Frustration over lack of water
Although many houses in Transit Camp finally have running water after many years without it, for some this still remains a distant dream as they despondently await a solution to their problems.
Water isn’t the only thorny issue in the area. Some residents of Transit Camp still wake up in shacks while neighbours who they arrived with in the area live in good quality RDP houses. Transit Camp started out as an informal settlement before the Human Settlements Department built RDP houses for the residents of the area. However a number of informal houses were left out. In 2009 just before the houses were built, departmental spokesperson Lwandile Sicwetsha said a total of 430 houses would be built in Transit Camp by local emerging contractors and 17 other contractors who had been trained under the department's Construction Management training course.
At the time Sicwetsha said: “The department identified Transit Camp as one of the areas that needed urgent attention.
The construction will begin some time this month (November 2009). Each of the contractors will be allocated 25 units to build.” He said the contractors had been given a period of five months to complete the project.
Speaking to Grocott’s Mail this week Transit Camp resident Ntsikelelo Ngqekeza, who lives in a mud house in the area, said the houses were not built in chronological order. He said the constructors were skipping some yards and there was no explanation given for that.
Ngqekeza lives in the tiny shack with his wife and his child. He is unemployed and is struggling to make a living or build a decent house for the family. “It was six years ago when the houses were constructed here. Nothing was properly explained to us about why we didn’t benefit from the RDP houses. The only word we received from our Community Liaison Officer (CLO) was that we would get houses soon," he said.
Ngqekeza said the CLO said their RDP houses would only be built when construction starts in the Phase 2 of the Mayfield housing project in Extension 10. “We are in the dark about what is actually happening at the moment, but we are waiting,” he said.
Meanwhile, Noluthando Kahlana complains of sewage pipes that were not properly installed. She said her house and three next to hers are still without running water due to the faulty connections.
Kahlana said when people from the houses with proper connections flush their toilets, everything comes out just in front of her gate, in a trench that was dug by a private plumber who wanted to establish the errors in the sewage connections.
“The sewage pipes only ended here in front of my gate. Now when they flush their toilets all that sewage comes out here in front of my gate. I have reported the matter a number of times to the municipality but nothing was done.
“I started by reporting this to our Ward Councillor Monwabisi Tame and he said he would come and check. After some time he told me that he did come here to Transit Camp to check but he got lost and couldn’t find my house.
“I then reported it to Zamuxolo Peter. At that time he was still the Mayor and he came to inspect the situation. He saw this problem and promised that the municipality would take action and fix it. They never came to fix it up until now as you can see it.
“Our toilets are not flushing because they are not connected and we don’t have running water inside our houses. We use a communal tap while other people have flushing toilets and running water inside their houses,” said Kahlana.
Attempts to reach Tame were unsuccessful at the time of going to print.
Elias Ngcete, on the other hand, is frustrated by leaking water pipes which have forced him to close the station that supplies water to the house.
“Since 2012 we have been reporting this same problem and we came to a decision to switch off the station because this is a problem. Now we don’t have water inside the house and we are not even flushing.
“We are using the communal tap and that is frustrating us. Municipal people don’t care about the community they serve.
I have been going to the municipal offices for years and I asked to meet with Mayor Nomhle Gaga but council speaker Yandisa Vara refused to let me through to meet with the Mayor.
“I wanted to speak to her and hear why they are not fixing problems that are re- ported to them. I understand that they always say if something is in your house it is your duty as house owner to fix the problem. But this is not in the house and it’s their duty to fix it but they simply don’t want to,” said Ngcete.
Municipal spokesperson Yoliswa Ramokolo had not responded to emailed questions at the time of going to print.