Ethekwini’s failure to provide housing for poor highlighted
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South Africa - Durban - 02 November 2020 - Kennedy road informal settlement outside DurbanPicture: Doctor Ngcobo/African News Agency(ANA)
Durban – A REPORT by the KwaZulu-Natal Legislature painted a grim picture of eThekwini Municipality’s ability to build homes for needy residents who live in overcrowded informal settlements.
The report was tabled by deputy speaker Themba Mthembu on behalf of the legislature yesterday.
It comes after an oversight visit by members of the legislature to assess service delivery in the city. Shortage of houses and overcrowding in some areas were identified as key challenges, with some residents on the housing waiting list since 1996.
Where housing projects had been completed, the report questioned the quality of the structures as some were without sewer lines or electricity. Mthembu said the issue of housing was one of the city’s biggest challenges. He said the need was increasing year on year due to urbanisation.
This, he said, was further exacerbated by storms that damaged homes and left people destitute. “Community members complained that while social houses have been implemented and completed, those houses do not have water, electricity or sewer lines. Serious intervention is required to ensure that communities benefit from housing developments,” said Mthembu.
He said there were projects that had been waiting since 1996 to be implemented in areas like Tshelimnyama. “It is not clear whether the municipality has the capacity to deliver, as some projects have been included in the priority list and have budget allocations but have never been implemented,” he said.
The report found that there were housing projects in the rural areas that cannot be implemented because the city had not received approval from the Ingonyama Trust which holds rural land on behalf of Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini. Mthembu said in areas like Inanda and many others there were serious issues of overcrowding.
“There are houses that were destroyed by the storm and have not been rebuilt and people are displaced.” IFP councillor Mdu Nkosi said the issues raised in the report by the legislature were shocking. “In eThekwini, we grant permission for projects to go ahead and nothing ever happens after that. That is why there are so many protests, the community knows there are projects that should have been implemented. “There are many houses that were damaged by the storm that are yet to be fixed,” he said.
City manager Sipho Nzuza said the City had established a war room to tackle overcrowding and the repair of houses that were damaged by storms. He said areas like Tshelimnyama were high on the priority list. Nzuza said the key to addressing these challenges was creating employment opportunities – the underlying cause of all the challenges. “The main issue to address is the issue of joblessness, because if we address that, many of these issues start to fall away.
“The mayor, Mxolisi Kaunda, has set up a committee that aims to look at the issue of employment,” said Nzuza.
The Mercury