Charles Standers, Executive Mayor of George, recently pointed out that George Municipality is one of the only local authorities in the country that managed to provide basic services to all of the inhabitants living in informal settlements well before the national deadline.

He said during the municipality’s public engagements with its communities it became clear that the backyarder issues could no longer be ignored. The latter is a national dilemma which must also be addressed locally.

Councillor Henry Jones, Portfolio Councillor for Human Settlements, said after George Municipality raised this matter at SALGA approximately a year ago a task team has been set up to investigate the possibility of a housing programme in this regard.

“In order to fulfill this mandate, George Municipality is embarking on a door to door survey to identify persons residing in backyards to determine the level of service these households have access to,” he said.

The aim of this survey is to quantify the need for basic services required by backyard dwellers similarly to the quantification done a number of years ago with the Municipality’s Informal Settlement Master Plan.

Once all the data is available a strategy will be formulated to address the desperate need of households living in backyards and to ultimately provide these households with basic services.

The strategy referred to will fully comply with legislation and will be based on best practices which are already applied in George Municipality in order to assist the poor.

“It is a well-known fact that the National Government does not have the financial means to assist every poverty stricken family with a housing opportunity and that those who are fortunate to receive an opportunity have to wait their turn for many years. The ultimate aim of this initiative is to ensure that while families who are living in backyards wait for their housing opportunities, they do so with dignity,” Jones concluded.