Report-back by Minister of Human Settlements on progress made on first 100 days in office

Meeting report

The Chairperson welcomed the Minister of Human Settlements, Ms Lindiwe Sisulu; the Deputy Minister of Human Settlements, Ms Zoliswa Kota-Fredericks; and the rest of the delegation to the meeting. The purpose of the meeting was for the Minister to report back on progress made in the first 100 days from the date of the budget vote speech (15 July 2014 to 13 October 2014).

Progress made on 100 days commitments – Opening remarks by the Minister
The Minister gave an overview of the commitments she made to the Committee and whether those commitments had been fulfilled.  A detailed presentation of those commitments and the status of projects undertaken in the 100 days would be covered by the Department of Human Settlements (DHS) Deputy Director-General: Project Planning and Management Unit, Mr Mbulelo Tshangana.

The Minister briefed the Committee.
The President had established an inter-ministerial committee on the revitalisation of mining towns.  During the Human Settlements Indaba, the Minister said she indicated at the Summit to the Chamber of Mines that it was a pity that people could not have been lifted out of poverty before the Marikana tragedy happened. The revitalisation of mining towns had been a concern for the DHS since the signing of the 2005 Summit. 

The Department prioritised the title deeds of the pre-1994 stock because a commitment was made by the new government in 1994 and should have been resolved by now. Mr M Gana (DA), when he thought he was being erudite, educated the Department on the role of title deeds in the economic lives of people.  From time to time there was an opportunity to remind Mr Gana that the importance of title deeds had been discovered when he was probably around18 years old. There was a tendency to believe that the stock that was run by the pre-1994 government was free stock and comparisons were made, mostly by the DA, that those houses were better. No government, anywhere in the world, built free houses. The houses DHS were giving title deeds for were rental stock and all the houses that were built for black people in townships were rental stock.  In 1994 the new government decided that the debt of those houses would be written off and people would be provided with title deeds. It had been a struggle to provide the title deeds and the DHS was fortunate to engage with the Black Conveyancers Association (BCA), which committed to assisting the Department with the title deeds process. The Estate Agency Board already had a project in place and together with the BCA, was working on that.  The big challenge was to determine whom the title deed should be issued to.  The original beneficiary in many cases was deceased and it was discussed at the Summit how to educate people on the importance of creating a will. 

The Department made a commitment that the N2 Gateway Project would be converted to national government. The N2 Gateway was a national project in the sense that it was owned by all the provinces.  At that time Department approached National Treasury to top slice the human settlements grant to give a chunk towards the establishment of the N2 Gateway Project. The intention was to learn how the DHS ‘Breaking New Ground policies’ would work on the ground. The N2 Gateway Project was chosen because it was strategically located, so that in time it would be a showcase of what DHS was able to do. The N2 Gateway Project now belonged to national government, but it still suffered a few glitches, because in the last five years a number of legal agreements were changed which now had to be reverted to their original status.  It was a very important project that was initially negatively commented on, especially in the media.  At some time, the Committee should ask HDA to present on the status of the project.  It was easy to forget that there were once shacks there that burnt down every summer.  As soon as the President determined a date, the Department would be able to invite the Committee to see the handover of the next lot of houses built. 

The Department committed to moving on to mega projects, because the smaller projects did not maximise time and resources available to the Department. The mega projects were successful and when the Committee had time to travel outside of Cape Town, the Department invited Members to visit Cosmo City, Cornubia and Fleurhof to see how well those groups of mixed income housing developments worked. Those types of projects helped to streamline the working relationships between national, provincial and local government. 

The housing waiting list had no credibility and created serious problems. The Department committed to compiling a credible waiting list, which required the cooperation of municipalities. This list would be checked against the population register of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) together with Home Affairs, and would also be checked against the Department of Social Development (DSD) register. The houses that had been cleared as free houses by policy were only given to indigent people. At the very inception, it was clearly stipulated that free housing would only be provided to indigent people. There had been a situation in local government that free houses had been given to people who did not qualify in terms of age and their income simply because municipalities did not have a central database to verify eligibility. The reputation of municipalities was often based on the housing challenges and municipalities were being labelled as being corrupt. The Department would be able to provide municipalities with a central database.

The commitment by the DHS to sign a social contract with relevant stakeholders on the commitment of 1.5 million houses had been fulfilled, and the contract was signed with 82 stakeholders. The Summit was extremely successful because it allowed for interaction with stakeholders and the public and it was an energising experience for the Department.

