New Joe Slovo Project Steering Committee Elected

The Western Cape Department of Human Settlements facilitated a peaceful meeting for the election of a new Project Steering Committee (PSC) for the Joe Slovo housing development in Langa on Saturday 21 January 2017.

 The Joe Slovo housing Development project is part of the N2 Gateway development, and progress has been hindered by violence and infighting due to unhappiness of the community with the previous PSC. The PSC is essential for communication between the authorities and the community and ensuring that the community interests are represented and fairly met. The Department of Human Settlements supported by the Housing Development Agency (HDA) have in the past year made several attempts to co-ordinate a transparent and fair election of a new PSC.

Thando Mguli, Head of Department of the Western Cape Human Settlements Department undertook a vow to leave no stone unturned to resolve any issue in order for the development to proceed, including ensuring that the planned project beneficiaries were properly represented.

Mr. Mguli said on Saturday “The purpose of the day is for the election of a new PSC committee that will work directly with the community of Joe Slovo, which includes qualifiers and non-qualifiers.”

The community welcomed all the conditions and criteria of the role of the new committee members. The disbanded PSC members were also in attendance, and although one of them was re-nominated he declined the nomination.

“We can finally say that we now officially have a new constituted Joe Slovo Project Steering Committee”, said Mr Mguli.

The conditions for eligibility as a PSC member, below, were communicated to the community.

• If you move into a house you will automatically resign as a PSC Member
• If you move to a serviced site you will resign as a PSC Member
• You must either be an approved beneficiary or a non-qualifier
• You must not have a business interest in the J/S project
• A PSC member cannot serve as a Community Liaison Officer or a Contractor within the Joe Slovo Phase 3 project
• You must have the interest of the project at heart and be willing to work towards creating space for construction.
• A consent form must be signed by each new PSC Member
• People must support the project
• All parties must work together – PSC, Community, PDHS, HDA, CoCT and Contractors

The main focus must be on delivery of houses and relocations