Thousands of poor villagers from Eastern Cape are living a life of torture after a promised housing project was left in its foundation phase.
Almost a decade later, the community of Qumbu and surrounding areas wake up to look at the abandoned concrete foundation slabs that were a promise of a better life for them.
With 2016 being the promised year that over 100 families from ten villages were to benefit from government’s RDP housing but almost eight years later these projects are still incomplete.
Sixty eight-year-old Dumisa Qangani says his home was dilapidated after he was identified as one of the beneficiaries. As years have passed, Qangani’s life is still the same and he lives in a dilapidated house alone.
Qangani says, “Government came here in 2014 and in 2016 they started building RDP houses but what happened is that the construction company only built concrete slabs and abandoned the sites. We are now sitting with a slab for a house that never saw the light of day. I would like government to please build a house for me.”
He further adds that he lives a miserable life, he has no house, and his Identity Document was taken away from him.
“My life is static and miserable. My children took away my ID and my social grant cards and left me with nothing, even my wife left me because I am not working. I do not know what to do, I need help because all my children just abandoned me here,” he says.
Community leader Nkululo Majeke says there are more than fifty unfinished houses in the village and people continue to suffer.
“This is very bad because this project was started in 2014, when we challenged it, there is no progress and we can associate that with the ongoing factions in the ruling party. We even engaged the province and there is no response. What do we want? We want these people to be prioritized, we do not know what the problem could be,” Majeke explains.
The South African National Civic Organisation (SANCO) says they have urged government to prioritize the needy families and complete these RDP houses.
SANCO secretary at Sithangameni village, Mzikalanga Majeke says the poor villagers have tough times ahead of them as the rainy season approaches.
“We want the government to visit all these indigent families to just identify them, that would be great. We do not want government to take a long process while the people on the ground continue to suffer. Please identify the needy families and build houses for the people. Summer season rains are coming and their dilapidated houses are getting worse,” says Majeke.
Not far from this village at ward 14, 52-year-old Gladys Rhulumeni was also identified as an indigent. Rhuleni is an unemployed mother of six children and lives in a shanty in the village. An RDP house was built but left unfinished. It has been four years now, the family’s life remains unchanged as they use dried cow dung as a source of energy.
“I have been waiting for so many years, my house is not completed. I have nowhere to go, I do not know what could be the problem. I do not know whether I did something wrong to the people that were assigned to build the house. But, if there could be something that I said to them which they did not like, I apologize, I really apologize but please come back and finalize the project,” begs Rhulumeni.
