Please find attached soundbites in English and Sepedi by the DA Shadow Minister of Human Settlements, Solly Malatsi MP.
View pictures: here, here, here, here, here and here.
On an oversight visit to the Rockdale housing project in Mpumalanga’s Steve Tshwete Municipality today, the DA was shocked by the living conditions our people have been subjected to by the ANC government.
The project consists of 205 houses, all of which have been completed but have no basic services. The people of Steve Tshwete Municipality continue to wait for the running water, electricity and proper sewerage systems to be fully installed at the incomplete houses.
The handover of these houses were supposed to be completed by March this year; however, residents who have no other alternative have been forced to occupy the houses illegally.
In some cases contractors’ labourers, who were responsible for building houses at a nearby project, are occupying some of the unallocated houses.
Even worse is that the housing infrastructure has become dilapidated and most have become the target of vandalism.
Some residents have been forced to make illegal electricity connections to cook and water leaks remain unfixed.
These housing conditions are a damning indictment on the failing ANC government and clearly indicates the ANC government’s disregard for the residents of Steve Tshwete Municipality.
The DA will now write to the Minister of Human Settlements, Lindiwe Sisulu, to request that she urgently intervenes in this housing project and the hundreds of other abandoned projects across the country that is preventing our people from owning a home.
This is further evidence of the ANC government’s complete failure in providing houses to the countless, mostly black South Africans who still remain destitute more than 20 years after liberation.
The people of this country deserves better than this uncaring ANC government.
The DA remains resolute that South Africans deserve to know the dignity of owning a home that is safe and decent.