Gauteng housing flop: Residents in desperate need of dignified housing

Despite years of promises to end the housing backlog in Gauteng, residents across the province are still in desperate need of dignified housing as they to live in inhumane conditions, due to the Gauteng department of human settlement’s underspent budget.

Concerns

The Gauteng provincial legislature human settlements portfolio committee yesterday expressed concerns over budgets cuts for municipalities which already had projects underway.

“The committee is concerned about lack of improvement on spending,” chair Alphina Ndlovana said.

“The department’s monitoring of human settlement projects is generally poor.” Ndlovana said during the financial year 2023-24, the department planned to deliver 9 267 housing units (4 472 mega housing units and 4 795 legacy housing units); 8 885 serviced stands (6 549 mega serviced stands and 2 336 legacy serviced stands).

“The continuous increase in target setting, whereas the previous financial years performance should serve as lesson learned, is very worrisome,” she said.

Housing project

One of the communities that was promised a mega-housing project, was abruptly cancelled last year and ultimately switched to an “informal settlement upgrading project”.

Hundreds of residents from Marikana informal settlement in Centurion, located next to the Centurion Gautrain station, were evicted on Tuesday morning, allegedly as per a court order, even after they were promised five years ago that they would benefit from a “mega project” in the area.

One of the residents, Tlhago Tshekedi, claimed they were promised by the department the project would begin in 2017, and be completed by 2023-24. He said they were promised by a former ward councillor, Peter Sutton, they would never be removed without alternative accommodation.

Sutton is now the Tshwane council’s MMC for finance.

 “We were not given any notice. We have been waiting to hear from the department about the upgrading project,” said Tshekedi.

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Improving lives

The department has been blowing its own horn, with Gauteng MEC for human settlements and infrastructure development Lebogang Maile claiming it made “serious strides in restoring and improving the lives of our people by providing decent housing units and much-needed economic opportunities”.

But according to Gauteng residents, recent evictions have proven otherwise. “During the 2022-23 financial year, the department delivered 6 982 housing units and serviced 8 643 stands,” Maile said. “In total, we created 15 625 housing opportunities during the 2022-23 financial year and, cumulatively, the housing opportunities created for the current term of office add up to 74 981.

“About 39 020 housing units, plus 35 961 serviced stands – this is without having included the 3 812 social housing and rental units delivered through our provincial government entity, the Gauteng Partnership Fund.

“In addition to this, in line with the holistic vision of human settlements delivery, four socio-economic facilities have been delivered: a taxi rank and, a community hall and a sports facility at Afri Village as well as a community hall at Dan Tloome [housing project].”

Backlogs

However, following “inhumane” evictions by acting Joburg mayor Kenny Kunene last week, residents who lived in the dilapidated and hijacked buildings across the metro blamed the department for failure to fix its housing backlog.

Late last year, Maile admitted to an alarming 1.2 million RDP housing backlog and RDP housing applications that have been on the waiting list since 1996.

In a written reply to the DA’s questions tabled in the provincial legislature, Maile said there were many issues contributing to the backlog, such as the budget, migration and the availability of habitable land for construction.

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