Amid wailing sirens and stern-faced security detail, Human Settlements Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi strutted into packed stands and a bristling marquee at Colesberg’s Riemvasmaak Stadium this Thursday, 8 December. Some 600 people, many visibly excited and crossing fingers that they might make up the nealy 200 who were due to receive title deeds to their RDP homes, had come out for the Imbizo.
Hectic is an understatement.
It’s midday and six head of slaughtered cattle are reduced to charred, sizzling T-bones being stuffed into packed lunches. Busloads of the elderly are being disgorged onto the premises. The cream of the provincial and district leadership – to mention a few; MEC for COGHSTA Bentley Vaas, District Mayor Cllr Rodney Roodhe, District Speaker Cllr Thandi Sintu, Executive Mayor of Umsobomvu Cllr Mzwandile Toto, Emthanjeni Mayor Cllr Lulamile Nkumbi – walk in with an air of stately authority.
The day got off to a passable start. An hour or so earlier Minister Kubayi had been escorted to a road paving project still underway at Bongweni Location before her calvacade was pointed in the direction of the Ou Boks Project. This ghastly, rueful spectacle of some unfinished, dilapidated and vandalised houses has been a lump in the throats of many residents over several years.
Initially tauted as one of three national presidential pilot projects, according to ex-councillor Mbulelo Kafi, it was meant to erect at least 1 500 homes that would lead to the relocating of residents of the Old Location (eZantsi) so as to pave the way for rigorous, modernised town planning. Started as far back as 2006, many were hanging on to the promise of a new beginning. This was sadly not to be as the project came crashing to a heartbreaking halt eleven years later.
Some of the homes, says Kafi, were completed and subsequently handed over to deserving beneficiaries. However because the houses were unelectrified, some of the recipients abandoned them, leading to the subsequent upsurge in vandalism. Some 100 houses were either unfinished, did not meet building regulation standards or were simply abandoned. In the interim it has done duty as the crime scene of rampant vandalism, a sanctuary for drug users and a love den seemingly popular amongst teenagers.
Needless to say this would feature prominently when the floor was opened up to residents’ grievances. A once promising local soccer talent, Thulani Mxhamli, bemoaned the lack of crucial services in Remvasmaak. There are no recreational facilities or police station and unqualified people are employed at the municipality, he said, to rousing applause. Asanda Kula followed on a similar vein. There were gripes around constantly unavailable ambulances, inattentive councillors, repulsive bucket toilets and – did we mention – houses, houses, houses! Complaints around irregularities in issuing them out, how the authorities are sitting on their laurels as the vandalism persists unabated and some questioning why security personnel were not employed to these sites.
In response MEC Vaas said that he would be personally coming down on 20 January to meet with locals in regard to the Ou Boks Project. “We can’t be sitting on a 15 year old problem with no solutions,” he boldly declared. An unexpected showing by Executive Mayor of Mangaung, Mxolisi Siyonzana, added to the bigwigs tally. MEC Vaas kindly welcomed the “huiskind,” whom he wished well operating, as he does, in what is a very “hot” Free State province.
Umsobomvu Mayor, Mzwandile Toto opened his response to the community’s concerns on a whimsical tone. A certain resident, Mr Mbolekwana, had expressed how “bad things [were] here in Colesberg,” and how, up until the Imbizo, he had never laid eyes on the town’s First Citizen. To this, promised the mayor, he would make sure to personally drop in for coffee and meat with the elderly Mbolekwana. Noting the community’s safety concerns, he explained that to add new services such as security personnel would invariably lead to rates hikes – because such people must be paid – which would not bode well for the impoverished in the community.
Taking to the podium, Minister Kubayi, as some of her colleagues have learnt on previous occasions discovered that Afrikaans is a big deal here. She applied her best efforts in the language and assured the community that the homes in the Ou Boks Project would be fixed. As they stand, she said, many “are not in a state fit for human occupation.” Government’s Informal Upgrading System, she elaborated, “fosters human rights, meaning services such as water and sanitation should be made available.” For those who have taken up residence in houses that do not belong to them, she had a stern warning: The day that she pitches up in her All Star sneakers, laptop tucked under her arm, ready to verify ownership of these homes, these illegal dwellers would be faced with serious consequences. “We are fixing the system now she said.” Although she acknowledged the sad state of affairs around the project, she also pointed out that these homes should not be sold or rented out by beneficiaries. They are meant for those who are desperately in need of them, particularly the elderly.
She went on to a number of relevant issues including Gender-Based Violence (GBV) which she classified as “a pandemic” and invoked the Ubuntuesque idiom of it taking “a village to raise a child.”
Around 178 title deeds were ultimately dispensed on the day. But of course things would not have been complete without the public relations Kodak moment. And so a handful of these title deed owners got to pose, wide smiles, alongside the leadership who promptly got back into their cavalcades with promises of returning in the future to address the lingering problems. For the assiduous marshals, many plucked among the unemployed, it was payday and for everyone else, it was time to dig into those packed lunches.
