There was applause for Finance Minister Trevor Manuel as he announced that the housing budget would be tripled, not doubled, as requested by Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu.
”I was sitting on my bed washing myself in a bucket and I saw this man on TV2 talking about how many millions and millions of rands South Africa has made since Mbeki became our president and I thought: ”Ag kak man, where’s that money? Who gets it? Why am I still living like an animal in a hok [cage]?”
Priscilla Moloke lives in Mandela Park — the squatter camp in Imizamu Yethu outside Hout Bay and is one of the more than two million South Africans on housing waiting lists. She is 44 and has never slept in a brick house.
”I don’t know what it means when the minister say he will spend millions of rands on houses. I understand if somebody arrives with a lorry with bricks and sand and cement. So, I changed to TV1 and watched Days of Our Lives — which I do understand.”
”[Manuel’s] speech espoused all the right ideas. But even tripling the budget over three years is not enough to dent the backlog in houses,” said Anthea Houston, CEO of the Development Action Group.
The backlog of houses is about 2,4-million and growing by 40 000 households a year. While the housing budget remains at 1% of the national budget — in the past 10 years, it has never gone above 1,4% — Sisulu can only deliver 10 000 houses per year in the Western Cape.