Borwa Project a multimillion flop

Scores of Bekkersdal residents continue to live in shacks and in unsanitary environments as more than 100 houses in Borwa remain incomplete and unoccupied.

The houses were built as part of the Borwa Urban Renewal Project which was estimated to cost around R432 million. It has since been left abandoned.

A migration plan to move Bekkersdal residents to Borwa was meant to be implemented four years ago, but to date nothing had been done.

This was discovered during an oversight visit by members of the Democratic Alliance (DA) on Wednesday, September 7 which left some of them horrified by the appalling and inhumane living conditions in the area.

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Mervyn Cirota, the DA Gauteng Shadow MEC for Human Settlements and Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs said they went to assess the living conditions of Bekkersdal residents and were shocked by what they saw.

The tar roads have deteriorated due to a lack of proper and regular maintenance and there are multiple illegal electricity connections. Raw sewage is flowing from people’s yards and all over the streets.

The poor sewer infrastructure causes sewage swamps during the rainy season as the drain systems are blocked and not functioning properly,” said Cirota. He added this posed a health and safety risk for residents.

Speaking to the Herald Tahir Sema, the Department of Human Settlement’s Chief Director of Communication Services gave reasons for the delays in completing the project.

“The project performance had been adversely affected by unavailability of funding for sewerage and electricity bulk infrastructure as previously committed for by the municipality.

“However, the construction of a bulk sewerage pipeline is now underway, and the municipality is in discussions with the developer to produce solutions for the construction of new reservoirs in Simunye and Thusanang. Budget has also been availed in this financial year through the Provincial Grant Complementary Funding for primary and secondary bulk link sewer and electrical reticulation,” said Sema.

He added that approximately 231 houses were at the completion milestone but have not yet been handed over to the Department for allocation due to invasions that occurred from last year on September 28.

According to him, illegal invaders have also hampered the process of completing the houses.

An eviction order was granted to the developer on December 15 last year. The invaders appealed the court decision, which was dismissed with costs on February 4. Subsequently, lawyers representing the invaders wrote a letter to the developer’s attorney indicating they were in the process of filing a petition to the Supreme Court of Appeal. To date the matter has not been heard by the Supreme Court of Appeal,” said Sema.

Asked when Bekkersdal residents could expect the project to be complete and be moved into the new houses, Sema said, “Houses can only be completed once all the required bulk infrastructure such as water, sewerage and electricity are in place. However, this can only be done once the eviction order is upheld and illegal invaders are evicted to allow access to houses to be completed on remaining milestones and quality-assured before being allocated to the rightful beneficiaries.”