Those who sell the houses they receive under the government’s RDP programme will face criminal charges should human settlements MEC Olly Mlamleli get her way.
Under current laws, beneficiaries can only sell their house – with government approval – after occupying it for at least eight years.

But beneficiaries have been selling their houses before the lapse of that period, forcing Mlamleli to seek radical measures to stop the practice that has marred the RDP programme over the years.
She now wants the Free State provincial legislature to pass a law that will curb the practice.

Addressing residents of the farming town of Vrede, about 400km northeast of Bloemfontein, Mlamleli said her department was tired of “sweet-talking” RDP beneficiaries to refrain from selling their houses.
“We are now talking as government to come up with a law that will see those who sell houses which they pretended to be desperately in need of when applying to be arrested, prosecuted and jailed if possible,” she said.
“Why apply for an RDP house when you know you do not need it? That house could have been given to someone else but you for all I care!”

Mlamleli also cautioned would-be buyers of RDP houses to do so at their own peril as they would not live to see the day the title deeds of the houses are registered in their names.

“In principle these houses are not for sale – they are given to poor and needy people so that they can raise their families in proper shelter, and be an inheritance to generations of families to come,” the MEC said.

Mlamleli also had a word of advice for married women who for any reason are no longer living with their husbands in their RDP houses to know that as long as they remain legally married the houses will be still theirs too.
She said the only way a married woman in a non-formal break-up predicament can apply for her own RDP house is if she gets divorced from her husband through the courts.

“It should no longer be a taboo to be a divorcee, so stop hiding yourselves as if you did something wrong,” Mlamleli said. “If things did not work out why feel ashamed? At the end of the day you are the one left with the burden of raising the children and they need a home.”

He made this undertaking when he visited the farm school on the first day of the 2015 school calendar on Wednesday morning.

Magashule also promised to organise a tour to India for the school’s mathematics and science teachers in order to improve their knowledge of the subjects, something which he said will trickle down as a benefit to the students.

Bansvlei, which was originally built to accommodate 560 students, now has an enrolment of 801 learners.

This has inevitably resulted in overpopulated classrooms which make teaching and learning difficult for both subject instructors and the learners.

“We are going to build more classrooms for this school,” Magashule said.

“Despite them being a farm school, they have managed to improve their 14 percent matric pass rate in 2011 to a 100 percent in 2013, and a good 82 percent for the 2014 matric examinations,” the premier added.

“We will also organise a tour for your teachers, maybe during school holidays, to sharpen their understanding of the subjects to benefit the learners.”

Magashule said the extra classrooms should be ready for use by the end of the 2014/15 financial year.

“The appointment of the contractor to carry out the construction should be completed in the next three months,” he said.

Magashule said he was at the school to motivate and encourage both teachers and learners to start their new school year with the energy and zest that will see them improve further on the results they have been getting in the past years.

He said schools catering for farm dwellers are going to form part of his focus this year as they had been left out in the periphery in terms of infrastructure development and help for students to carry their studies further at tertiary institutions.

“Farm schools are going to be my passion for the year and I will organise special bursaries for those wishing to study further from these schools because for far too long now they have had no one giving them bursaries and necessary help to improve their lot in life,” the premier said.

He added that Bansvlei, which out-performed most other schools in the province in the matric examinat

Magashule, who was speaking at the official provincial celebrations of Africa Day in Bloemfontein on Wednesday May 27, said it is time South Africans realised that they are dependent on countries such as Mozambique to supply gas and Lesotho to provide water.

“If you think you are so important as South Africans what will happen if the rest of the continent closes up their supplies of water and gas we get from Lesotho and Mozambique? We do not have anywhere to go because we live in this continent called Africa,” said the Premier before a packed gallery.

In attendance were members of the royal families around the province, members of the provincial cabinet, mayors and councillors as well as representatives of foreign nationals living in the province.

The Premier said the advocates of the Freedom Charter document – which was drafted in 1955 in Kliptown, Gauteng, during a people’s assembly attended by South Africans from all walks of life and races, rightly saw it fitting to declare that South Africa belongs to all who live in it and that there shall be friendship and security.

In his welcome address to the gathering, Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality Executive Mayor Thabo Manyoni said it is naïve for Africans to think people from other continents would come and solve their challenges.

Manyoni, said the Freedom Charter says conflicts should be solved through dialogue and not violence. He called on African leaders to have the necessary maturity to work against what he termed the “political decay” which he blamed for undermining the continent.

“This day should stimulate a desire for unity among us, considering that we were denied the right to self-determination for so long; from Cape to Cairo we are Africans,” Manyoni said, adding that the legacy of fighting to rid the continent of outside domination, left behind by anti-colonisation icons such as Nelson Mandela, Kwame Nkurumah, Sam Nojuma and Samora Machel makes every African proud to be associated with the continent.

He referred to the findings of illigal flight of capital from the continent led by former president Thabo Mbeki and commissioned by the African Union which found that an amount of between R1.2 trillion and R1.4 trillion was taken out of the continent between 1980 and 2009.

“Africa remains exploited today and there is little punishment of perpetrators of this crime,” said Manyoni.

Among royalty that attended the event were Basotho kings including King Mota, Masopha Mopedi, Lekunutu Mopedi and Majoro Motloka.