Family escapes death after RDP house collapses

When the Mukovhanama family of Munzhedzi village outside Vleifontein received an RDP house from the local Makhado Municipality, they never thought that they would ever be stranded without a place to stay. The family of eight now has no place to stay after the house which was built for them was destroyed by the devastating storm a week ago.

The owner of the RDP house, Ms Elelwani Mukovhanama (39), and her children managed to escape through the window when the walls of her RDP house started collapsing and the roof plates were blown away. She said had they not managed to escape through the window, she and her family would have died.

"The incident happened around 18:00. I am still shocked and traumatized about the incident. I could only watch helplessly as the walls of my only house collapsed. When this house was built in November last year, we celebrated, thinking the days of our being homeless were over. Now our RDP house has collapsed," she said

The unemployed Mukovhanama added that they were not even sure if the municipality would build another house for them.

The question that remains is whether the quality of the house was compromised. This comes after most of the RDP houses across the province were said to be of sub-standard quality.

About 152 households were affected by the storms around the Makhado municipal area, which includes bridges in parts of Dzanani.

The mayor of Makhado Municipality said that she was aware of Mukovhanama´s incident. She said the municipality had already made a proposal to the MEC for Local Government and Housing, Mr Soviet Lekganyani, that they be given more RDP houses for the people of Makhado. "Our technical team is also assessing as to whether we must build a new RDP house for the Mukovhanama family or just renovate the old one. They family is not the only one and I am quite aware of that. If we get more houses, we are going to consider the families who were af-fected by the storm first," she said.

Asked if the quality of the building was up to standard, Luruli said that the assessment will also determine this. She said that harsh measures will also be taken against contractors who use sub-standard material when given projects like the building of RDP houses. "We need contractors who will build quality houses for our people," she said.