City Permits Communities to Reconfigure Informal Settlements
Communities are urged to form a cooperative to stand a chance to be a part of the City’s Self-Reblocking Integration Programme.
As per the National Upgrading Support Programme (NUSP) some of the work carried out during reblocking includes the electrification of all structures to prevent illegal connections and over-loading on the network, and numbering of structures.
The self-reblocking aims to strengthen a partnership between residents of informal settlements and the City. The working partnership will then permit residents to reblock their own shacks to speed up service delivery, electrification and to also avoid resistance of service delivery within informal settlements. This follows a spate of incidents where City officials and technicians have been victimised by residents, and in cases where communities have preventing service delivery from happening.
Member of the Mayoral Committee (MMC) for Human Settlements Lesiba Mpya said the main purpose of the re-blocking process is to ensure that all informal settlements’ communities have access to basic services.
“Re-blocking is meant to create an enabling environment for informal settlements and the municipality to plan and implement community development projects together,” MMC Mpya said.
Due to compactness of informal settlements fires are a great risk. The layout and density of the settlements make it difficult for the City to respond effectively to fires or any other emergency situations. Re-blocking also improves access to basic water and sanitation, electricity and waste collection.
The self-reblocking process will be supervised by the City’s housing liaison officers who will oversee that streets and stand sizes meet the required standards for configurations.
For more information on human settlements issues please visit their offices at your nearest customer care centre or call 011 999 6730.
Since the beginning of the current administration term of office, 34 of the 119 informal settlements have been re-blocked and electrified resulting in almost 50 000 people enjoying electricity for the first time. This includes an additional 6 546 electrified informal settlement households under the Eskom licensed areas.
