December 8, 2005
By Ndaba Dlamini
A TRUCK laden with household goods approaches the row of new houses, huffing along in the hot midday sun. As it backs up near one of the houses, a chatter of excitement erupts from the people perched precariously on top of its cargo.
The truck laden with household goods approaches the row of new houses
"Sesifikile!" (We have finally arrived) shouts one young man as he jumps from the truck, grabbing a chair and a bucket from the load at the same time. Across the street, stand Pimville residents, various expressions on their faces, as they watch their new neighbours move in.
These are the first residents of the long-awaited Kliptown Housing Project, part of the Kliptown Development Project, which aims to move the Kliptown community into decent, affordable housing.
They are families who qualified for government housing from the Fred Clarke informal settlement, a stone's throw from Phase 1 of the City of Johannesburg project.
The first in a group of some 5 700 families that will be moved from the informal settlements in Kliptown, they moved into their new houses on 7 December. All the families are to be resettled in new reconstruction and development programme (RDP) subsidised housing.
"Twelve families are moving in today and 26 families will move into their new homes on 8 December," explained Francis Gadzikwa, the deputy director: project implementation and monitoring in the City of Johannesburg's housing department.
"We will move 98 families from Fred Clarke in total."
Depending on the availability of completed houses, the City planned to move about 400 families from Fred Clarke and Chris Hani settlements by the end of the year, according to Gadzikwa.
The aim of the relocation was to "re-house the existing residents of all the informal settlements of Kliptown in permanent housing".
"The relocation of approved beneficiaries to the Kliptown houses is a voluntary relocation, of which the primary aim is to allocate the available RDP housing before Christmas.
"This exercise, however, is seen as the first stage of a process in which the [Fred Clarke] settlement will be cleared to enable its development for further RDP housing as part of the overall housing programme in Kliptown."
The relocation had been "extensively work-shopped" with the Greater Kliptown Development Forum and had been communicated to the affected communities by means of public meetings, Gadzikwa said.
Planning and implementation of the project began in 1997. Besides the construction of RDP houses, it includes developing the Walter Sisulu Square of Dedication and the construction of 1 400 social, or rental housing units adjacent to the square.
In the "next few years", it was planned to provide between 38 000 and 45 000 people in informal settlements in Kliptown with decent housing.
Seventy-year-old Matseliso Martha Mlambo was the first beneficiary to move into her new house.
She is blind and has lived in Fred Clarke in a shack for about 20 years. She sits comfortably in her new kitchen, surrounded by unpacked boxes and plastic bags, occasionally snacking on some food from a lunch box.
Promise Mlambo, her grandson, is ecstatic about his new home. "My grandmother is also very happy to get a new house after so many years living in a shack.
"Finally, I can also dig a garden and grow some vegetables in a place I can call home," he says, smiling.
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