Mixed reaction to Human Settlements budget vote

HUMAN Settlements Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi's budget vote for the 2022/2023 financial year was received with mixed reaction by opposition parties when she tabled it yesterday.

Touching on grants, provincial plans and budgets, informal settlements, blocked projects, public and private partnerships, and social housing, Kubayi said the department's budget allocation amounted to R33bn, of which R18.7bn was allocated to provincial grants, R11.7bn for municipal grants, and R 1.6bn set to be transferred to Human Settlements entities.

“We will make every effort to ensure that we deploy these resources as efficiently as we can so that we can get more for less. In this regard, the Human Settlements Development Grant Framework for the 2022/23 financial year now provides for provinces and municipalities to access up to a maximum of 30% of the Human Settlements Development Grant (HSDG) to fund bulk and link infrastructure,” said Kubayi.

She added that the HSDG would unlock some of the blocked projects, increase opportunities for public and private partnerships, and increase the provision of serviced stands for more people who can afford to build for themselves to do so.

“Most importantly, this will help us improve expenditure. Furthermore, in the financial year 2022/23 and working together with National Treasury, we will start implementing front-loading in two provinces, Northern Cape and Eastern Cape, which will allow us to attend to blocked projects and significantly increase the scale of housing delivery in a short space of time,” said Kubayi.

While GOOD Party secretary-general Brett Herron said the party supported the budget vote, he called on the minister to reimagine the country's public housing programme.

“We note the commitment to a new Human Settlements code, but note the absence of any indicators to hold the commitment to accountability. We can celebrate the fact that South Africa has rolled out one of the largest public housing programmes in the world but we must learn from our experience that a free house is not necessarily an affordable house. We have dismally failed to break down the Group Areas Act and effect spatial justice. Instead, we have built suburbs of poverty on the outskirts of our towns and cities, entrenching the apartheid model,” said Herron.

The EFF and DA were some of the parties that opposed the budget.

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