The Department identified the Housing Development Agency (HDA) as an entity that would be upgraded to have an enhanced capacity to deliver. The HDA’s job had always been to acquire land to build fully subsidised housing. The entity had up scaled through the development of the Human Settlements Spatial Master Plan. The DHS committed to investigate the possibility of having the EAB absorbed into the Department.  It was discovered that the law that governed the EAB might not make it possible, but the Department had a close working relationship with EAB.  The Social Housing Regulatory Authority (SHRA) had difficulty in delivering on its mandate and had been placed under administration in the Department to explore ways of ensuring optimal functioning of the entity. The SHRA Board would remain until a new Board was appointed and the entity would thereafter be restructured.  A letter had since been received from National Treasury that expressed the concern that SHRA was conflating two of its responsibilities. It was a regulatory body that also dealt with investments in terms of social housing and Treasury urged the Department to deal with the matter urgently. A process was in place to appoint a new Board, an acting chief executive officer had been appointed and at the next meeting the Department would be able to report how SHRA had been restructured to fulfil its mandate. Social housing was an extremely important part of housing development because it was a safety net for those who might not qualify for free housing, but still needed assistance from the State.

The Minister continued that the Department committed to establishing a women and youth construction support programme.This programme used South African Women in Construction (SAWIC) as a support base and 1956 houses were allocated to be built per province by women for women in honour of the 1956 march, and the women were doing very well.  At the Summit DHS affirmed the commitment that for every major project, the developer or construction company that had been given the mandate had what was termed a ‘youth brigade’.  It worked towards the empowerment of youth and skills development and hopefully, by the end of the mega projects, they would be able to build their own houses.

NHBRC would be establishing a training academy to professionalise the human settlements space and the process was already far advanced. Several universities and Technikons had indicated that they would be able to offer a professional course.

The Department had committed to building houses for military veterans and that had been fulfilled.  The latest development was an estate built in Fleurhof and four families of military veterans had been handed houses. The first recipient, Mrs Kotana, was 102 years old and although she was not initially happy to move, she was very grateful.  Her children were there to witness the handover. The ages of the other recipients ranged from 79 to 89 years and it showed how desperate people were. One of the military veterans left the country in 1962, came back in 1991, and had lived in a shack until very recently.  The DHS was very happy to provide the houses and would like to upscale the programme. The Minister invited the Committee to be part of the process to provide houses to military veterans across the length and breadth of all political parties.  These were people the country owed a great deal to.

The Minister said she was very happy with what the Department had been able to accomplish within 100 days and she thanked DHS and the Ministry for their hard work.

The Chairperson thanked the Minister for the input and gave over to input from the Department.

Progress made on 100 days commitments
Mr Tshangana spoke to the progress and status of some of the projects.  In terms of the mining towns, the DHS and HDA met with individual mining companies such as Harmony Gold, Anglo Plat and Lonmin to date.  The HDA had geared itself to manage the mining town projects in the North West, Northern Cape, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Gauteng and Free State. The National Upgrading Support Programme was busy with planning for 82 informal settlements in mining towns, which were at various stages of completion and implementation.  The DHS and HDA were currently appraising the pipeline projects in mining towns in the relevant provinces and the list of current mining town projects were tabled, and progress on the planning for Informal Settlement Upgrading (ISU) was also tabled in the report.

The Executive Management Committee would approve the 50 catalytic projects based on the evaluation criteria that had been developed by the DHS and HDA. The Draft Human Settlements Master Spatial Plan was presented to MinTop and MinMec and would inform the approval of all human settlement projects, particularly the mega projects. The final Master Spatial Plan would be presented to Cabinet.

A national steering committee was established on the 1956 houses and the 30% budget (of the DHS budget) requirement for the ‘Women in Construction’ initiative.  A departmental task team made up of DHS, SAWIC and DHS entities was mandated to do a capacity audit in provinces. The first draft of the Women and Youth Empowerment Strategy had been developed and would be presented to MinTop.  An instruction note had been issued to the Heads of Departments to prioritise the 1956 housing initiative and the 30% budget requirement. In terms of the title deeds backlog, the National Scoping Project to confirm the nature and magnitude of the backlog had been initiated and the Title Deed Restoration Project Inception report was presented to the DHS.

The enhancement of the National Housing Needs Register would be completed by November 2014 in five provinces; the other four provinces would be covered in the next 12 months. Provinces used the Housing Needs questionnaire to capture the demographic details of communities. Guidelines for the allocation of housing opportunities created through the National Housing Programmes would be approved by 31 October 2014. The business model for the consolidation of the Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) had been reviewed and the first phase would be the incorporation of the Rural Housing Loan Fund (RHLF) into the National Housing Finance Corporation (NHFC).

