New bank to serve housing gap market, boost entrepreneurs

Some too rich to get RDP houses, too poor to qualify for mortgages

HUMAN Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu has announced the establishment of a bank that will deal with people in the housing gap market.

Sisulu said yesterday during her budget vote in Parliament that the bank was critical for the market, which has been struggling.

The housing gap market includes mainly public servants who are too rich to get RDP houses and too poor to qualify for mortgage at the banks.

Sisulu also announced that they will build a house for the family of Matlhomola Mosweu, who was killed in Coligny a few weeks ago, sparking violent protests.

Two men were arrested and charged with the boy’s murder.

Sisulu said they would start building the Mosweu family a home from next week.

She was alerted by Human Rights Commission chairperson Bongani Majola about the difficult circumstances of the teenager’s family in North West.

In her budget speech, Sisulu said the department had delivered what it had promised to do.

She said the establishment of the bank was critical for the gap market. “We now have our own bank, the Human Settlements Development Bank, which has been established and will be launched (this) morning,” said Sisulu.

“The bank will facilitate the scaled-up delivery of the Finance-Linked Individual Subsidy Programme to qualifying beneficiaries in the gap market, including the Government Employee Housing Scheme. The strategic focus of the bank will be to facilitate the increased provision of finance across the human settlements value chain, and the specific priority for the bank in this respect is the mobilisation of and provision of finance for all planned catalytic projects,” she said.

Sisulu said the bank would be the entry point for struggling black entrepreneurs in the industry.

Chairperson of the portfolio committee on human settlements, Nocawe Mafu, said they backed the establishment of the bank. They would monitor the bank in the fulfilment of its mandate and wanted it to support new black entrepreneurs in the industry.

Solly Malatsi, of the DA, called for a credible housing database to deal with the backlog of people. Sisulu said they had now established a credible centralised housing database.

Mmabatho Mokause of the EFF said Sisulu was not telling the truth in saying her department was delivering 1 200 houses a day. The country was up in smoke because people wanted houses. The recent protests in Johannesburg showed that the government was lagging behind.

Sisulu also announced the appointment of a human settlements ombudsman to deal with complaints about the department.

Former chief executive in the Office of the Public Protector, Themba Mthethwa, has been appointed the new human settlements ombudsman.

Sisulu said the office would prioritise the complaints of entrepreneurs who are not paid on time by provincial departments.