PETITION TO HONOUR RENTAL COMMITMENT
THE Cape Town-based Ndifuna Ukwazi (NU), an activist organisation and law centre for the poor, spearheaded a petition campaign with 28 civil society organisations for rental relief.
The petition called on Minister of Human Settlements Lindiwe Sisulu to honour her commitment for rental relief (“Why hasn’t promised R600m for tenant rental relief been paid out,” Daily News, April 6, 2021).
Last week, NU ramped up the campaign after Sisulu’s spokesperson, Steve Motale, told GroundUp that during the budget vote, Sisulu “did not promise” but was merely detailing plans to submit to the Treasury and National Command Council.
Was it merely a plan intended for Treasury and the National Command Council or did the minister make such a promise, or did NU and other organisations misinterpret her good intentions?
On July 21, 2020, in her address to the national assembly on the occasion of the debate on the Human Settlements budget vote 33, Sisulu said the following about rental relief:
“1.3. Rental relief to tenants in affordable rental housing who face financial distress due to Covid-19 pandemic. This rental relief is solely aimed at assisting tenants in formal affordable rental housing to meet their monthly rent obligations.
“Of course, means testing will form part of necessary criteria to determine those who can be assisted.
“R600 million is allocated for this purpose. Details of this Rent Relief for Tenants in Affordable Rental Housing will be published in the next 30 days.”
The Treasury was mentioned once only and not in reference to rental relief:
“Finally, the operating business model for the Human Settlements Development Bank has been approved by National Treasury.
“This now means the bank is to become the pre-eminent development finance institution in human settlements and is expected to play the lead role in the financing of activities across the Human Settlements value chain.”
In the meantime, social housing institutions with their bloated salaried staff are on standby to be the recipients of at least R300m for rental relief. In Cape Town tenants’ representatives have opposed Communicare, a social housing institution, from receiving rental relief.
Tenants facing financial distress due to the Covid-19 pandemic should be paid directly, according to some Communicare tenants and their representatives.
According to the Social Housing Regulatory Authority (SHRA) that oversees social housing institutions, the government’s rental relief, once implemented, will be effective retrospectively from April 2020.
Unfortunately for those households who were evicted, they cannot be reinstated.
Their fractured lives cannot be restored, nor their emotional trauma reversed and their dignity reinstated.
However, is the SHRA reliable and capable of overseeing R300m supposedly earmarked for social housing institutions to provide rental relief to their tenants?
In the matter of Camel Rock Social Housing Institution, the National Prosecuting Authority alleged that the Social Housing Regulatory Authority paid R61m to Camel Rock.
This money was for the development of 600 units for the Connemara Village social housing project in the eastern Cape. According to the NPA, the SHRA failed to investigate Camel Rock Social Housing Institution before concluding the agreement.
Millions of rand were not used for the purpose of social housing (National Director of Public Prosecutions v Camel Rock Social Housing Institution and Others [2014] ZAECGHC 3; The Social Housing Regulatory Authority v Camel Rock Social Housing Institution NPC [2017] ZAGPJHC 443).
What is evident is that tenants who are struggling to meet their rental obligations and landlords relying on rental income will not be assisted any time soon.
Tenants, particularly single parents with dependants, will continue to face hardships, with evictions displacing families, and landlords will be unable to recover rental losses and legal costs.
The petition ought to have set in motion the publication of the details of the Rent Relief for Tenants in Affordable Rental Housing, which the minister promised to do within 30 days of her budget speech. It does not take eight months to work out a roll-out policy for the intended beneficiaries.
* Dr Sayed Iqbal Mohamed is the chairperson of the Organisation of Civic Rights. Tenants in need of advice can contact the office on 031 304 6451 or WhatsApp Pretty Gumede on 071 346 5595 or pretty@ocr.org.za, Loshni Moodley on loshni@ocr.org.za or WhatsApp 071 444 5671.