received the house but I have been in the waiting list since 1996 but you go to some developments in Fleurhof for an example, there are young people who applied recently but they have houses and what is worse you find Nigerians and they don’t even hide it they tell you in your face how they got in,” he said.
Mthembu said this led to him invading unoccupied houses during the Covid-19 pandemic wherein the police and the Red Ants moved in to remove them, leading to a stampede in which a child died.
A skeptical Mthembu said ministers and MECs keep changing but people still remain without houses.
Mimi Masuwa who applied for a house in 2013 for the Lufhereng Housing Development said the Imbizo was a public relations stunt by the department ahead of the elections next year.
“I don’t think this crisis will ever be solved, we are just being promised that we will get our houses but it never happens. These are just politics. They come here because now it’s time for elections. They bring us under these fancy tents that you can see a lot of money has been used to hire to impress us,” she said.
Another resident Almeda Mphatseng told the minister: “I was married and my husband owned an RDP house, then divorced and moved out. Have been trying to get my own house with no success. For 14 years staying in a shack paying rent, who is going to help me?” she asked.
Kubayi said some of those who applied in 1996 were never approved for a wide range of reasons including being married to someone who put their names on a title deed, some of their family houses have been registered with the applicants names.
“And now you appear as someone who owns a house and according to the law you can’t own the house under such circumstances,” she said while promising to root out corruption in the system.
Kubayi said since 2021, in Soweto, the Department had allocated 2149 houses for backyard dwellers out of 17 000 applicants adding that more RDP houses will be provided for those on the waiting list.
She said the criteria for qualification is that applicants must be South African citizens earning less R3 500 a month.
