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DESPAIR: Thabo Motjotji between his incomplete RDP house and the shack he currently shares with his brother. PHOTO: NTWAAGAE SELEKA

 I wish I had money, I could have long completed my house 

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Many of the RDP houses in the area do not have doors, roofs and windows. Others are half-complete.

The beneficiaries claim they cannot complete the houses using their own money, citing poverty and unemployment.

Construction allegedly stopped almost a year ago and residents now demand to know why the project was abandoned.

Some residents said they had been told that the houses could not be completed because the government had no funds.

Other residents claim that constructors abandoned the project after the government failed to pay them.

Because the area was initially an informal settlement, many of the people who stood to benefit from the RDPs still live in their shacks.

One street had a complete RDP house, an incomplete one, while on a third stand only the foundation trenches had been dug.

Thabo Motjotji, 67, who lives with his elder brother in a two-roomed shack behind their incomplete RDP house, said: "I do not have an idea of when my house will be completed."

"I don't know what to do or who talk to at the municipality.

"I wish I had money, I could have long completed my house."

Another disgruntled resident, Buyiswa Marks, stays in a two-roomed shack with her husband and five youngchildren.

"I was happy when they dug the foundation trenches in our yard.

"I thought my children would have their own room. Instead, people later came to refill the trenches because there was no money to complete the houses," she said.

Marks's children are now forced to sleep on the kitchen floor.

Olga Salagae's RDP house is partially roofed but has no doors nor windows.

"What can I say," was all she said to this reporter.

There were many incomplete, unoccupied partially-vandalised RDP houses in Salagae's street.

Free State department of cooperative governance and traditional affairs spokeswoman Senne Bogatsu refused to reveal the name of the contractors involved.

Instead, she said MEC Olly Mlamleli had made a commitment to complete all the incomplete projects in the province.

"The process will continue in the next financial year. We will make sure all those houses are completed.

"The department experienced a shortage of funds in the previous financial year. That is why the contractors could not be paid," she said.

Bogatsu said the department now had the funds to complete the houses.

"The houses will be completed between now and the next financial year," she said. - ntwagaes@sowetan.co.za

Comments

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Thu Jun 20 09:55:56 SAST 2013 ::

Jun 20, 2012

MommaC

How do you start a project when there are no funds to complete it? That is basic budgeting. Either someone stole the money or the books are in such a mess that they have no clue how much money there is.
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Jun 20, 2012

PleaseGetReal1

Hi Mommac, Your comment just came after I signed in, you said exactly what I thought.

Well done again to the people who vote for the anc.
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Jun 20, 2012

nqondeya54

yes, they stole the money
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Jun 20, 2012

Stumaeza

service delivery at it's best...it seems like this is happening all over the country! OUR SO CALLED LEADERS ARE STEALING FROM THE POOR
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Jun 20, 2012

MommaC

PleaseGetReal1

Hey there.
It makes you wonder just how disorganised a municipality can be. What is the bet that the financial manager is the brother of the sister-in-law's first cousin's uncle who can't write his own name?
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Jun 20, 2012

fizo

Most houses in free state it's now a year or two, last time i was in Heilbron, i saw unfinished clinic and more houses, When i ask they said in may but it's now end of june..
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Jun 20, 2012

Chichima

Buyiswa Marks, stays in a two-roomed shack with her husband and five youngchildren.
...................................................................
Buyiswa don't u have a clinic nearby,have u ever heard of family planning?we all know that children are a blessing from God but ppl should stop having children they can't support really now.


If its not the gov stealing from us,its the so called BEE contractors..I give up nxa

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Jun 20, 2012

Keafixa

i bet the contractor was paid in full........this companies shud just be audited by SARS, then they'll return the monies to government aniway
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Jun 20, 2012

somaartakeit

You got the quality services you voted for, so please live with it.
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Jun 20, 2012

hulas

A few years back anc administration gave my mother rdp house.within a week there was cracks door handles broken and the house was very small.A few years later I completely demolished a stupid house and build my mother a mansion like that one of madiba in qunu.Our people deserve matter than this anc bull.
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