Discussion
Mr K Sithole (IFP) appreciated the commitment by the Minister but not much had been said on the accreditation of municipalities and the status of the contestation by the provinces. The rectification of houses was not part of the 100 days, but he asked if the Minister could give some input on the issue. He asked how women that took part in the ‘Women in Construction’ initiative were identified, and whether it included women from all provinces. The presentation did not show the number of informal settlements in Gauteng in Westonaria, Randfontein and Merafong, but showed the number of ISU completed planned works; he asked for clarification. He also asked for the status of ISU planning in Emalahleni to be clarified and in terms of the database, and what would happen with the C forms of 1996.

The Minister responded. As the Breaking New Ground Policy had been developed, the DHS accepted that municipalities would have to be gradually accredited at a particular level and that was provided for within DHS policies. Quite a number of municipalities were at level one and two. For the last three years a task team had been working on how fast and how far the accreditation should go and they had been quite optimistic on the fact that by June 2014, a number of municipalities would have reached level three. To reach level three, municipalities would be qualifying for a capacitation grant to ensure a certain capacity to be at level three. It was followed through by NationalTreasury allocating an amount of R300 million to the Minister to dispense to municipalities. At one of the first meetings with MinMEC, MECs referred to the Housing Act that was very specific on the fact that MECs were the only people who had the authority to accredit municipalities. They questioned how R300 million could be given directly to the Minister to give to municipalities when all the processes were approved by MECs, including the business plan that would allow direct qualification for the grant in preparation for the final stage of accreditation. The DHS had been involved in extensive discussions with the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) and the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA). The City of Cape Town and Sedibeng municipalities had been running completely ahead of themselves demanding money that did not belong to them. Municipalities would get the resources once they had been accredited by the necessary MEC. At a joint meeting of MinMEC with the Ministers of COGTA and Water Affairs and Sanitation, the procedural arrangements for accreditation were agreed upon. The first resolution of the meeting was: “Approval of the need of the revised approach to assignment and the need for enhanced assessment”. Municipalities were required to submit a business plan and it was discovered that the MEC had no way of actually understanding a municipality’s readiness through the business plan. The assessment was then changed to give MECs a better way of determining a municipality’s eligibility. The second resolution was: “The new date of the post-assessment of the municipality is determined for the assignment of the human settlements function to the municipality”. The date had been shifted from June 2014 to a time where everyone would be in agreement that municipalities might be ready. The third resolution was that the current municipal grant should be maintained as a conditional grant. It would be a direct grant, but would be granted with the participation of the MEC of a particular province.  The longer-term programme of DHS would deal with the accreditation of municipalities more extensively.

The Minister said that both the questions about the accreditation of municipalities and the rectification of houses were outside the 100 days commitments made by the Department. She asked if these matters and other concerns not covered by the 100 days could be addressed by the Department at a later stage under ‘matters arising out of this meeting’. The Department would be happy to address such matters at the next meeting.

The Chairperson agreed.

The Deputy Minister responded that women in the ‘Women in Construction’ programme should have undergone training and be graded by the Department of Public Works (DPW) as per their specific skill level.  Not all female contractors were part of SAWIC, but all female contractors were eligible if they had been adequately trained and if they had been graded by the DPW. These female contractors were represented in all provinces.

Mr Tshangana said there were projects that were currently running and projects where the informal settlements were still being assessed. Where no number was indicated it meant that the teams on the ground had not yet finalised their assessment of a specific region. It should be kept in mind that these were only mining towns and the Department had a target to assess 2 200 informal settlements over the next five years. The Department could provide the Committee with a list of 600 informal settlements that were done in the last financial year and the 300 committed to for the current financial year.

Ms T Baker (DA) asked if the ‘enhancement of the National Housing Needs Register’ meant that the process was completed and there was a database that could be enhanced or if it was still in progress. In instances where provinces under performed and National Treasury withheld funding, she wanted to know how that would impact on the Department achieving its targets.

The Minister said the Department established the concept and the principle of the database and already signed a service level agreement (SLA) with SITA. The Minister of Human Settlements had the right as per the Division of Revenue Act, to take money from under performing municipalities and give it to performing municipalities. No money was lost in terms of the outputs for DHS. The DHS transferred monies from provinces that would not be able to use the money to provinces that could use the money; otherwise the money would be lost. The Limpopo DHS was not able to spend their allocation optimally; because of the administrative problems they had been experiencing over the last five years. They agreed to cede to the DHS an amount of R500 million. The Department agreed to transfer R300 million of the R500 million to the Eastern Cape (EC) province because of the serious challenges there and the DHS was still deciding what to do with the extra R200 million. This did not affect the outputs for the Department, but it did impact the particular province.

