A 67-year-old pensioner in the Eastern Cape has built her own house with her old age grant. She did this while a government housing project meant for her has stalled for three years, GroundUp reported.
Nomonde Mboyi lives in Ndakeni village in the Mbizana area. She lost two mud houses during heavy wind and rain in 2019. A third house was left with a leaking roof and holes in its walls.
When the government promised her a new house, she decided not to wait. She made her own mud bricks and used her grant to buy materials and pay workers.
“When the contractor came here last year to start the foundation, I was already starting the walls of my two-room house. I used my social grant to buy materials and pay for labour. But the process was not quick because I had to spend months saving enough money before I could continue,” she told GroundUp.
Her mud house now only needs outside plastering and some final work. She plans to move in during December. She said Eskom cannot connect electricity yet because the house is not waterproof.
In 2023, the Eastern Cape Department of Human Settlements appointed ZIBSIPRO (Pty) Ltd to build 200 houses for storm victims in the region. The deal was worth about R34 million, or about R170,000 per house.
According to GroundUp, not one of those houses has been finished. The brick house being built for Mboyi has only a foundation and some walls. Most other houses in Ndakeni are in the same state.
Mboyi said residents met the Winnie Madikela-Mandela Local Municipality in February. They offered to finish the houses themselves but were told to wait. “Since then, there has been no further explanation. We are just waiting,” she said.
Community leader Nontokozo Nyombo said many of the people waiting for houses rely on social grants and badly need homes.
“People are very frustrated, and the sad thing is that we don’t know who to turn to. Our municipality no longer gives us answers on the matter,” she said.
Residents said the contractor left in November last year and promised to come back, but never did. Some building machines are still in the village, watched by a security guard.
Department spokesperson Yanga Funani said the contract with ZIBSIPRO was ended in the 2025/26 financial year because of poor performance. He said the department planned to restart the project.
Funani said houses where building had already started would come first. Houses not yet started would depend on whether money was available.
ZIBSIPRO director Palesa Phara said she did not know the contract had been ended. She claimed the department had not paid the company, which made it impossible to continue.
“All I know is that the department has owed us payment for a year, which is why I stopped working with them,” she said.
Phara admitted the department had sent the company a letter of default. She also said the company tried to hand the work to a subcontractor, but the department rejected this verbally.
She said the company was appointed in September 2023 but only got a formal contract near the end of November. Soil tests, approvals and a redesign of the foundation caused more delays.
According to Phara, building only really started around October 2024. She said working across 34 villages was difficult, and heavy rain also slowed the work.
Phara alleged the company was told verbally to “slow down” because the department did not have enough money. She said payments also changed from each building stage to only when a house was finished.
She said labour disputes later made the sites unsafe, and some company equipment is still stuck there. Funani did not respond to her claims, and the municipality referred questions to the department.
Source: this article is based on reporting by GroundUp. Image: GroundUp. Written with the help of AI and published by the Tzaneen Voice News desk. See our Editorial Standards.
Kgomotso Maake covers news and politics for Tzaneen Voice. Kgomotso reports on government, Parliament, municipalities, courts, crime and service delivery across South Africa, with a close eye on how national decisions reach towns like Tzaneen and the wider Limpopo province. Stories are written in plain English and focus on the facts: who made the decision, what it means, and what happens next.