Jacob Njoro is a doting father to his two daughters, Daphne, 4, and Desiree , 6.
The youngest, Daphne, plays on his lap as he sits in the shade on the stoep of his two-roomed RDP house.
The 42-year-old Njoro and his family are beneficiaries of Cosmo City, a government integrated housing development, north of Johannesburg.
The family is among the 450 who, since 2005, have been moved from the squalor of the Zevenfontein informal settlement .
The Njoros moved to Cosmo City in August.
The RDP section where the family lives forms part of the housing project designed to accommodate people of all income groups ? fully and partially subsidised as well as bonded homes ? in the same community.
They will share all facilities, including schools, clinics, parks and shopping complexes, among others.
But Njoro, a barman at a Fourways restaurant, says that though he has a roof above his family's head and has "escaped living in a squatter camp", he is not entirely happy.
He said: "Despite the terrible conditions at Zevenfontein, I had built a five-roomed house with a high wall and I had planted trees inside the yard and around it."
"All this expensive effort because we had been promised that proper houses would be built that would eventually transform Zevenfontein."
"My house stood out among the shacks and I had furnished it well over the 12 years I lived there with my family."
Njoro says his house was demolished by "the people from Dainfern", who he presumed were municipal workers.
"They promised to compensate me, but I am still waiting, and now my family has to be content with living in this very small house."
He says crime was escalating with the mushrooming of raucous illegal shebeens in the townships.
"Our homes are not fenced in and burglaries are rife."
He says residents believe that illegal immigrants bribe their way into the RDP system and contribute to the high crime rate.
Nceba Ngamlana, a human relations practitioner for a bank, recently occupied a house in the middle-income section. He is not a happy customer, he says.
"It has been weeks since my family and I moved here, but we still do not have electricity or running water and our pleas to the developers seem to fall on deaf ears."
His dissatisfaction was echoed by Busi Mahlangu, who commutes daily to the Jabulani municipal offices in Soweto, where she works .
"We have been given a raw deal and no one seems to be interested in listening to us," said Mahlangu.
The community of the middle- income, or finance-linked section, plans to hold a public meeting on Sunday to discuss their grievances, which include shoddy workmanship, leaking roofs, faulty geysers and unsurpassable driveways.
Cosmo housing project starts to deliver
Pheladi Gwangwa, the station manager of Talk Radio 702, told Sowetan yesterday that the 702-FNB housing project at Cosmo City, north of Johannesburg, was "moving along steadily" and that more than 300 of the 702 houses to be built had been completed.
Gwangwa said that about 70 families had moved into their new homes at Cosmo City.
The initiative is a joint venture of Talk Radio 702 and First National Bank, in association with M5 Developments and the Gauteng Department of Housing.
Gwangwa said: "We've already made a big difference in the lives of the people who have moved into the houses and can't wait to hand over more houses each month."
"We're set to have 150 houses occupied by the end of this month, with the rate of handovers increasing to 100 a month until the end of the project," he said.
Faizal Motlekar, executive chairman of M5 Developments, said the rest of the 702 houses were at various stages of development and the full complement would be ready in June .
The housing initiative was launched by the minister of housing, Lindiwe Sisulu, in May.
It is a public-private partnership intended to help reduce the housing backlog in the province by providing low-income earners with affordable housing.
The 702-FNB housing initiative is aimed at people who earn between R3,500 and R7,000 a month.
People in this income group can apply for an FNB mortgage bond and a government housing subsidy to finance their new homes.
Sowetan
Publisher: I-Net Bridge
Source: I-Net Bridge
