The community assisted an elderly granny after last week’s heavy rains flooded her house and appeals to the municipality went unanswered.
However, Nomthandandazo Steerman, who lives with her daughter and grandchild, needs a more permanent solution to the flooding, which occurs every time it rains hard.
“It is a usual thing for me to stay in a dam when it is raining,” she told Grocott’s Mail.
When Grocott’s visited her house on Tuesday afternoon they found that her bedroom was full of water and her neighbors were using buckets to bale it out. She appealed to the community after calling her councillor for assistance. “He said he can’t assist me and dropped the phone,” she said.
“I want the ward councilor to provide us with a temporary house,” she said. “The counselor asked me about title deeds, which I don’t have. I asked him, ‘Does a mud house have title deeds?'”
The councilor, Mcedisi Gojela of Ward11, told Grocott’s that, although he felt sympathy for the people who have been affected by heavy rains, there was nothing he could do.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have a temporary structure to assist them, neither (do we have) black plastic bags, which we usually help them with,” Gojela said. “The issue of housing resides with the Department of Human Settlements in the Province.
“There are no temporary houses at the municipality, they are in the communities,” Gojela said. “The municipality does not have money.”
