Building KZN One Brick At A Time

Date: 2014-07-04

With fourteen thousand RDB homes completed in Umlazi and a further ten thousand homes in the pipeline, Shauwn Mpisane is an extremely busy lady.

Shauwn's day starts early, as she needs to be on site to co-ordinate her teams to their relevant building sites. Managing 3500 people is not an easy task as there is always something urgent that needs to be done and there is a queue of people that need to consult with her.

G-W Section of Umlazi, or 'The Infill' as it is otherwise known, is tough terrain. It is an inhospitable hard granite surface and the steep gradient makes for very challenging building conditions.

Last week a team led by KZN MEC for Human Settlements and Public Works, Ravi Pillay and Ethekwini mayor James Nxumalo inspected the low cost housing projects in Umlazi D, H, Q and W sections, there are about eight projects in Umlazi alone.

Minister Pillay applauded Shauwn and S'bu Mpisane and their Zikhulise contraction company for their innovation and engineering technology.

"We should give credit where credit is due. "Said Pillay, "Zikhulise has done a great job with the construction of houses in the projects we visited. Even though it was hard they did exceptionally well."

Pillay praised the Mpisane couple, "What makes this remarkable is that if you look at the terrain it is difficult to get to. These areas have been left undeveloped (under apartheid's) regional township development, precisely because they were deemed to be undevelopable."

"But in a democratic era and as people moved in, people occupied every space and massive informal settlements grew in these areas. I think it is an absolutely amazing achievement by the municipality and Zukhulise to achieve this upgrade in spite of these conditions."

This particular area of Umlazi is where high end Shopping Malls, a Fire Station and many other amenities have sprung up. The life here seems good and the people feel a lot safer in their new homes.

Most of the homes here have been connected to electricity and water, officials were facing the challenge of sanitation to the homes because of the treacherous landscape.

"At the moment there is electricity and we have erected standpipes for the water. The challenge we are facing is with the sewerage to join the main line. That is what the engineers are busy designing at the moment."

Nxumalo was pleased that better quality government houses were being constructed for the people. Both the MEC and the mayor stated that they wanted the shacks to be totally eradicated from this landscape.

"We want no slums in KZN," said Nxumalo. After hours of inspections the politicians were satisfied with what they saw and agreed that it was in line with Premier Senzo Mehunu's hundred days plan of action and the commitment he made during his inauguration, in which he listed a number of projects that would be under way in the first 100 days of his administration.

Pillay said that this visit to the low cost housing projects was about pursuing accountability, "Although there are many challenges, we seemed to be doing a great job."

Building KZN One Brick At A Time

Springclean

Enlarge View Link

Nissan T5ekton

Enlarge View Link