Sowetan: Residents threaten to boycott elections

http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/2011/03/31/residents-threaten-to-boycott-elections

Residents threaten to boycott elections
31-Mar-2011 | Alfred Moselakgomo

“This government is playing with us. Since they dug foundations for RDP houses more than a year ago they have not come back to us,” said Nurse Motha of Donkerhoek.

She lives in a one-roomed mud house next to her roofless RDP structure.

“This incomplete house is a home to my chickens while my family and I sleep in a mud house,” she said.

Motha is one of 130 prospective RDP beneficiaries on Donkerhoek and Jabulane farms outside Piet Retief.

In February last year the Mpumalanga Regional Training Trust (MRTT) entered into an agreement with the Human Settlements Department as well as the provincial and national rural development departments to ensure poor people received RDP houses.

A contractual cost of R8170175 was to be funded by the national Department of Rural Development after invoices from the provincial human settlements department were processed. But this has not happened.

Authorities blame non-payment for the delays in completing the houses.

During their appearance before Scopa on their financial statement, provincial rural development MEC Candith Mashego-Dlamini accused the national Department of Rural Development of failing the project.

“We have been liaising with them (national department) to determine why MRTT has not been paid as agreed, but to no avail.

“Plans are under way to meet the departmental director-general to highlight challenges that MRTT and the province are facing due to the failure to transfer funds,” Mashego-Dlamini said.

She said failure to pay MRTT was to blame for the current state of affairs at Donkerhoek and Jabulane villages, where the houses were left half-complete since early last year. The project was supposed to be completed in June last year.

MRTT chief executive Davis Moropane said despite the challenges, his trust had managed to build and complete 50 houses, while 76 were under construction.

A total of 28 youths trained by MRTT in bricklaying and plumbing are involved in building the houses.

Another disappointed beneficiary, Vusumuzi Dlamini, said she did not see any reason to vote for the ANC after what she described as “total disrespect”.

Patrick Neves of JDR Construction, the company appointed to build the houses, said they were also disappointed by the government’s failure to pay them.