Housing needs govt-private sector collaboration – Kubayi

Despite having delivered an estimated 4.8 million houses, Human Settlements Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi yesterday conceded that to fully address the remainder of the backlogs would require a collaboration with business.

While South Africa’s 2022 census noted that the number of formal households grew from 5.2 million to 15.8 million in 1996, Kubayi said the number of households living in traditional dwellings has been significantly been reduced – with over one million fewer currently living in traditional dwellings.

Kubayi told Saturday Citizen on the sidelines of the two-day Black Business Council Built Environment (BBCBE) conference in Johannesburg, the 4.8 million figure was “conservative”.

This, she said, was due to subsidies provided by government during the Nelson Mandela presidency, not recorded in the housing database. “Work done during the stewardship of the late housing minister Joe Slovo, was not recorded,” she said.

“At the time, there was no NHBRC (National Home Builders Registration Council) to ensure quality of work and standards. Starting in the 2024-25 financial year, we will be introducing a ratification programme, to be able to record the number of those house.

“In the Eastern Cape alone, we have about 14 000 of those homes that were not verified in the system. We are now jacking up our digital system of registration.” Kubayi has called for transformation in the construction industry to facilitate the participation of previously-disadvantaged.

She told delegates at the BBCBE indaba that the government’s desire was to strengthen public-private partnership in the housing sector “to be complement by policy frameworks that are underway – ready for implementation in the seventh administration”.

Kubayi added: “The first step is the review of the public-private partnership framework by the National Treasury, which will make it easier and quicker for the private sector to partner with government on projects.

“The second is signing into law the Public Procurement Bill, which is very clear on localisation, transformation targets and the need for compliance.

“Also important is the Human Settlements White Paper, which will lead to the change of the housing code and other pieces of legislation. Under the new policy framework, we’ll put together innovative project funding mechanisms that are attractive to private sector funding.

“This provision will allow for provinces and municipalities – with private sector partners – to improve certainty with regards to bulk and link availability, which has been identified as one of the key constraints to upscaling delivery, especially for multiyear mega projects.”

Kubayi said this will also allow for the front-loading of funding for developments at scale started in the Northern Cape.

“The National Housing Finance Corporation is in the process of conceptualising funding mechanisms, to serve as a platform to mobilise private sector investors into equity investments and debt financing of the integrated residential development programme, and meet requirements of the future pipeline.

“This will allow a significant scaling up of the development of affordable housing stock, which is going to experience a spike in demand in the coming years.”

We’ll put together mechanisms attractive to private sector funding