Housing, land are vital for SA’s future

In modern-day South Africa, where billions of rands of taxpayer money evaporates pointlessly every year – lost to incompetence and looting – it’s astounding that government has had to take back billions from four provinces because they couldn’t spend the money they were given to build houses.

Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu has removed an unspent amount of about R4 billion from Gauteng, Free State, Northern Cape and the North West. That could have built 40,000 more RDP houses and housed 200,000 more people.

Fortunately, for the bigger, national, picture, Sisulu has re-directed the money to provinces where they have been doing a good job of meeting their housing construction commitments. Those provinces are the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga. So, hopefully the funds won’t go to waste.

The delinquent provinces fell well short of what they promised in housing construction budgets. Gauteng delivered just 21,357 housing units out of a budgeted 41,992, while the Free State built just 6,610 out of the planned 17,439. The respective figures for the Northern Cape were 4,760 planned and 2,720 delivered, while North West could manage to build only 10,687 out of the 15,447 committed to in the budget.

It goes without saying, almost, that this is unacceptable in a country where the hunger for decent housing could become a major driver of social unrest. Having a respectable roof over one’s head means basic human dignity and is almost a basic human right. Those who argue that we are not a socialist state and should not give people handouts should pay attention to the importance of housing and land when it comes to maintaining political stability. They are vital for a peaceful future.

This bureaucratic failure should be corrected as soon as possible.

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