The Nkandinde family of Nyoni is still living in a dilapidated shack after the Mandeni municipality refused to give a site to a good Samaritan who wanted to build them a house in 2010.
Nyoni residents, Wonder Chili, Gcina Mkhwanazi and three other friends wrote to Ukhozi FM radio presenter Sbu Buthelezi and asked him to help their neighbour Agnes Nkabinde and her family with a house.
“Everyone in the community wished they could help her because she was supporting eight family members with her pension money and the shack they were living in looked like a death trap,” said Mazibuko.
In 2010 Buthelezi came and asked the municipality for a site to build the Nkabindes a home but was told that a housing project was under-way and they would soon get a new house with running water. The ailing grandmother never got to see her new house as she passed away in January 2011.
Her daughter-in-law, Jabulisiwe Manzi said the issue of the house still made her tearful because the family had a chance at a good life and the municipality denied them that.
Neighbours to the Nkabindes have taken to the streets three times in the past two months complaining about the housing project which they say is moving at a snails pace.
Project steering committee chairperson Scelo Zondi said the previous committee had told people they would be living in their houses by 2012.
However, Mandeni municipality communications manager, Mduduzi Manzi said constant striking by Nyoni residents will not make their housing project go any faster.
The first leg of the project kicked off in 2008 when then housing MEC Mike Mabuyakhulu gave R168 million to the Mandeni municipality to build new houses for Nyoni residents.
Manzi said Nyoni township was on a wetland so building new houses meant buying land to move the township. A sugar cane farm was bought and named Khenana ( meaning ‘promised land’) with a plan to build 2800 houses.
“One of our major delays was caused by an assessment that we had to submit to the water and land affairs department. Then Vulundela Asphalts which was contracted to lay down the pipework for water and sanitation was, liquidated in 2010, a few months into the project.”
Technical services director, Robin Sewdular said up until a couple of months ago the municipality was trying to get the liquidator (the new owners of Vulundela Asphalts) to complete work on-site but they were now waiting for a pay-out from the insurer.
“The good news is that over 250 houses are almost complete and Lulekani Construction are building more houses as we speak,” said Sewdular
