Friday, 10 July saw residents of Zandspruit informal settlement welcome the Executive Mayor of Johannesburg, Geoff Makhubo to formally start the construction of Temporary Relocation Areas Project (TRA).
Makhubo was accompanied by the MMC of housing, Mlungisi Mabaso where they started to break ground to begin the construction of TRA in Diepsloot and Zandspruit.Ward 114 councillor, Victor Mafinya officially welcomed everyone present and introduced the speakers to the community.”My reason for visiting Zandspruit is to hand over this project to the community to protect, and to ensure that it goes to the finish without being disrupted,” said Makhubo.
He said Zandspruit was chosen by the national cabinet because it is a densely populated area which makes social distancing difficult.
As an emergency project and a response to the Covid-19 spread, national government directed the City to create projects that involve temporary residential units.”This is going to be a permanent setup as the people that are allocated here are going to eventually own the stands, and will receive title deeds,” said Makhubo.
Towards the end of the ceremony, the Northsider did manage to speak to the EFF leadership represented by Gift Mkasi, who expressed their disapproval of the selection process and criteria used to select the beneficiaries of the TRA.
“Extension 84 was earmarked for the development of Zandspruit, and the community is supposed to benefit from such projects. We don’t know how these beneficiaries were selected,” said a fuming Mkasi.
