THOUSANDS of houses in Cacadu District Municipality have to be fixed or rebuilt because of shoddy workmanship by contractors and poor maintenance by their owners.
Building has stopped in some housing projects because of the unavailability of water and electricity, poor road infrastructure and problematic contractors.
Tabling the human settlements portfolio committee report yesterday, chairman Dennis Neer said the department needed to inspect many houses, some of which were built on floodplains, making them vulnerable to rain storms.
"Most of the houses in almost all these projects need rectification because of the shoddy workmanship [and] the department must ensure all the houses with structural defects are attended to," he said.
The committee also found beneficiaries had either been on housing lists for many years or had their names removed, and the names of people who had died were still on them.
Human Settlements MEC Helen Sauls-August vowed yesterday to clamp down on untrustworthy contractors and those who manipulated beneficiary lists. "We really need to address the manipulation of beneficiary lists because we just can't have people coming today and getting a house tomorrow."
In Kouga municipality's Nomzamo township, only 12 out of 40 houses have been built since 2004 because of squabbles with untrustworthy contractors.
The Cacadu District Municipality includes the Koukamma, Kouga, Makana and Ndlambe local municipalities.
