A United States government aid agency has given South Africa a R200-million grant for building 100 000 low-cost homes, Housing Minister Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele announced on Sunday.
The grant from the Oversees Private Investment Corporation (Opic) to the South African government’s National Urban Reconstruction and Housing Agency (Nurcha) will help provide homes for 350 000 homeless people, Mthembi-Mahanyele said in a statement.
Nurcha will match the grant, bringing the total injection of funding into low-cost housing to R400-million.
The minister began negotiating the grant with the US agency during a visit to Washington in February.
”The deal between Opic and the government will contribute to the broadening of access to affordable finance to other emerging housing contractors and developers to construct houses in the low-income market to ensure delivery and sustainability,” Mthembi-Mahanyele said.
Since its inception in 1995, Nurcha had facilitated the construction of more than 100 000 houses worth R1,6-billion and had helped more than 160 emerging contractors and developers manage substantive projects and access bridging finance, the ministry said.
Contractors and developers had also benefited from training sponsored by Nurcha.
The housing ministry is currently dealing with a housing backlog of two to three million units affecting 7,35 million people.
Since 1994, the government has provided the poor with 1,4 million homes, including 400 000 old municipal homes have been transferred to the families that had been renting them. – Sapa