Mountain View housing memorandum handed to mayor

Update

MOSSEL BAY NEWS - A memorandum about the housing issues surrounding Mountain View’s First Home Finance (FHF) units was handed over to the Mossel Bay Municipality’s Mayor Dirk Kotzé and the municipal manager, Colin Puren, on Tuesday morning, 21 July.

The handover follows a march organised by the political party, the People’s Movement for Change (PMC), that took place last Friday, 17 July.

A large group of people had marched to the Mossel Bay Town Hall with the intention of handing over the memorandum and a signed petition to Kotzé.

The PMC had also requested that the Western Cape Minister of Infrastructure Tertuis Simmers and Premier Alan Winde be present at the town hall to listen to their grievances and answer questions about Mountain View.

However, it was Cllr Anton Dellemijn, a representative for Kotzé, who was present to accept the documents, as well as a few other municipal officials.

This was declined by the gathering’s leaders, who insisted that the requested individuals be present. The group then refused to disperse, and at some point, they gathered outside the entrance to the municipality; however, the march eventually came to an end later that afternoon.

The PMC previously said it was unacceptable for Mountain View’s FHF units, of which 80% are currently unoccupied and are for sale for R429 000, to be standing empty while there were residents without houses on the housing beneficiary list.

The Western Cape Department of Infrastructure later said these empty houses were primarily due to potential buyers’ challenges with home financing.

On Saturday 18 July, several PMC and community members gathered outside the D’Almeida Community Hall, where Kotzé’s Mossel Bay mayoral candidate campaign launch was being held, in the hopes of handing the memorandum over to the mayor. Some PMC members, including the party’s deputy president, Curt van Heerden, and its national head of communications, Anco Barker, even slept outside the gates to the hall on the pavement.

It was a local police officer, Lieutenant Colonel Maria Gerber’s offer to organise a set meeting between two PMC members and the mayor early this week that saw the crowd disperse.

On Tuesday morning, Barker handed over the memorandum that calls for, among other things, a full chronology of every decision made regarding the units since Mountain View’s inception; why the completed units are standing empty; the publication of ministerial approvals, all policy mandates and every consulting report relating to the units; and an independent forensic audit of the housing demand data base, its allocations, removals, beneficiary verification processes and allocation criteria.

The memorandum further demanded a written response to each issue contained in the eight-page document within seven calendar days.

The municipality confirmed to Mossel Bay Advertiser that it had received the memorandum on Tuesday.

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