THE first 907 residents have received their new houses in Lufhereng, Gauteng's biggest fully-integrated human settlement development.

The target dates for occupation set at the launch of the project in August have been achieved and the first families were occupy to into their homes before Christmas day.

Located in Soweto, just west of Dobsonville, Phase 1A of Lufhereng is now under construction. All the units that have been completed are already occupied.

The Minister of Human Settlements Tokyo Sexwale, the Premier of Gauteng Nomvula Mokonyane, the Executive Mayor of the City of Johannesburg Councillor Amos Masondo and the Former MEC for Local Government and Housing Kgaogelo Lekgoro officially launched the project on 17 August 2010, handing over new houses to six first-time women home owners. The development takes place in line with the National Government's Breaking New Ground Policy. It is aimed at building a sustainable community located closer to economic opportunities and providing resident's access to social and economic amenities such as schools, crèches, churches, clinics, recreational facilities and parks as well as several business nodes.

The first phase of the project includes the provision of engineering services for 2 433 freehold stands and the construction of 1192 units earmarked solely for RDP Homes. To date the project has delivered 907 RDP houses.

The houses have predominantly been allocated to beneficiaries from the Protea South Informal Settlement who qualifies for Fully Subsidised Housing according to the National Housing Policy. The City of Johannesburg, together with the Gauteng Department of Local Government and Housing have also used the opportunity to relocate a limited number of beneficiaries from Bramfischerville after it was found that certain RDP homes there were built in rising flood lines.

The project is receiving a tremendous amount of interest from prospective home buyers and other RDP-qualifying residents from greater Soweto and surrounding regions. This interest often results in speculation and harmful rumors as to 'who will be on the list for the next allocations'. The City of Johannesburg is concerned about unscrupulous individuals that are selling and promising people homes in Lufhereng, selling them empty promises, fraudulently duplicating government documents and selling 'C' Forms, and promising people keys to houses in the Development, when they have no mandate to do so.

The City of Johannesburg would like to state that no official from the City, any other government department, elected politician or any other person is allowed to receive any form of payment or benefit for government houses, nor receive payment for putting people's names on any lists. We urge communities not to support this type of criminal behavior. Should anyone encounter any persons who are supposedly selling names on lists and promises of homes, that they must not hand over any monies to these fraudsters and immediately report the matter to their nearest Police Station. We wish to warn our citizens that they will lose their hard earned monies if they entertain such fraudsters.

The City has recently released a tender for the development of future phases of the Lufhereng Development. As part of this process the City will embark on a proper communication campaign throughout Greater Soweto, which will be done through legally recognized structures involving ward councilors, for the screening of the 96/97 of Greater Soweto's waiting list, whom are the first beneficiaries to benefit from the future phases of this development.

For more information please contact:
Nthatisi Modingoane
Deputy Director: Communications
CITY OF JOHANNESBURG
Tel: (011) 407 7354
Fax: 403 3494
Cell: 082 467 9228
E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it