A housing development company, Mozasa group, which is accused by scores of housing contractors of refusing to pay them for building 500 low-cost houses at Fatima Settlement outside Mogwadi in Limpopo, has denied the allegations.
The project which was almost complete was stopped three years ago after the Roman Catholic Church, which is the custodian of the 71 hectares piece of land the houses were built on, demanded R50 million in compensation for the illegal use of its land.
The manager of Mozasa Group Adolph Notiso says he offered to pay the church R10 million compensation but the church refused.
“So the funds to pay the contractors is there, but the reason why the money is not paid is because of the issue that is between the Roman Catholic Church and the Molemole Municipality. We are holding the money paid by the National Department because of this quarrel we have with the Roman Catholic Church in terms of the land,” says Notiso..
A group of disgruntled housing contractors who had been contracted to build the low cost houses wants the government to intervene in the non-payment dispute with the main contractor.
The contractors say they are owed about R67 million.
One of the contractors, Stanley Molele, is calling on the government to help them get the payment.
“We please ask the government to compensate us as the contractors as they promised to compensate the church, so we ask the MEC to please to sit down with us to solve this matter, we were brought by Mozaza. We are talking about the sum of R67 million, one unit is about R192 000 as per NHBRC,” says Molele.
Community spokesperson, Adlina Mankga, has expressed concern that the electrification of houses has stopped due to a dispute between the contractors and government.
“I will be happy if they can pay the contractors because they built us beautiful houses. Right now the project to electrify the area has stopped because building contractors have not yet been paid. Let them pay them as they also promised to compensate the Roman Catholic Church,” says Mankga.
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