A march lead by a group of around 50 disgruntled residents, construction workers and building contractors turned into a hostage situation on Thursday at the Extension 9 Hall.
A march lead by a group of around 50 disgruntled residents, construction workers and building contractors turned into a hostage situation on Thursday at the Extension 9 Hall.
The Transit Camp residents were upset because they're still waiting for their houses to be completed, and the housing project construction workers are refusing to complete the houses because they're not being paid.
Manager of the housing project, Eric Qampi and officials from the Department of Human Settlements were kept in the hall until the crowd felt satisfied that their grievances had been heard.
“We are trying by all means to pay the contractors and the project will be completed at the end of month,” Qampi told the crowd. He said that a variation order had been issued to the contractors, which is a change that had to be made to the houses. According to Qampi, the reason the contractors haven't been paid yet is because they haven't submitted their project reports. “We oblige to pay everyone when it's necessary,” he said.
Community liaison officer, Boniwe Makhasi said that since the construction at Transit Camp began "they haven't been paid very much since then". She doubted that the project would be completed by the end of the month. "Who is going to work there, knowing that he or she will not get paid?" she said.
Construction employee, Lungile Samsam said that he is owed him more than R1 000 and so far he has only been paid R100. “They haven't paid me since last year and I tried to introduce this matter to the Mayor but he didn't do anything,” Samsam said.
This is why they didn't want to let the officials in the hall "go free", he said, because the workers are still sitting without salaries.
The hostages were detained for more than three hours, and were only released once they had promised to comply with the residents' and workers' demands.
