South Africa needs to spend billions of dollars to ease a nationwide housing crunch, its housing minister said on Friday, highlighting a glaring legacy of decades of apartheid.
Lindiwe Sisulu told Parliament during her annual budget speech that the country had made progress in easing a huge backlog in requests for housing.
But she stressed that in order to tackle the problem by 2016, the funding shortfall will rise to R253-billion ($34,80-billion).
”In view of this I believe that the housing backlog must be eradicated within the shortest possible time and our cost projections indicate a doubling of costs for every two years delayed,” Sisulu said.
South Africa is the continent’s economic powerhouse. But critics accuse the government of favouring big business over the poor, who mostly still live in grim townships not far from upmarket areas and fancy malls, symbols of the investment that has poured in since apartheid ended.
Commercial property continues to rally although the residential market has cooled after a three-year boom that took prices way out of reach of many potential buyers.
”Our commitment is to remove those previously impenetrable clouds in the form of the historical backlog and the deep-seated challenges of an intractable, somewhat insensitive state machinery,” said Sisulu.
President Thabo Mbeki has said conditions of the poor have improved. Housing authorities have moved thousands of townships families away from their tin shacks. Residents of the areas, however, say much more needs to be done.
Sisulu was hopeful, despite the huge challenges.
”We have broken through the backlog barrier and have produced more houses than there are people in our backlog, which has been dislodged from the 2,4-million mark and now stands at 2,2-million,” said Sisulu.
She said this was the first time in South Africa’s democracy that significant progress was made on the issue, with annual production of houses now at 272 000 from 250 000 a year, the benchmark figure for the most houses built in one year.
But she noted soaring construction costs fuelled by preparations to host the World Cup have impacted on housing delivery targets.
”This has had serious implications for the delivery of housing and this will exacerbate our ability to deliver the projected number of houses,” Sisulu said. – Reuters