On Monday Buffalo City Metro (BCM) gave 51 RDP beneficiaries 10 days to claim their houses – or forfeit them to the “next deserving” beneficiary.
The metro placed an advert in the media urging beneficiaries to come forward and claim the houses in Unit P on the outskirts of Mdantsane.
They were asked to report to the metro’s human settlement offices by February 4, a week from tomorrow. The list includes a beneficiary born in 1935, 81 years ago, while the youngest was born in 1994.
“After , the next deserving and qualifying beneficiaries will be allocated the houses and those untraceable, will be replaced,” says the ad.
BCM had not responded to Daily Dispatch questions by the time of writing.
The Dispatch recently reported that hundreds of state-built houses were standing empty – even though the province had a delivery backlog of 600000 homes.
At least 385 beneficiaries across the province have not been found.
Instead of being reassigned they are left vacant, and some are so badly vandalised they are no longer habitable.
Provincial human settlements spokesman Lwandile Sicwetsha last month said so far they had found there were 150 houses with untraceable owners in BCM, 131 in Tsolwana Municipality, 79 in Elundini and 25 in Maletswai, or Aliwal North.
Sicwetsha said they had ordered the affected municipalities to de-register the missing beneficiaries.
Unoccupied houses would be reassigned after June, he added.
Sicwetsha said they expected that more cases of unclaimed houses would be identified in other municipalities across the Eastern Cape. — asandan@dispatch.co.za