Stalled R168 million Melmoth housing project restarted

The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Human Settlements said it has restarted the stalled R168 million housing project in Melmoth.

The department’s MEC, Jomo Sibiya, said 270 of the houses would be finished by the end of the 2022/23 financial year. Sibiya was responding to accusations by the mayor of Mthonjaneni (Melmoth) Local Municipality, Mbangiseni Biyela, and his deputy, Phumlani Ntombela, that the project stalled because of the King Cetswayo District Municipality’s failure to play its role.

The project, which was started in 2011, cost R168m. At that time each RDP house was valued at R150 000. The project was not completed and some of the houses, which were nearly ready for occupation, have been vandalised, becoming an eyesore along the R66, connecting Melmoth to Ulundi. The multimillion-rand project, which was an extension of the Thubalethu township in Melmoth, was to be constructed in two phases.

In the first phase, 600 family units were to be built and the remaining 512 units were to be built later. Sibiya blamed the municipality, saying they started the project without having paid attention to basics like putting in sewer and power infrastructure. However, the municipality said the sewer part was to be done by the district municipality which was under the ANC until November last year.

Now, Sibiya says all hands are on deck to get the project done. “During 100 days marking my deployment as the MEC for Public Works and Human Settlements I visited Thubalethu Housing Project. This was precisely because of the delays I had observed over the years. After being briefed by the municipality on the status of the project we undertook to intervene as the department because the buck stops with us.

“We took the following steps: (a) That the Developer Status that had been granted to the municipality was being withdrawn with immediate effect. This meant that the Department of Human Settlements was taking charge of the implementation of the project henceforth.

“That the department would, from the funding earmarked for construction of houses, approve funding for the construction and installation of bulks, retainer walls and the augmentation of the sewer treatment plant capacity to be able to accommodate the new project. These were supposed to have been installed by the municipality but they had failed,” Sibiya said.

During a recent interview with the Daily News, Mthonjaneni municipal manager, Zipho Mthethwa, denied claims by Sibiya that their developer status has been withdrawn, saying they still had the status as it could not be arbitrarily withdrawn. Sibiya said they will soon give some units to beneficiaries.

“Bulk construction works on in-situ upgrade part of the project is complete. This has paved the way for the connection of the 242 units that are in the infill areas of the existing township. Of these nine have been connected and 50 have been completed and are being connected to the sewer lines…”