Canaan Mdletshe

Canaan Mdletshe

A total of 100 families from Cato Manor outside Durban will have their unsafe homes rebuilt in a massive R20million government project to demolish hazardous houses.

KwaZulu-Natal housing MEC Mike Mabuyakhulu, pictured, said the project affected RDP houses built by the government between 1996 and 1999.

"We want to rectify the mistakes of the past by rebuilding better, bigger and safer houses for the people. The affected people would be temporarily moved to an alternative transit area," he said.

So far 20 homes, built with the old space frame and wire walls now considered unsafe, have been demolished.

In most instances the homes leak when it rains and homeowners are exposed to electrocution. Other defects include cracks in the walls. More homes will be demolished later this week.

Mabuyakhulu said they would build the same houses in Edendale, Pietermaritzburg, where the same method was used to build houses.

Home owner Khokhani Shange, 37, of Mas'xha said that when she and her family moved from a shack to a newly built dream house in 1996, she thought her misery had come to an end.

But the dream ended when the house cracked and leaked when it rained.

"As if that was not enough, the electricity began to shock and it was especially very dangerous for the children," she said.