Maile: Mamelodi flood victims remain destitute despite promises
Gauteng MEC for Cooperative Governance Lebogang Maile says many of the Mamelodi flood victims that were left homeless in 2019 remain destitute.
This despite promises from Tshwane officials to help them rebuild.
At least 700 shacks were damaged by torrential rains at an informal settlement in Eerste Fabrieke in Mamelodi in December 2019.
An estimated 1000 residents were left stranded as a result.
Maile told media on Wednesday that the Democratic Alliance had peddled lies about the misappropriation of funds by the city's administrators last year during a period when the Tshwane council had been dissolved.
The official opposition party accused the administrators of breaking the bank, stalling the relocation of the victims even further.
Maile has vehemently denied the claim.
"We were not telling or instructing administrators how to spend the money of the city because they were given all the power as prescribe in the Constitution," he said at a media briefing in Sandton.
"The administrators had went ahead and procured land for the Mamelodi flood victims but the Mamleodi flood victims even today have not been relocated because the city, through the Housing Development Agency, procured a piece of land and when the piece of land is supposed to be transferred, the money is sitting with the lawyers.
"I know this because the owners of the land came to me to say, 'We have finalised this transaction, but the mayor doesn't want this transaction to go through'. Meanwhile the flood victims are out there - there is land, there is money. The administrators effected that, they made sure," Maile explained.
Maile went on to blame the coalition partners in Johannesburg and Tshwane for the lack of service delivery in the two big metros.
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