IN PICS | Housing project gone wrong haunts families

For 27-year-old Rebecca Ntsoane, every knock at their Tembisa home feels like a countdown.

She and her disabled mother, Racheal Ntsoane, live in a family house which has been put up for sale, a constant reminder that it is just a matter of time until they are out on the streets.

They are clinging to the hope that a flat they applied for in 2018 at Tembisa Ext 5 mega housing project will materialise before they find themselves homeless.

“My mother can’t walk, she uses crutches and depends on a Sassa grant and child support to survive. We registered for one of the flats in 2018, hoping we could finally have our own home. But every day we live in fear that buyers will come and we’ll be kicked out, with nowhere to go,” Ntsoane explained.

The Ntsoanes are among 3,510 families from the Winnie Mandela community who were meant to benefit from the Tembisa Ext 5 project, an initiative by the Gauteng department of human settlements. But what began with high hopes has since turned into a story of stalled construction, broken promises and despair.

For some, the delay in completing the project has meant the collapse of businesses and livelihoods. Soyiso Matshaya, a subcontractor who built 48 units as part of the project, said he hasn’t recovered since the government stopped paying him.

“I had 18 workers and used a R90,000 loan just to pay them because the R280,000 allocated for the building of these units was not enough. But when the money stopped coming, I had no choice but to shut down. That was five years ago. I’m still paying off the debt, and sometimes I skip payments just to feed my family,” Matshaya said. 

He said the department of human settlement owes subcontractors close to R900,000 from the housing project. “The initial amount we were supposed to receive was R1,180,000 ... but we never received that,” Matshaya said.

Ekurhuleni mayor Nkosindiphile Xhakaza revealed that more than R180m has already been spent on internal services and housing structures for the project. A new structural assessment is under way to determine the viability of completing the project.

“This project, now 80% complete, has been inactive since 2022 due to budget shortfalls, poor project management, and repeated acts of vandalism.

“While some buildings stand partially completed, others have been stripped and damaged, leaving many families in limbo. We’re seeking a second opinion to finalise remaining work and realign the budget,” said Xhakaza.

While the Tembisa Extension 5 project was meant to deliver dignity for those in need of homes, it now stands as a crumbling monument to unfulfilled promises and a sore sight for the most vulnerable who continue to wait in the shadows.

The bathtubs and doors have been ripped out, there were no barriers on the staircases and the electricity boxes had been vandalised. The fence that had been erected around the housing project had also been stolen.

Minister of human settlements Thembi Simelane, who recently visited the site, acknowledged the project’s issues. “There were challenges from changes in specifications, construction mafias taking over the site, and ultimately a total stall. Now we’re trying to assess if it’s even possible to salvage what remains.”

According to the CEO of Master Builders SA, Roy Mnisi, there is no company doing a government project that has not faced payment delays. Others had to close down, he said.

“This is one of the biggest problems that contractors doing work for the government have. The majority of our members have not been paid and the last time I checked we were sitting at about R66bn that’s owed to our members. This is from different provinces and the amount is not fixed,” said Mnisi.

Despite some of their members wanting to take the government to court, Mnisi said he did not encourage them to do so because of the costs involved. . 

“I have one member who is closing down because the government owes him R250m and he has five employees he cannot pay or even finish the job at hand,” he said.

Meanwhile, Gauteng MEC for human settlements Tasneem Motara pointed out the magnitude of the province’s housing crisis.

“There are 1.3-million people on the housing needs register, and only about 400,000 have been approved. “It’s a budget issue. Until the economy improves, the pressure on the state will remain unbearable.”

But for families like the Ntsoanes, this offers little comfort.

“We just want a roof over our heads; somewhere my mother can live in peace. We’ve waited long enough,” said Ntsoane. 

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