DA: Govt must act on N2 Gateway rentals

Government must act to sort out problems with the payment of rentals by tenants at Cape Town’s N2 Gateway housing project, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Monday.

“The Department of Human Settlements has admitted that it has only been able to recover just over R600 000 in rentals, despite being owed close to R7,5-million by the occupants over the [past year],” DA human settlements spokesperson Butch Steyn said in a statement.

According to the department, rentals collected declined from 19% in July 2008 to 4% last month.

“Despite the fact that tenants give poor workmanship and lack of maintenance as key reasons for why they are not paying their rentals, only R180 000 has been spent on maintenance over the same period.

“The department must act to normalise this situation by either attending to the genuine complaints by the tenants, after which they must fulfil their obligations, or evict the errant tenants and replace them with deserving people who are looking for subsidised rental accommodation.”

Steyn said the DA would be carrying out its own fact-finding mission to determine how “real” problems were at the project.—Sapa