BCM pays R13m after failing to meet target
RDP beneficiaries’ long wait for homes
BUFFALO City Metro has missed a deadline to complete and deliver 1 137 RDP houses for hundreds of disadvantaged families from Fynbos, East Bank and Ndancama informal settlements.
As a result, it has cost the metro more than R13.4-million in extra costs for time extensions and for contractors’ lost time.
The project awarded to Motheo and Mpumalanga JV construction companies started in 2014 and formed part of BCM’s eradication of shacks programme.
The construction of hundreds of houses was scheduled for completion in 2015, but BCM recently shifted the deadline to February 2018. Acting city manager Nceba Ncunyana said this was due to “various delays that have been experienced”.
BCM spokesman Sibusiso Cindi said these delays included the “massive rains and a violent taxi strike where employees were not allowed to be at work”.
“These factors also led to the construction delays. Due to these delays, the deadline was shifted,” he said.
While some residents from Ndancama and Fynbos phase 2 in East Bank have moved into their houses, not a single unit has been built for families from Fynbos 1, although they were the first planned beneficiaries of the project.
Ncunyana said delays were also caused by 250 families from the area who refused to move in order for the contractor to start work. The families are demanding they be given temporary shelters and also be approved for RDP houses.
“There is provision of 200 temporary shelters for Fynbos 1 and 2 in the contract. However, Fynbos 1 had an excess of 250 families that could not be relocated to temporary shelters. The approved general plan can only accommodate 211 houses whereas the total number of beneficiaries is 461.
“BCM stopped the registration of beneficiaries to the housing subsidy system after reaching the value of 211 of approved beneficiaries. The commencement of work experienced delays due to the 250 families who refused to move in order for the contractor to resume with the works, demanding temporary shelters.”
Ncunyana said that not all of the 250 families qualified for a subsidy while some who were still to be screened were potential beneficiaries.
Initially BCM planned to start building phase 2 after phase 1 was completed, however the metro has since ditched that plan and resolved to go ahead with phase 2 starting in May.
As a result of the crisis, BCM has had to fork out more than R12-million due to time extensions after the contractor was unable to access Fynbos 1 for a period of 375 days from November 2014.
Cindi said the metro was appealing to “our people to avoid wasting time”.
“Our contract stipulates that if the contractor is unable to do work at the time it was supposed to for reasons that have nothing to do with the contractor, the contractor bills the municipality for lost time.”
For the Ndancama project BCM has lost R1.4-million.
Phase 2 resident and community committee member Nongenile Mtati said: “My house has been completed but I don’t know when I will move in. We all don’t know when that time will come.
“The situation is bad in phase 1 because not even a single house has been built and it has been years. People on the other hand are desperately waiting for their promised houses.”