Target lowered as demand soars
As violent protests over land and housing erupt sporadically across the country, the government has said that it will build fewer houses than expected over the next year. /
As violent protests over land and housing erupt sporadically across the country, the government has confirmed that it will build fewer houses than expected over the next year and is likely to miss its five-year target by more than 100,000.
The Department of Human Settlements planned to build 745,000 houses from 2014 to 2019, according to the government’s medium-term strategic plan but has now reduced this to 635,000.
With only one year to go before the five-year term of the plan ends it has only built 415,000 houses, an indication that even the new target will be hard to reach.
The new numbers appear in a progress report on the Department of Monitoring and Evaluation’s website.
The revised targets are due in part to underperformance but also to budget cuts made in February, which came about through a reprioritisation of spending to find R57bn needed to fund free higher education.
Grants for housing, which are transferred to the provinces, were cut by R7.2bn over the next three years, with provinces receiving an average of 10% less than they had anticipated the year before.
But as funding shrinks and performance remains poor, provincial and municipal politi- cal representatives have found themselves putting out fires.
Allocations for low-cost housing have also shrunk due to three newgrants of about R2.9bn over the next three years that provide for emergency housing and the restoration of title deeds to people .
The provision of low-cost housing has been a government success story, with 3.8-million houses built since 1994.
However, low estimates are that another 2.1-million low-cost houses are needed to meet backlogs and cope with continuing urbanisation.
All cities, especially the metros, are under huge pressure to house the poor.
Gauteng, which has three metros and an inward migration of more than 1-million people since 2006, lost R1.8bn, which would have been transferred to metros and other municipalities.
The Western Cape also lost about 10% of its housing budget.
In the Eastern Cape, where housing is also in great demand due to urbanisation, the provincial government has revised down its housing targets for 2018-19 and will build 4,000 fewer units than it did in 2017-18.
All three provinces have had violent protests over land and housing over the past week.
Human Settlements Minister Nomaindia Mfeketo will table her budget vote in Parliament on Wednesday.