Political brinkmanship was said to be at the centre of the never-ending housing saga in Alexandra.
With the election season on, more twists and turns will muddy and compound the problem rendering the homeless more desperate before their Constitutional right to shelter can be attained. This was inferred by the township’s proportional representative councillor for the Democratic Alliance in the Joburg City Council, Shadrack Mkhonto.
“Their desperation for housing will continue to build up from the half-hearted measures on this service delivery by the previous administrations which made the solution elusive for many years and now point at the current two-year-old administration for their failures,” Mkhonto said referring to criticism levelled at the DA by the ANC caucus in council.
He said, “It boggles the mind when the City’s current administration is accused of delayed allocation or reallocation of RDP houses which the ANC’s own decades of administration, sat back on and did nothing when numerous reports ‘allegedly’ revealed many instances of corrupt allocation of completed houses in Alex and likely countrywide.”
He alleged that some of those involved in the corrupt allocation were once employees of the Alexandra Renewal Project (ARP), the mega government and occasionally discredited re-engineering entity for the township. “They later became and are now retired councillors or employees while others continue in the same positions.”
He appealed to them to come clean and cease criticising the administration in an attempt to deflect from their involvement in the corruption.
He alleged that the corrupt officials used foreign nationals as pawns in the corruption. “Together with those with evidence implicated foreigners should not sit back but submit the information to law enforcement agencies and the City’s housing audit process for thorough investigation and prosecution of those who betrayed the public’s trust through the corruption.”
This said in reference to a special police investigation team said to update regularly the local, provincial law enforcement leaders and the regional director on progress.
According to Mkhonto, records show the allocated houses and the rightful owners who were not informed officially. “Also some of those purporting to end the ‘illegal’ corruption by evicting the foreign nationals have been rearrested while out on bail and awaiting court hearings for previous similar actions.
“Some of their victims are citizens who have alerted us that they will band together to defend themselves as they are entitled to houses.”
He urged for the public’s interest to prevail over vigilante action, partisanship in the township’s leaders when handling the housing and other problems of the township. “Only unity and partnering with the investigation process will achieve a lasting solution to this saga.”
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