RDP bungle in Missionvale
Bay municipality built more houses than there were sites with water, sewerage infrastructure
ACONSTRUCTION blunder has seen RDP houses built in Port Elizabeth’s Missionvale township before water and sewerage services were even installed. With the promise of new homes staring them in the face every day, residents of the impoverished township have to now wait until the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality manages to resolve the bungle.
The mistake was created by the municipality’s human settlements department, which built more houses than the number of sites serviced with water and sewerage infrastructure.
This means residents will have to wait for about a year while the city’s infrastructure department tries to play catch-up and installs the required services.
Ward 31 councillor Penny Naidoo said she feared residents would not get the good quality houses they were expecting.
She raised her concerns about the problems with the housing project at an infrastructure and engineering committee meeting on Thursday.
“I was on the committee for the services for houses to be built here and I had long discussions with the people and there is no service infrastructure being built here,” Naidoo said.
“I’m really worried because Aloes Valley informal settlement is the main area which gets flooded when it rains. Without stormwater drainage systems, the water will push up the foundations.
“I want to avoid the same thing that happened in Seedats [a housing project in Missionvale] in 2002 when houses were built and there were no flushing toilets or running water,” she said.
When The Herald visited the Aloes Valley informal settlement, the team saw houses in the process of being completed without any water pipes attached or provision made for flushing toilets.
The team also visited the Seedats area and saw that there was no plumbing in the houses, forcing residents to use bucket toilets.
Some of the children relieved themselves outside in their yards.
Responding to Naidoo on Thursday, water and sanitation director Barry Martin said there had been a communication breakdown between his department and the human settlements department.
“The respective funds for services and houses don’t come at the same time. The planning is aligned to achieve the goal of integrated human settlements, but the funding doesn’t come in an integrated way,” Martin said. “We did service the housing sites as was agreed upon, but human settlements built more houses than the sites serviced.
“We’ll do our best to deal with the backlog created and it will take about a year or so,” he said.
Human settlements acting executive director Simiselo Nogampula said he was aware of a problem with infrastructure services in Missionvale.
“The problem is that the contractor designed the services incorrectly, so remedial work will have to be done to ensure the services are installed properly,” Nogampula said.
Asked if the contractors would foot the bill for not installing the services, Nogampula said his department was still investigating who was to blame.