Mr M Gana (DA) said it was not ideal to move the elderly from where they had been living most of their lives and if the focus were on mega projects in rural provinces, it would mean that many would be uprooted to access better housing facilities. Whilst mega projects should be prioritised there should be instances where the elderly, especially in rural areas, should be considered. In engagement with SITA, it seemed that a whole new system would be created, rather than fixing or working on an existing system in terms of the database.  He asked if the focus would be enhancement or the creation of a new system. Mr Gana fully supported the youth involvement in the projects and perhaps the very same youth should be capacitated to build their own houses on identified land, with the money they would be earning. In terms of the concern for SHRA’s double mandate, was the Department looking into creating another entity to focus on the investment aspect so that SHRA could focus on the regulatory issues. He hoped tenders would not be reason why submissions would be made for the catalytic projects and asked if provinces had the capacity to deliver on the mega projects.  Of the 149 catalytic projects identified, only 20 had private sector involvement and it was said at the Indaba that private sector involvement should be increased. He asked whether it was the DHS or the Department of Military veterans that compiled the list of those eligible for housing and what the criteria in terms of age were.  Was provision made for the families of eligible military veterans in the event of death before a house had been allocated?

The Minister replied that mega projects were largely in urban areas because of the geology of rural areas.  The most unproductive pieces of land allocated to black people under the apartheid regime could not be turned to mega cities and therefore mega projects had to be built in the urban areas. A huge population of people from rural areas was in urban areas for job opportunities. People who remained in the rural areas had the advantage that they had their land and proudly owned it, because it was protected right through both the colonial invasion and from the apartheid regime. The RHLF would then be able to assist them with loans to build houses on their land. The DHS had a whole range of programmes and projects that suited rural areas, but the mega projects were for urban areas. There were huge levels of unemployment among the youth.  The involvement of youth in the mega projects would address unemployment, and certificates that would indicate having achieved a particular skill level would be issued. It was decided at the Summit to have a Youth Housing Summit on 4 December 2014. The DHS would call on all youth that might be interested to be part of the Youth Brigade. The aim of the project was empowerment and job creation. The Youth Brigade would be launched on 5 December 2014 on the N2 Gateway project. The Department and National Treasury were still engaging on SHRA’s double mandate. The mandate of SHRA would remain as that of a regulatory entity and the investment aspect would be shifted to the DFIs, which would have a section that dealt with social housing. The Department was in the process of restructuring the DFIs to maximise funding, because the more money DFIs had increased their ability to raise more money.  The Department required provinces to submit proposals for mega projects to identify 50 catalytic projects. The HDA would be responsible for the catalytic projects and would appoint contractors from the area. The policy on military veterans was passed in 2008 by the then Department of Housing.  After an extensive workshop with the Department of Defence and Military Veterans it was decided that the DHS should provide the houses and the Department of Military Veterans would provide the list of beneficiaries. The house belonged to the beneficiary and the family of the beneficiary.

Mr Tshangana said once the database had been completed it should be properly managed going forward.  The catalytic projects were a mix of projects that was supposed to respond to various demands.  It included rental stock, affordable housing and free houses and the traditional tender system would not work in that regard. With the HDA’s assistance, partnerships with the private sector were expected on these projects.

Ms L Mnanga-Gcabashe (ANC) said mine workers often had to relocate for work and asked if there were rental stock for those miners that did not necessarily wanted to relocate the whole family. In situ upgrades where there was not adjacent land available for municipal services were often problematic because beneficiaries created a lot of drama around the fact that their house would not be on the original site.  She asked if education could be provided to the public. The Department should find a way to compel the private sector to do more for mining workers. If the private sector could not provide free permanent housing for mine workers, they should at least try to do more on rental stock available for miners.  She asked if the proposed units for the mega projects were estimation and, if so, on what kind of study these projections were based.  Two provinces that did not produce the estimated yield on sites should be coupled with what was raised by HDA in terms of assisting provinces with project planning and pipelines. In the financial year under review it became clear that only the province of KwaZulu-Natal would be able to produce the project pipeline necessary for the mega projects. The Department should get more involved with Limpopo to achieve the targets set. On the enhancement of the National Housing Needs Register, which would be completed by November 2014 in five provinces, only four provinces were listed and she asked which was the fifth province.  For in situ upgrades where relocation was necessary a proper waiting list was very important and the beneficiary process in terms of death or divorce should be standardised across the board and not only for military veterans. It became clear that the entity involved in subsidising housing for rural areas was not up to scratch, especially in terms of marketing.  A person from Limpopo who was in Gauteng for job opportunities could not apply for rural housing assistance in Gauteng, because Gauteng was not a rural province.  Most tertiary institutions had project management courses and diplomas, but lacked the practical aspect. The Human Settlements Academy should involve practitioners on the ground to input on the curriculum.

