Housing Development

The community of Winterveld is benefiting from the Gamont Housing the Nation project. According to Mr Lucas Mdluli the project for this community was started in 1998 by Shadrack Dlamini together with the Tshwane Metro Municipality, before he passed away in 2009. “The main focus of the project is to help those who cannot afford to build their own houses and not working but surviving from social grants,” says Mr Lucas Mdluli, ward12 councillor in Winterveld.

Some members of the community are not happy with the way the project is operating, “what makes me angry mostly is the fact that people working at Gamont give more preference to people from outside this community and often neglect us who are living here, they just tell us to come after 3months to check our houses and at times they say we have to go to Johannesburg head offices with regards to our queries. I fear that the houses could fall anytime and one day they could find corpses,” said one resident who did not want to be identified for fear of victimisation.

A 89-year-old man residing in the same area by the name of Mr Kumalo Solomon who is a flood victim says:”I did not get any help from this project, my wife applied for a house before she passed away and was told to come and check the house after two weeks, they then told me on the day of appointment that they do not issue houses to dead people as my wife had passed away after two days of sickness prior to the day.

Mr Kumalo lives in a mud house with his son who cooks for him and three granddaughters. Mr Mdluli says “residents should not panic especially those who were affected  by floods and still have not received any help, we are still trying to file the flood victims’ details with the Municipality’s officials as the councillors do not have any power to place people in the houses. “We never thought that floods could occur but we are trying to accommodate them (flood victims). I have spoken with the constructors to try to speed up the process of building houses to make sure that everyone gets accommodated and we want people to occupy the houses” Mr Mdluli says .