Merafong recently acknowledged that Sibanye-Stillwater had donated 10 empty houses in Carletonville to the municipality.
In the past week, opposition party councillors, Messrs Welile Fihla and Tshidiso Mothibi supplied the Herald with the addresses of these houses. They are 7 Anthracite Road, 23, 33 and 35 Boundary Road, 7 and 23 Kudu Street, 31 Protea Place, 167 Reinecke Street, 1 Zinnia Place and 42 Wolmarans Street. The houses are standing vacant and some, like the ones in Boundary Road, have been badly vandalised.
Fihla and Mothibi were con- cerned because a reliable source had told them that the munici- pality was considering giving the houses to former councillors whose homes were destroyed during the demarcation struggle.
“It would be unfair as the municipality had already compensated these councillors financially years ago.” Fihla believes the houses should go to the families whose houses went down in sinkholes. The subsidence was caused by water leaks the municipality failed to attend to. Merafong now wants to give them RDP houses to replace the much larger ones that were destroyed.
Mothibi noted that the former Merafong mayor and -Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta), Mr Des van Rooyen was one of the former councillors allegedly set to benefit from the mining house donations. Van Rooyen is also notorious for being the Minister of Finance for a weekend.
“If he got one of the houses, he would not even stay there,” Mothibi complained.
The Herald took the allegations to the municipality on Tuesday.
A municipal spokesperson confirmed that Merafong had received the houses from Sibanye-Stillwater. The council would still decide what would be done with them, she said.
