City of Joburg commits R10bn to transform Apartheid-era hostels

The City of Joburg has confirmed that it has put aside R10 billion to revitalise the city’s hostels.

This was confirmed by MMC for human settlement, Mlungisi Mabaso with the city alongside the provincial government and izinduna are set to finalise the revitalisation plan for hostels in the region.

He said this R10 billion will seek to cater to a wide range of needs for the modern hostel dweller.

“Our current estimate sits at R10 billion which is aimed at trying to redevelop the hostels taking into consideration infrastructure capacity. part of the strategy is that we are saying we cannot rely on government to fund some of these programmes. If we look into all our major projects in the city of Johannesburg, we have to partner with the private sector,” he said.

He added that the current apartheid-era inspired spatial planning must be eradicated to ensure dignity for the residents.

“What we seek to achieve as the department is to do away with the Apartheid spatial planning and structures. We want to create something that is acceptable and accommodative to every hostel resident and the residents of Johannesburg,” he said.

Mabaso added that on top of ensuring dignity for the hostel dwellers, the plan to ensure economic activity also benefits the residents of the city.

“Our programme of action will also look into the economic activities in the area. We have commercial spaces and people that are engaged in economic activities within the hostels. Our planning must also take that into consideration, and it must be able to accommodate those who are self-employed and are doing businesses for themselves because there are a lot of economic activities that are happening within hostels which are not accounted for by the government,’ he said.

Furthermore, Mabaso, has attributed the delay in installing a new sewage line in the Meadowlands hostel to procurement processes.

On Saturday, Mabaso addressed hostel dwellers and members of the community gathered in Meadowlands on Saturday, at a provincial human settlements event aimed at gathering suggestions from hostel residents on improving living conditions.

The MMC indicated that his administration is committed to resolving the issue adding that there is a need for a completely new sewage line but explained that internal processes had hindered progress.

Mabaso said previous efforts to upgrade the hostels were unsuccessful, as they did not align with residents' needs.

"Soon we will be in Mzimhlophe if not before the end of this month [March], then before April ends, we will install a new sewage system because we know there isn’t a pipe in this hostel," he said.

siyabonga.sithole@inl.co.za