R10.5-billion for affordable home loans

WITH lack of access to housing been identified by the National Development Plan (NDP) as one of the big challenges facing South Africa, qualifying government employees and members of the public will now have the opportunity to access affordable housing finance following a R10.5 billion investment in SA Home Loans (SAHL).

The Government Employees’ Pension Fund (GEPF), through its investment manager, the Public Investment Corporation (PIC), on Wednesday launched a partnership to facilitate special home loan opportunities for government employees and members of the public. The Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) said the investment aims to provide recipeints with end-user home finance and development finance for approved affordable housing projects.

The investment comprise the following:

• R5 billion for public service employees;
• R2 billion for affordable housing end-user financing, as defined in terms of the Financial Sector Code;
• R2 billion to enable SAHL to extend home loans to the rest of qualifying home loan applicants; and
• R1.5 billion will be used to fund affordable housing developers.

“The PIC is intentionally implementing a developmental investment mandate, which primarily seeks to achieve two types of returns, namely financial and social returns,” said PIC board member Claudia Manning.

She said the financial return means that PIC must generate profit for clients and social return means the investments should positively affect the social conditions of the stakeholders.
“Our view is that members of the GEPF should benefit during their active working years and during retirement – and this is a social return. Investing in affordable housing finance schemes such as this provides these members with a real benefit,” said Manning.