Six months on still no joy on housing

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Prospective tenants for an Alexandra Renewal Project (ARP) housing scheme are still in the dark six months after being promised new homes.

The housing is several blocks of flats at Bohlabelo Extension Two which they registered for in March last year, and were promised allocation in November. The three and four storey blocks have remained vacant since completion many months ago.

The aspirant tenants submitted application forms, pay slips and proof of address to the ARP offices for eligibility verification. One of them, Jane Sekele said she followed up on her application with the ARP by email in mid-April, but has still not received a response.

“Other applicants are also anxiously waiting for the outcome as we all are concerned that we may lose this only opportunity to have better shelter for us and our children,” she said. “My payslip verifies my income in the R3 500 to R16 000 range as required, and also proof of residence was submitted, but I don’t know the cause of the delay in informing us of the outcome.”

In response, ARP project manager, Aubrey Musetha said they had received more than 5 000 applicants for a limited number of houses. He said the decision making was slowed down by screening by the City of Joburg’s housing department to ensure applicants didn’t already have RDP houses, and also by banks for creditworthiness as the houses were subject to a bond.

“The ARP will however respond to every applicant as and when a decision is made on their application,” he said.

Despite some successes in the ARP housing development programme, some of the projects have been mired in controversy with allegations of underhand dealings and favouritism. In one pending case lodged with the Public Protector, complaints were that tenants who were allocated free houses by the housing department in extension 9 and 10 were allegedly subletting them, but not remitting the payments thus defrauding the city council.