Shack dwellers still waiting on their upgrades

Hope fade that metro’s promises will materialise

SHACK dwellers from 32 informal settlements across Buffalo City Metro have given up hope of informal settlement upgrades which were approved by council in 2015.

Scenery Park community leader Atwell Masupa said they were approached by Afesis-Corplan, a nongovernment organisation based in East London, and BCM to be part of development plans in their communities which included new houses, electricity and roads upgrades.

“We were sceptical about this when it was first presented to us but the community bought into the concept because they thought it would change their lives.”

He said they had been left in the dark about the project. “According to my understanding, they were not going to bring all the services at once.

“We thought they would start with electricity and roads and then gradually they would come with all those services, but up until today there is not a single thing that has come out.”

Ronald Eglin, a sustainable settlement specialist at Afesis-Corplan, said the 32 informal settlements were identified for development by the national upgrading support programme in 2013.

He said funds had been allocated to hire consultants to develop upgrading plans for the areas.

The plans were completed in 2014 and approved by council in 2015.

“As far as we know, those upgrading plans have not been implemented.

“The municipality has not given clear answers as to why those plans have not been implemented.”

He said the municipality was mandated to source funding for the project from various sources after the upgrading plans were completed.

“The plans say that there are places that the municipality has to go to get funding, like the urban settlements development and upgrading of informal settlements programme.

“The plans outline where the funding can be obtained.”

When asked why BCM had not carried out the upgrades as planned, BCM communications officer Luxole Komani said while certain upgrades had been carried out and others were in the pipeline, there were certain areas that could not be developed.

She explained that the 32 informal settlements were part of a national upgrading support programme in which the national Department of Human Settlements was offering support to municipalities for developing interim measures to provide basic services to communities in informal settlements.

“The first round saw 32 informal settlements included in BCM.

“Basically not all informal settlements are built in areas that can be developed,” she said, explaining that some informal settlements were located on “undevelopable” land – within flood lines or steep slopes – and required either “partial or full relocation”. It was impossible to expect that all informal settlements would be upgraded at the same time “as applications and layout plans need to be designed which could take up to 18 months for each single application”, she added.

“Over and above this are the applications that have to be submitted to Cogta [former Ciskei areas] which could also take more than a year.”

She said all 154 of BCM’s informal settlements would get some kind of service, whether a water standpipe, roads, electricity or ablution block.