Barry Streek
Over the past three years, the provincial governments have failed to spend the amounts allocated to them by the government for housing.
In the 2000/2001 financial year the provinces underspent by R425,2-million, or 87,7% of the total allocated to them, even though two provinces, the Northern Cape and the Northern Province, overspent their budget allocations.
This has been disclosed by Minister of Housing Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele in reply to questions tabled in the National Assembly.
She said R3,5-billion was allocated to the nine provinces for the 2000/2001 financial year and they had spent just more than R3-billion, leaving R425,2-million, though this included R240-million set aside for subsi- dies in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga from the job summit programme.
If the job summit allocations, which were retained by the South African Housing Fund, are not taken into account, the provincial governments rolled over 5,3% of the total amount available in 2000/2001.
“The expenditure of housing funds by provincial governments is monitored closely throughout the financial year and any indication of serious underspending is addressed without delay.”
Mthembi-Mahanyele said 100% of the R3,1-billion allocated to the provinces for housing in 1997/98 was spent. This dropped in 1998/99 to 94,3% of the R3,2-billion available, to 87,1% of the R3,1-billion available in 1999/2000 and to 87,7% of the R3,5-billion available in 2000/2001.