Villagers of an Eastern Cape community called Qonce are ecstatic after they were issued with new RDP homes.

Fifty-n­ine-year-old Makhaya Ndevu was one of the 52 bene­fi­ciar­ies who received new houses.

Ndevu, his wife and two chil­dren had lived for 19 years in a dilap­id­ated, leak­ing mud struc­ture in Masingatha vil­lage.

 

 

“I make a liv­ing by garden­ing and selling whatever I grow,” he said. “My wife and I are social grant pen­sion­ers and with that money we also have to sup­port the two chil­dren.”

Ndevu’s wife, Nomazizi, 59, shared her plans of how she will enjoy her life in their new home.

“I will be able to redec­or­ate my home whenever I want,” she said.

“Because the house we lived in was very small, we could not move any­thing, but now things are going to be dif­fer­ent.”

The new fur­nished houses com­prise two bed­rooms, a lounge and a kit­chen. All 52 bene­fi­ciar­ies received gro­cer­ies, lounge suites and beds.

An excited Mab­hokisi Siwaphi, 69, from Masingatha expressed how grate­ful he was for receiv­ing his first home.

“I will be able to sleep peace­fully now that I have a proper brick home,” he said.

“We always used to worry about how to save our home essen­tials from heavy rains because we could not afford to buy new ones.”

Siwaphi lives with his wife and three chil­dren. Neither he nor his wife work and they have no other form of income.

Namhla Staan­hop, 43, lived in a home with a leak­ing roof with four chil­dren who are still at school.

They are very ecstatic and they thanked the government for the houses.