Gauteng to build new city in Diepsloot
Gauteng Department of Cooperative Governance & Traditional Affairs and Human Settlements MEC Jacob Mamabolo says the building of new cities in the province, articulated by Premier David Makhura in the SOPA on Monday, will go a long way in addressing the mushrooming of informal settlements that continue to grow in the province.
MEC Mamabolo said the provincial government has adopted a new strategy of building new cities with industries and human settlements standing side by side.
“This new approach will allow us to move people close to their places of work and allow them to spend less time commuting between work and their place of residents. We are doing away with exclusive poverty stricken RDP housing projects by integrating factories, industries and human settlements,” said Mamabolo.
Mamabolo said if they don’t implement this new approach, they are not going to win the war against informal settlements. MEC said it is important to deal with informal settlements holistically including foreign nationals and those who do not qualify for RDP houses.
“Our new strategy is that we also make land available with fully serviced stands to those who want to build their own houses. In this way we think we can be able to address the housing backlog and eradicate the informal settlements,” said MEC Mamabolo.
Mamabolo visited the area of Diepsloot North of Johannesburg last night as part of government Imbizos where he interacted with the community on the outcome of the State of the Province Address by Premier David Makhura. Yesterday all MECs were deployed to various communities to engage the Gauteng citizenry on the SOPA.
MEC Mamabolo told the packed Methodist Church in Diepsloot that the government is going to build a new city in Diepsloot East to address the densification of the area. The department is going to build 8400 houses in Diepsloot East with the project commencing in the next financial year which starts in April 2015.
The Human Settlements MEC told the residents that there is not going to be any delay in the building of the new project after the residents urged the department to fast track the housing delivery in the area. He also mentioned that the department has allocated money to the City of Joburg to do rectification to some of the houses in Diepsloot due to shoddy workmanship.
To fight corruption in the housing sector MEC Mamabolo said they have appointed an auditing firm to scrutinize housing waiting list before allocation of houses to beneficiaries.
“We are also going ahead with our plan to introduce the biometric fingerprint technology system currently used by Home Affairs, to fight graft in the housing sector. We are also going to embark on a huge clean-up campaign where houses will be visited to check the authenticity of ownership,” said Mamabolo.
Residents also requested the MEC to address the issue of health facilities because they don’t have a hospital in the area and as a result they have to travel long distances to hospitals like Tembisa and Helen Joseph because their 2 clinics do not operate 24 hours.
In response to the cry by the residents, the MEC said the provincial government will look into this concern and that he will propose to the Health MEC that in the meantime the clinics remain open for 24 hours to serve the community throughout.
Contact:
Motsamai Motlhaolwa
Cell: 079 897 2240
