Residents meet mayor over broken RDP homes

The Nelson Mandela Bay municipality has not fixed damaged RDP houses in years, and residents in Ward 45 are unhappy over the slow process of rectifying their homes.

Residents in the ward, which includes Gunguluza and Duduza – took up the complaint at a meeting with Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Athol Trollip at Thanduxolo High School in KwaNobuhle on Monday.

Trollip was accompanied by human settlements portfolio head Nqaba Bhanga.

Resident Jeffrey Sando said they believed that houses larger than 40m² could not be fixed.

“Mayor, we’ve been lied to. I was previously told that if you earned more than R3 000 your house would not be rectified, but people living next to me who worked at VW [had their] houses rectified,” he said.

Service delivery protests over housing have taken place recently.

Resident Siyabonga Fila said that as long as the rectification issue was not resolved, the municipality could expect more protests.

“We’ll protest until we’ve heard something concrete and see action.”

Trollip said years of human settlements department corruption had resulted in the municipality losing the ability to build its own houses.

“In the past we had a budget for rectification. People abused that.”

Bhanga said the municipality would call a meeting with the human settlements regional office.

“Give us time to meet the province. You are not the only ones experiencing these issues. This is happening across the metro,” he said.