An amount of R20 000 was paid to the Saldanha Bay Municipality by anonymous donors, for “finding or locating Joslin Smith of Diazville”. Joslin, only 7 years old, went missing on Monday, 19 February 2024.

The investigation into the disappearance of Joslin is officiated by SAPS and it is their sole responsibility, however the Saldanha Bay Municipality has worked closely with the SAPS to find little Joslin.

The administration of this reward is managed by the Saldanha Bay Municipality as the donors paid the funds into the MFMA section 12 bank account of the municipality, with the condition that it may only be used to find or locate Joslin Smith.

Anyone with information on Joslin’s whereabouts is requested to contact the investigating officer, Sergeant Meyer Millstine of Vredenburg FCS, at 079 879 8588 or Crime Stop at 08600 10111. Alternatively, Missing Children SA at 072 647 7464.

Alternatively, Lindie Kleynhans in the Office of the Executive Mayor may also be contacted at 079 518 4615 or 022 701 6971.

Yours truly,

ACTING MUNICIPAL MANAGER
Mr. Stefan Vorster

Saldanha Bay Municipality works in conjunction with the Provincial Government to attend to the growing need for housing opportunities in the area within the restricts of the relevant legislative framework.

The role of the municipality in the demand and beneficiary management process, is mainly to assist applicants with the completion of the forms and to capture such applications on the system. Once applications are captured and uploaded, the forms are submitted to the Provincial Department of Infrastructure for further processing.

For implementation where relevant, once a project has been identified and approved for implementation, in the case of subsidy applications, the municipal Housing department submits a report to Council. On 28 September 2023 the composition of the Louwville housing project was recommended and approved.

The selection criteria and priorities for a project, for example in the case of Louwville, are as follows:

1. Households headed by persons who are 60 years of age or older.
2. In the case of the Louwville project, there were too few individuals in the priority group and individuals in cohorts of five years were selected, i.e. age group 59 – 55 years of age.
3. Households headed by Military Veterans.
4. Households affected by permanent disability within ward.
5. Households affected by permanent disability.
6. Households headed by individuals older than 60 years. (On the broader Vredenburg waiting list.)

The municipal Housing department extracted the names of prospective applicants from the demand database and submitted the content to the Provincial Department of Infrastructure (Human Settlements).

Screening was completed to identify deceased, establish correct identity details and persons who received subsidies.

The result of the pre-screened list (for the Louwville project), was advertised in the Weslander on 19 October 2023 and the community were invited to provide input to the list of applicants by 2 November 2023.  Subsequently, the municipality received 46 inputs.  In terms of feedback, the municipality informed the Ward 13 Ward Committee from which specific complaints were received, via registered mail on 24 November 2023.

After consideration of áll inputs and responses received and the exclusion of unsuitable applicants, the municipality compiled a Final Prospective list of Beneficiaries.

This list was advertised in the Weslander on 25 January 2024 through which applicants were invited to apply for subsidies; subject to the following additional verification processes which forms part of the subsidy application process by the Provincial Department of Infrastructure:

• Income to be verified with the Department of Labour (DoL) – unless a person is not registered for UIF or registered with the DoL by the employer;
• Identity details to be verified with the Department of Home Affairs;
• Deeds searches to be conducted to confirm ownership of property, nationally;
• Housing Subsidy system to be checked whether an applicant or spouse received a subsidy nationally.

In addition, confirmation of property ownership is verified to prevent dual property registration.

After all the above-mentioned processes were followed, 46 subsidy applications for the Louwville housing project have been completed to date.  All possible avenues will be followed to invite persons on the list of prospective beneficiaries to apply for subsidy applications.  In the event of insufficient applications, the necessary processes will be followed including the screening of the housing demand database, until all housing opportunities have been fully allocated.

Projects are not divided or selected based on racial demarcation but rather based on the timeframe when a specific ward received a housing project.  For example, Wards 13, 10, 8 and 2 have not benefited in the past 15 years.

In recent projects within the Saldanha Bay Municipal area, the selection of beneficiaries was done based on age-based prioritisation as regulated by the relevant Provincial circular and where relevant, where the catchment area does not have sufficient applicants older than 60 years, individuals were selected based on longest registered on the waiting list.

The waiting list backlog of Saldanha Bay Municipality as on January 2024 has an estimated total of 12,811 applicants.  Applicants are required to update their waiting list details on a 6-monthly basis to ensure successful applications.

Saldanha Bay Municipality would like to invite all prospective applicants to make use of these opportunities to apply for housing subsidies.