Housing delivery may finally be on the increase, but there is still a long way to go to meet promises made, reports tebello Radebe
Pieces in the housing jigsaw puzzle are falling into place. An upbeat Housing Minister Sankie Mahanyele last week announced that housing delivery is on the increase.
“Major differences of the past have now been resolved, rules and regulations which tend to stall delivery have now been streamlined,” she said beaming with confidence.
She said new people had contributed to the upsurge in delivery. “We’ve been patient to allow the right processes to go on. Our time lags do not allow for `quick-jobs’, otherwise you can end up with embarrassing situations.”
Mahanyele also announced the end of the road for the National Housing Board, which is to be replaced by provincial boards to further curb “the duplication of functions”.
To test the minister’s “new machine”, the Mail & Guardian conducted a snap survey of the provincial housing boards this week. Alas, we found that the “new machine” is largely unchanged from the old: still slow to deliver and full of promises, but at least more cautious now, while long-winded and elaborate explanations remain a given. However, there is a key difference: there are signs of “an upsurge in delivery”, despite the R2,2-billion unspent from the 1996/97 budget allocations for the provinces.
Top of the pops is the Mpumalanga Housing Initiative, described by Mahanyele as “a bold excursion into uncharted waters fraught with risk”.
Through this initiative, the province leads on the delivery stakes with a rate of slightly over eight houses a day — up from around one a day in 1994.
Mpumalanga Housing Department representative Saths Moodley was quick to defend the fact that they have spent only 38% of the R200-million allocated to them.
“We have set aside a huge chunk of our budget for projects by four major developers and they seem to have serious capacity constraints of their own, otherwise we would have delivered even more houses,” said Moodley.
Efforts to obtain a comment from the Northern Province provincial government, which has spent a scant 5% of the R347-million allocated, bore no fruit. The old bureaucracy is alive and well. A Northern Province Housing Board staff member requested that all questions be faxed but at the time of going to press, the answers were still not forthcoming.
To its credit, though, the Northern Province boasts the unique distinction of a national first — the official opening of the Mhinga Housing Project, which aims to deliver around seven houses a day over a year.
Some of the outstanding features of this project include the following:
l It is a rural community project with the full and active backing of the area’s traditional leader, Chief Cydrick Mhinga.
l It has achieved the ability to deliver 28m2 homes at the R15 000 government subsidy cost.
l It enables even the unemployed, or people with the least income, to have access to decent basic homes.
l It provides about 400 jobs and marketable skills for mainly rural community women.
Speaking at the opening of the Mhinga project, Northern Province Premier Ngoako Ramathlodi lauded the new spirit of co-operation in his province between traditional leaders, rural communities and the Housing Board.
He also announced that five other projects similar to Mhinga are being planned.
M&G attempts to obtain progress details from Gauteng and the Western Cape have also been unsuccessful.
Gauteng was allocated R721-million and has spent nearly half that amount. It is the third-highest spender after the Northern Cape, which has spent more than 60% of its R79-million allocation, and the Western Cape, which paid out 61% of its R205- million.
The Free State, North West and Eastern Cape provinces, to varying degrees, all blamed the lack of bond finance, legitimate local government structures and effects of the transition process for the low delivery on their part.
However, they all indicated that thousands of applications which they have processed to date will translate into both new homes and serviced sites in the next six months.
KwaZulu-Natal Housing Board chairman Charles Van Eck summarised the entire process for the country and his province when he said no single person, situation or event can be blamed for the slow delivery. “It’s nobody’s fault. We had to turn the country on its head completely, it takes time.”
But, he said, the pace of delivery has definitely increased.