Water and sanitation minister Pemmy Majodina has been left fuming at delays in constructing homes for KwaZulu-Natal families who were relocated to temporary residential units to make way for the upgrading of the Hazelmere Dam six years ago.
The water and sanitation department (DWS) initiated a process in 2015 to raise the walls of the Hazelmere Dam in Mahlabathini, on Durban's north coast, by 7m to increase its storage capacity and to augment the water supply to areas such as Verulam, Groutville, Blythedale and Ballito in the eThekwini metro, and iLembe and KwaDukuza municipalities.
This was due to increased demand for potable water from the north coast of the province after it experienced rapid growth over the years. It was also to address the issue of sand travelling from upstream and building up on the wall, resulting in the dam losing 6-million cubic metres of its storage capacity.
However, the process stalled as there were 18 families living in the dam’s basin that had to be relocated.
The department began negotiations for a resettlement agreement with all but one, and they were moved to temporary residential units (TRUs) pending the construction of permanent structures.
Six years later, the upgrades to the dam are complete and Majodina recently presided over its commissioning. Yet the families are still living in the TRUs.
One of the them, Sandile Ndlovu, said they did not envisage it would take this long to build permanent structures when they agreed to move out of their homes.
“We were promised that we would live in the park homes for only six months and we respected that, but to this day we are still in those park homes.”
The last projection from the contractor, Nedlan Construction, is that the families would move by December.
But Nedlan director Agith Larknath said they had encountered new challenges which necessitated the changing of the initial design plans and getting approval from DWS, while issues with eThekwini municipality had caused further delays.
He said all the challenges had since been mitigated and they had received the necessary approvals, the latest of which was granted in August.
Larknath said they are hoping to move three families in December and the rest by the end of March.
However, residents say they are not optimistic.
“I don’t trust the contractor because everything he said is not true. Even the three houses that will be completed in December belong to the same family. The fact that it’s still quiet on the others and they have not even started with the trenches or slabs leaves us pessimistic,” said Ndoda Majiya.
Majiya said living in the park homes was a nightmare.
“It’s painful when you think that you were moved from your comfortable home to get stuck here. We are only living off their promises, but it’s apparent that we will spend another Christmas here.”
Another resident, Mandla Ngcobo, complained that the one family that refused to move was bought a house in Phoenix by the department.
Steven Arumugam, chief director of infrastructure development, said that family had a title deed so they had to be compensated as per the Expropriation Act, while those who were relocated didn’t have that and had to be built new houses.
Majodina expressed frustration at the pace of the building of the permanent structures. She said she had not been made aware of the delays, and had been told that all the families had been relocated and the building process was under way.
She said it was unfair that the residents had to live in cramped park homes.
“It is unfair to undermine the rights of those people who gave up their land for us to raise the wall of the dam.”
She commended the “patriotic” act of the families for agreeing to leave their homes so that a facility that would serve many communities could be upgraded.
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