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Thupeyo Muleya Beitbridge Bureau
Beitbridge municipality has entered into an agreement with 100 residents to stop evictions in the Kwalu suburb (formerly SDP) where residents are occupying unserviced housing land.
The local authority had in November last year instructed the residents to vacate the houses by the end of February this year.
The municipality told the concerned residents that the houses were not habitable since the area is not yet fully serviced.
Town clerk, Mr Loud Ramakgapola yesterday said they had initially arrived at the decision to evict the residents after getting a letter on the looming health disaster in the area from the Environmental Management Agency (EMA).
He said following numerous meetings with the concerned stakeholders they had agreed that the residents continue to occupy their houses on condition they made use of septic tanks pending connection to the main sewer reticulation line.
“The notice was put and we expected the residents to have moved out by end of February this year,” said Mr Ramakgapola.
“However, we held a meeting with the chairperson and secretary of that area (Kwalu 1) and they outlined the difficulties they are facing and the alternatives they had put in place.
“They proposed to use septic tanks, which will be decommissioned once the sewer is done and completed.
‘‘Given that the stands are big (300 square metres), I feel this could be a stop-gap measure.
“On our side, we have engaged the developers who share the same sewer trunk line to dedicate resources during the first and second quarter of 2020 into the sewer mainline”.
The official said they had also engaged other land developers to scale up efforts to complete servicing housing projects with sewer and water reticulation facilities.
He said in some instances servicing was ongoing and the developers were in their last two years of winding up.
“We want to ensure that by end of 2021 we have almost every stand owner with access to basic sanitation,” said Mr Ramakgapola.
The Herald is reliably informed that the SDP project involves the servicing of 2 256 residential stands with water, sewer, and roads, which is to be done in eight phases. So far 750 stands under Phase 1 were serviced with water, sewer and tarred road infrastructure.
In Phase 2 there are 191 stands and the roads are still at gravel stage.
Further, Phase 3 has 224 stands and Phase 5 has 239 stands where the laying of water and sewer pipes was done except for manholes and valves.
Online Reporter