Tired of waiting for a government house, a 67-year-old built her own
Nomonde Mboyi has spent three years and her pension building a mud-brick home in the Eastern Cape. The state house promised to her after a 2019 storm is still a foundation.
Mbizana — Nomonde Mboyi is 67. For three years she has been building herself a house in Ndakeni, in the Eastern Cape, paying for the bricks and the builders out of her old-age grant. She plans to move in in December.
The government promised her a new home after a storm destroyed hers in 2019. It has not been built, GroundUp reports.
What the storm took
Heavy wind and rain in the rural Mbizana area in 2019 destroyed hundreds of homes. Ms Mboyi lost two mud houses. The third, of sticks and mud, has a leaking roof and holes in the walls.
Her house
Three years ago officials told her the government would replace her home. She did not wait. Her mud-brick house now needs only plastering outside and finishing touches. Eskom cannot connect electricity until it is waterproof.
The government's house
In 2023 the Eastern Cape Department of Human Settlements appointed a contractor, ZIBSIPRO, to build 200 replacement houses across the area for about R34 million, roughly R170,000 a house. None has been completed. Ms Mboyi's has a foundation and part of its walls.
- In February, residents offered the local municipality to finish the houses themselves. They were told to wait.
- The contractor left the site in November 2025 and has not returned; some machinery is still there under guard.
Two accounts
The department's spokesperson, Yanga Funani, said the contract was terminated in the 2025/26 financial year for poor performance, and that the department plans to restart the project, starting with houses already under way.
The contractor's director, Palesa Phara, said she knew of no termination. She said the department had not paid the company for a year, had told it verbally to slow down for lack of funds, and had switched to paying only for finished houses, which made the work impossible to finance. She also described delays over soil tests, approvals and a foundation design that had to be redone, and said construction effectively began only around October 2024, across 34 villages and in heavy rain.
The department did not respond to her claims. The municipality referred questions to the department.
A community leader, Nontokozo Nyombo, said most of the families waiting depend on social grants and urgently need homes.
Source: GroundUp, reporting by Nombulelo Damba-Hendrik and Yamkela Ntshongwana, 14 October 2026.
