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The Free State social housing department continues to be haunted by Ace Magashule’s legacy wasting scarce resources on incomplete projects. COGTA MEC, Mxolisi Dukwana, recently "handed over" over 20 incomplete houses to residents in Platberg, Ladybrand in Mantsopa Municipality. At this event, I inquired on the reasoning behind his return to the province to hand over incomplete houses from an incomplete housing project for a second time.

I conducted oversight of the houses that the MEC was handing over and found that they were indeed incomplete and not ready to be handed over due to plumbing problems and incomplete finishes, inside and out. This standard would never be acceptable to a DA government. The majority of the houses in this project, to date, are still in the foundation phase. The Province had already handed over two houses during the Local Government Elections 2021 campaigning.

The DA is concerned by the elaborate blue light brigade rush from Bloemfontein to Ladybrand and the catering for the excessive entourage to visit an incomplete project for the second time in one year.

These matters were raised with the Mayor during an urgent meeting before the visit, straight after our findings during the oversight inspection. The Mayor expressly answered that the residents were happy with that standard.

This project has been haunted by building standard problems from the start, with major issues found with the foundations that are all still laying bare. The response to questions to the Municipal Manager’s office in 2021 was that “the project is not yet enrolled with the National Home Builders Registration” and “the contractor is failing to present the compaction test and concrete strength test result from the beginning of the project”.

The DA will be asking to see the aforementioned compaction and concrete strength test results, and the relevant NHBRC compliance. The DA will insist that all houses are built and finished to the relevant applicable standard.

We will also be requesting that the Department of Housing tables the cost of their recurring visits to this same project to date. The funds could rather have been spent building quality homes to the same standard built in similar projects across DA-governed municipalities.

Issued by Tania Halse - Ward 7 DA Councillor