Give us decent houses, metro told

Residents lay down list of priorities at public participation meetings on budget

THE desperate need for decent houses came out strongly at public municipal meetings held across Nelson Mandela Bay last week. While the tarring of roads and the need for jobs also topped the list of wants of residents in Wells Estate, Walmer, Colchester and Uitenhage, the call for the government to speed up its housing process and rectify shoddily built homes dominated proceedings.

The metro has been holding public participation meetings since last week to present its 2016-17 draft budget and vision for the next five years. The meetings will continue this week.

In Wells Estate and Colchester, the residents largely refused to accept their respective wardbased budgets, saying they did not speak to the “real problems of the people”.

Residents at the Wells Estate meeting pleaded for rectification to be made a priority, while Colchester residents urged council to push for speedy solutions to buy land on which to build houses.

Thobeka Doni, of Wells Estate, wanted to know whether the municipality first wanted her house to collapse on her and her children before doing anything about it.

She said municipal officials had already visited her home about a year ago, but she had heard nothing since.

Human settlements committee chairwoman councillor Nomvuselelo Tontsi vowed that those living in homes with structural problems would be given temporary houses.

She said housing rectification was not a municipal budget item, but a grant from the national Department of Human Settlements.

At a well-attended meeting on Thursday, Colchester resident Thembisile Tosi called on the municipality to return to the area to explain the budget “in a language everybody understands”.

“People see the screens and all that is written on it, but they want to know what is being done about their plots,” he said.

At a mayoral imbizo in Colchester last month, Bay mayor Danny Jordaan urged his staff to speed up the buying of land for houses to be built.

At the meeting on Thursday, residents were given timeframes for the process, which included getting the council’s approval of the municipality’s plan to buy the land. A council decision is expected next month.

In Walmer township on Wednesday, the residents became impatient as councillor Monde Vaaltyn presented the budget and integrated development plan.

Interrupting his presentation, resident Malibongwe Tshanga said they were not keen to listen to long speeches.

“People walked for an hour to come here. Don’t you think it will be wiser to zoom into issues that affect Walmer?” Tshanga asked.

“Please don’t tell us about New Brighton issues today.”

Vaaltyn agreed and focused on the proposed budget for Walmer.

In response, residents felt that the R90-million proposed budget for Walmer was not enough and that many service-delivery issues were not included.

Nkosinathi Buyambo, who stays in Area Q, said: “There is a problem with many electricity substations in Walmer.

“People steal electricity and those who pay for it suffer as we always have outages.

“I don’t see a plan in front of us that will fix that problem.”

Another resident, Dan Kato, said: “We have a right to RDP houses, electricity and water. What you are doing is not right.”

Vaaltyn said they would note the issues raised by the residents and include them in the plans for the next five years.

Meanwhile, at a heated meeting at the Allanridge Hall in Uitenhage on Thursday, residents wanted to know why mega development projects were not coming to the townships.

Mbulelo Geswindt, of Ward 48, said: “It’s a disgrace that people in Uitenhage must be treated like animals. We are becoming a farm.

“In our townships, we’re getting ‘by-the-way’ projects.

“Since 1996, you’re playing old records at every IDP meeting.”

The EFF’s Bo Madwara wanted to know why development projects were not going to the townships.

Juries Williams said: “I see they are going to build sidewalks and fix taxi ranks, but we can’t sleep on those things.

“The people want houses and that’s it.”