Presidential housing project bogged down in corruption

[schumi]

Johannesburg - A presidential project intended to house shackdwellers in the south of Johannesburg is mired in corruption and wholesale land theft, with hundreds of residents cheated out of houses they paid for.

Those who have attempted to get to the bottom of the theft have been threatened and, in one case, kidnapped.

GroundUp spoke to dozens of residents of Thulamntwana, near Orange Farm, who say they paid up to R25 000 to secure housing units in the township. They subsequently learned that the units had been sold to other buyers. They have been trying for four years to get their houses or their money back, without success.

On a visit to the area in 2010, President Jacob Zuma promised to improve living conditions. He said he was appalled that people still lived “like pigs”. A task team of national, provincial and City of Joburg officials was appointed to fast-track housing.

A 2014 report by Gauteng’s human settlements department found the Presidential Project, intended for Sweetwaters, had been relocated to nearby Thulamntwana. But most of the beneficiaries were neither from Sweetwaters nor Thulamntwana. Hundreds of houses intended for local residents were sold to people from outside the area and, in some cases, sold multiple times.

“There are letters illegally issued on a letterhead of Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Council recognising the ‘Bearers’ as residents to be relocated to the Thulamntwana Housing Development, purporting to be from the targeted informal settlements,” the human settlements report reads.

The report states that these illegal letters gave the bearers the impression that they were being relocated to Thulamntwana from surrounding areas.

Kidnapping and criminal charges

A Soweto couple illegally purchased a house in Thulamntwana from one Juta Maja for R25 000. There are other instances of “duplicate allocation of stands”, the report states.

Residents say one young man suffering from epilepsy, James Mncwango, was kidnapped in April 2016 because he resisted efforts to remove him from his mother’s home in nearby Finetown.

More at: http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/N...ng-project-bogged-down-in-corruption-20170111

 

[Hemi300c]

No astonishing news here.

 

[konfab]

Pappa government will make all your problems go away. Please vote to give him more power over your lives.

 

[OCP]

So while a presidential project directly impacting the lives of previously disadvantaged people is being raped and plundered the ANC would rather be wasting time about CT changing a logo

People voting for the ANC take note - the above should question your next turn at the ballot papers.

 

[flippakitten]

No sympathy, keep voting ANC, keep being treated like trash, keep seeing stories like these.

 

[Solarion]

Sometimes it's News, other times it's Current Affairs.

This time it's just Current Affairs.

 

[reactor_sa]

I suppose to Zuma, we're all living like pigs compared to himself in palace nkanaaandla

 

[Flanders]

The presidential housing project has gone just...

...swimmingly, thank you very much. And as with everything "presidential" in this country, of course it's bogged down with corruption (and ****ty construction).

 

[Kloofvreter]

AfricaLOL

 

[WaxLyrical]

Moenie worry nie.

If you vote ANC the house will come.