Construction firm fights theft at RDP homes

REPAIRS are being made to hundreds of new RDP houses standing empty in Mdantsane’s Unit P area, while beneficiaries wait to receive their homes.

Imvusa Trading Construction company is on a mission to fight thieves who relentlessly vandalise and strip the new RDP houses.

Although the company is one of three hired by the Eastern Cape department of human settlements to build more than 1 000 houses, Imvusa site manager Bezo Godlo said they had decided to do ongoing repairs to the houses they built.

He said once an unattended house started being stripped, it became an open target for further vandalism and theft.

“We are dealing with theft in these houses on a daily basis,” Godlo said.

“Thieves strip off bath sets, doors, ... They do this in the early hours. Sometimes we do manage to catch them and get the material back.”

He said that early on Tuesday workers on site chased a thief who had stolen a door and a sink. They only managed to recover the door.

“They steal from old and new RDP houses we have just finished. On Monday I saw people selling two toilet sets near the road.

“This was after we recently lost two toilet seats from our houses. I didn’t ask questions.

“I just took them from the sellers and brought them back to the site.

“There are people who are willing to buy these stolen things in the communities and that is why we are seeing an increase in these crimes,” Godlo said.

More renovation work is expected to commence on about 100 other vandalised houses in the NU1 and NU3 area after Buffalo City Metro housing head councillor Nomiki Mgezi met with housing beneficiaries last month.

Ward councillor Landile Vika said: “The metro will fix the damaged houses.

“We will have another meeting with the residents this week where the process will be communicated to them.”

No response was received from the human settlements department at the time of writing. —