A special council meeting was held yesterday to discuss and approve the granting of R 62 million from the Department of Human Settlements to the Kouga Municipality.
The purpose of the funding is to upgrade the sewage and water infrastructure in order to build more RDP houses in the following areas:
Pellsrus & Ocean View: 220 and 1500 houses R 15 million
Hankey: 990 houses R 20 million
Patensie: 278 houses R 17 million
Sea Vista 2000 houses R 10 million
Another 4 602 RDP houses needed in Humansdorp and Thorhill were not included in the above mentioned funding.
The DA raised concerns about roads and storm water drainage, which is an existing problem in the RDP housing suburbs, is again not being budgeted for.
Concerns were also raised about the land available to build houses in Sea Vista as it is literally a wetland and the ownership of the land is also in question.
An item on the agenda that proposed that an company called Taurus Gardens 500 be appointed to build 2500 RDP houses in Kruisfontein was rejected by Council (the DA had a 14 – 12 majority in the meeting).
Taurus Gardens is threatening to interdict the Municipality due a contract signed in 2010 that was declared invalid by National Treasury.
The DA requested that a report be presented to Council detailing exactly what the situation is with Taurus Gardens and their contract.
There is a lot of murkiness surrounding this contract and it might be a good thing in terms of transparency should Taurus Gardens take the Municipality to court.
There will be another Council meeting next week.
June 26, 2013 at 9:42 am |
What is not clear here is whether the funds allocated to each suburb are to be spent entirely for up-grading and extending sewerage and water reticulation or for infrastructure extension and house construction. If the funds are for purely infrastructure development then from where is funding for house construction going to come from?
I would also mention that if you divide the funds allocated to each suburb by the proposed number of new houses in each suburb there is huge disparity. Sea Vista works out to R5 000 per unit while Patensie calculates at R61 151 per unit, with the others in between.
All very confusing! I would say a more detailed budget and explanation is called for.
Paul Pezarro