Press alert: Resident group to challenge housing allocations in Endumeni

For immediate release: 24 October 2017

On Monday, 30 October 2017, the Legal Resources Centre will be in Pietermaritzburg High Court representing the Endumeni Civic Association. The Association has brought an application against the Endumeni Local Municipality and the MEC for Human Settlements (KZN) challenging the arbitrary application and manipulation of the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) housing waiting lists, unclear RDP housing allocation systems and policies, and the alleged corrupt allocation of RDP houses to housing applicants.

The Endumeni Civic Association represents 294 RDP housing applicants who are residing within the jurisdiction of the Endumeni Local Municipality.

Those represented by the Endumeni Civic Association are the most needy and vulnerable residents of the Municipality. Some of them are not well-informed about their prospects of having decent shelter over their heads. Some have been allocated houses ahead of others on the list. 

The executive members of Endumeni Civic Association want to see dignity restored to those who are still waiting for houses and those robbed of their houses through corruption. If the situation is not resolved, the tensions between people who have been allocated houses that were not supposed to have been allocated to them, and the people who were supposed to have been allocated houses, will increase.

This case raises a number of crucial issues that need to be addressed by the Pietermaritzburg High Court. In brief, the court will have to evaluate the conduct of the Endumeni Local Municipality, in terms of its actions with regarding to the allocation of housing, against relevant principles enshrined in the Constitution; including reasonableness, good governance, justice and equity, impartiality, fairness and equitability.

The LRC is aware of allegations made of similar problems experienced by RDP housing applicants in other areas of South Africa.