Buffalo Flats housing list debacle deepens

Disgruntled Buffalo Flats extension community residents are taking matters to the premier’s office, saying they were fed up with Buffalo City Metro deputy mayor Zukiswa Matana’s report on a housing list fracas.

In May scores of residents Matana was reading off the same list that was tampered with from Vergenoeg, Fynbos, Egoli and Muvhango closed the Mdantsane Access road with burning tyres and old cars in a fury over new RDP housing allocations.

They had gathered outside ANC ward councillor Roseline Witbooi’s house claiming there had been shenanigans, and alleging an anti-coloured racial bias in the allocations.

Matana, asked to intervene, yesterday said: “In my investigation I found the allegations had no basis and nothing on the list was tampered with.

“The list is the same as that registered by the former ward councillor [DA’s Irene Brauns].”

Matana found no evidence of Witbooi saying coloured people would not be allocated RDP houses.

DA member and resident Olga O’Neill said Matana had been reading from “a tampered list”, which was why they left the meeting. She said they took the matter to premier Phumulo Masualle’s office, where two officials from the department had promised to follow up.

However, provincial spokesperson Sonwabo Mbananga denied knowledge that there was even a meeting.

Yesterday Witbooi said the fury in the community was politically motivated by opposition parties, and Matana’s report had exonerated her.

Witbooi said she would hold a public meeting soon.