Aldine Kleinhans, a qualified Building Quantity Surveyor, joined ASLA in 2007 as an ASLA DEVCO Project Manager. Her project management role involves a fair bit of travelling (30 000 to 40 000km annually) between municipal housing projects where ASLA DEVCO acts as turnkey implementation agent. Her long homeward journeys take her back to Kuilsriver, where she lives with her two daughters, in a house that she built herself. “I use a lot of my learned skills in my personal life and have designed and built my own home,” says Kleinhans. “I enjoy the detail of working out how many bricks need to go into a wall, how many bags of cement or cubic metres of sand I’ll need etc., and I must say that I prefer working on the building contractor side of the industry.”
Aldine currently spends a lot of her time on projects in Dysselsdorp near Outdshoorn; Slangrivier and Melkhoutfontein on the Garden Route; Vredendal in the Northern Olifants River Valley and Lutzville on the West Coast. As a regular visitor she is well-known within the communities, who often refer to her as “die vrou van ASLA met die lang hare“. (The lady from ASLA with the long hair).
Aldine, what was your academic and career path prior to joining ASLA?
“After completing my Building Quantity Surveyor Higher Diploma, I joined the Department of Human Settlements, where I became the first female building inspector in the Western Cape! After seven years with the Department, I went to work at ACSA for two years, as a Building Maintenance Co-ordinator at the Cape Town International Airport. This was followed by two years at Nautilus Marine & Globe Engineering. My joining ASLA marked an almost circular path, back into human settlements – except this time I would be approaching it from a private sector perspective.”
What does your job as project manager entail?
“I work closely with the other ASLA DEVCO project managers who are responsible for procuring projects. Once the project is awarded, my tasks include ensuring that ASLA builds good, sustainable quality homes. In order, to do this, I conduct regular monthly site visits and chair technical site meetings with the Departmental, NHBRC & Municipal inspectors as well as with ASLA Construction, that frequently acts as the managing building contractor.
“A further responsibility includes ensuring that houses are handed over to the respective approved beneficiaries – but I do a lot more than ‘just’ handover houses. I also oversee ASLA DEVCO’s transfer department which entails ensuring that the deeds of sale are captured, and the transactions are transferred (using ASLA attorneys or local attorneys specified by the municipalities) to obtain a title deed. We then present the deeds to the Municipalities for distribution to the respective beneficiaries.
“I’m usually responsible for project managing between five to eight projects at a time, depending on work procured.”
What does a typical day at work look like for you?
“I have three standard types of days at work – an office-bound, a site-visit day, and a handover day. An office-bound day sees me at the ASLA office in Strand: checking, responding, and writing e-mails; doing minutes of my technical meeting and setting up technical site meetings; responding to queries from beneficiaries and municipalities; liaising with the subsidy beneficiary administrator, and my transfer team; capturing signed handover documentation and the three-month retention documentation onto our database; and doing re-cons for houses handed over, transfers taken place, etc. I also prepare handover documentation for houses for handover. This could be for 5 to 25 houses at a time, with each house having six project documents that must be prepared, checked, and collated. Once a month I prepare a transfer status summary sheet for Management to keep them updated on progress, or if we have been unable to register properties, the reason for this.
“A site-visit day will see me having technical meetings with our team from ASLA Construction and inspectors from the Municipality, Human settlements and the NHBRC. On my site visits we also conduct quality control and technical inspections, and if there are any issues, I liaise with the construction manager to address these.”
What does a handover day look like?
“There are two types of handover days, ranging from relatively low key to Ministerial handover days where dignitaries, such as the Minister of Human Settlements, Tertius Simmers, the Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Ward councillors, Housing manager, municipal officials, beneficiaries and ASLA representatives will attend. At the relatively lowkey handover events the homes are handed over by the Community Liaison Officer (CLO), who is employed by ASLA DEVCO and whom I oversee.
“At a Ministerial handover the keys to the houses are handed over to the respective beneficiaries (especially the elderly and disabled) by the Minister himself. It’s a celebration and we put red ribbons on the doors and ASLA flags outside the homes being handed over that day. And once the keys are handed over, I make sure that the documentation is completed and signed by all parties concerned.”
Your role seems to require a lot of attention to detail?
“My children tell me that I am not a rule breaker – and that I always try to do things the right way, not taking short cuts: it’s either right or wrong, there is no middle path. I must admit that I like to be in control of my work and am very detail oriented – I capture data to the smallest of detail and strive to be as accurate as humanly possible. I’m not sure if this is a female trait, but I’m good on the detail! I really enjoy my job – it gives me great satisfaction, and I pride myself in the way I conduct business, the work ethic that I have, and how I approach things.”
Have you experienced meaningful moments on these handover days?
“I’ve had a lot of meaningful moments here over the years and it is always a special time for me on site when we handover to the beneficiaries and see the look of excitement on their faces. I would say that 99% of beneficiaries are happy and thankful to receive a house, and it feels good to be part of that process.
“When I visit the communities and see how some people really value their houses, have gone to the effort to make beautiful gardens and turned that house into a home – that gives me a sense of having added value to that beneficiary’s life.”
