Housing backlog: SA is aeons away from making access for all a reality

The provision of adequate and affordable housing in South Africa still remains a challenge and serves as a direct daily confrontation on how unequal as a country we are, even post-apartheid.

Following Minister of Human Settlements Mmamoloko Kubayi’s media briefing on Monday, we were once more reminded of a bitter pill that, as South Africans, we have to swallow.

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For in a country that prides itself on access to shelter as a democratic right through a constitutional provision, we are still miles away from making that a lived reality.

The republic is facing the emergence of shanty towns almost on a daily from across townships, ranging from Mamelodi in Pretoria down to Khayelitsha in Cape Town.

SA should be doing better

And this cannot be a situation deemed normal.

In a country on a mission to redress the injustices of the past, lack of housing should not be a thing, especially the lack of access to affordable housing.

With home loan rejections averaging at a rate of 68%, this must tell us there is something wrong which requires intervention from the government.

It is understood that some individuals, for sound reasons such as poor credit scores and lack of affordability, cannot access home loans.

But to live in a democratic country in which financial institutions are still racially profiling people and are denying them home loans based solely on their race, is appalling and something that should be rejected.

That, on its own, is counter to the rainbow nation that is supposedly being built. We can’t turn a blind eye to the practice whereby the previously disadvantaged groups are still subjected to the same inferior treatment of the past.

The fact that their approval rate of home loans is lower, further exacerbates the level of inequality that makes South Africa rank among the most unequal countries in the world.

We are currently in a state in which lack of opportunities and access to housing are high enough to propel the government to action.

Time to be lax is over.

And for the department of human settlements to vow it will seek to hold the financial institutions accountable is a welcomed development.

For these institutions must disclose and provide tangible reasons why individuals get rejected for home loans.

However, it is noted that to ensure greater property ownership, women have received more home loan approvals and they have benefitted more from the RDP housing initiative by the government.

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More needs to be done for housing crisis

Although, more still needs to be done, as there is still a huge backlog when it comes to the provision of housing.

And it should not be all talk with no show, as the minister has reiterated that the matter of those who sell the houses that are government-subsidised before the eight-year period of occupation, will be addressed because they reverse the gains that have been achieved thus far and they continue to increase the backlog of the handover of title deeds to their rightful owners.

In addition, it is commendable that the department is seeking to establish strategic partnerships and to find ways to source funds from the Public Investment Corporation to repurpose dilapidated buildings in the inner cities.

As a result, the vision to provide affordable housing in places closer to work will be a reality.

But then, if implementation is not taken as in yesterday, we will go nowhere.

For people will continue to be agitated and build informal settlements that are causing a headache for government when it is now required to formalise these communities with the necessary infrastructure.

As the minister has announced that there shall be an establishment of a war room to ensure that municipalities spend correctly and accordingly their human settlements grants, is something the public should take keen interest in.

It is high time municipalities account when they misspend or underspend. Being complacent can no longer be acceptable as long as access to housing is still a burning issue. Human settlements are at the centre of human development and that should not be taken for granted.

• Mthembu is an independent commentator

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