The Minister responded that relocations, invasions and evictions were not part of the 100 days commitments, but were critical matters that should be allocated time to be discussed in detail with the Committee. There had been a rush of evictions at the beginning of her term and municipalities had been asked to put a moratorium on evictions as a way to deal with it. It was unfortunate that metros like the City of Cape Town rushed to the media to talk about money owed to them, but turned a deaf ear to the request for a moratorium on evictions. Limpopo was struggling, but the good thing was the fact that they had given back the money to be used more productively elsewhere.  At a 2006 Imbizo it was decided that a house would belong to a husband and wife for as long as they were married. In the event of divorce, the house belonged to the woman, because women were responsible for the children. If the wife died, the house would go to the husband on condition that he took care of the children. With the consolidation of the DFIs, the bigger muscle of the National Housing Finance Corporation (NHFC) would be able to assist RHLF with their challenges.  A house being built in a particular region would be registered in that region. The DHS was putting together the course work for the training academy, guided by various universities. There would be a practical component, because people would be apprenticed to municipalities to learn about project management for human settlements.

The Deputy Minister said the DHS understood the challenges of RHLF and its absorption into NHFC would enhance RHLF’s capacity.

Mr Tshangana said the majority of the mineworker population stayed in informal settlements.  Based on their income profile and a recent study, the majority of mine workers required rental stock and that was why partnerships with mining companies were important. A challenge was the fact that many mining companies gave a ‘living out allowance’ where mineworkers got an allowance if they lived elsewhere. They ended up building their own shacks and it created a problem for government in terms of in situ upgrading. When doing in situ upgrading, the DHS prioritised services. The Department would come back to the Committee to report in detail on the projects in the pipeline on rental housing for mineworkers in collaboration with SHRA.  HDA had been assisting Limpopo and there were a number of projects in the pipeline for the province. These projects had gone through all the approval channels smoothly but the province had notorious problems with implementation of the procurement processes. HDA was already assisting the province and it was challenges the province would be able to overcome.

The Minister said another social challenge that had been picked up by sociologists in Johannesburg was miners from rural areas came to work in the mines, acquired rental housing and took another wife. Once the work on the mine was done, there were communities of women and children. Miners went back home and mining companies could not take responsibility for the women and their children. It was a challenge that the Department with the Committee needed to address, because it created vulnerable groups of people. The DHS built family units, but miners wanted their wives at home so that they could live with ‘a second family’ while working on the mines. It was a social problem that should be collectively addressed.

Mr Tshangana said the Department had a guide that spoke to the issue of wills and beneficiaries, which would be assessed by the Ministry to see how it could be applied.

Ms Ntobongwana (EFF) said in 1996 there was no database to capture people who applied for housing, and asked if those people were included in the current database.

The Chairperson asked that the Minister qualified her comments made in the media about the age limit for free housing because it tied in with Mr Sithole’s question on the C forms of 1996 and Ms Ntobongwana’s question on people who applied for housing in 1996. The Prevention of Illegal Evictions (PIE) Act had been a big headache to the Department and she asked how far the engagement was with the Department of Land and Rural Reform on the PIE Act. In Gauteng mining towns where mining activities had stopped effectively became dumping grounds, illegal mining took place and informal settlements escalated in those towns. It was hazardous for people to live there, what was the Department doing to address such towns?

The Minister said the DHS wanted a consolidated database using the same IT systems that spoke to each other and was accessible to both the public and to municipalities, in the same way that the IEC worked where the database was accessible to both the voters and the people presiding over the voting stations. It would take some time, because it had to be located at municipalities where some might not have the necessary infrastructure and ultimately would have the same reach as similar services had. The database would take into account everybody who applied, even under Section C, because it would go right back to the start of the process. It was a clean up of the system that would ensure that everybody who had ever applied was captured. The database would ensure that the criteria for beneficiaries were applied. The criteria in this case started with the indigent and the indigent started with the elderly. DHS policy prescribed that the age limit in terms of the elderly was 60 years.  At some point, the Department might revise the indigence age policy, but there was a huge backlog of elderly people in need of assistance. The database would also address those people who had registered in 1996 and been bypassed because there was simply no reference point to assess whether a house had been given or not. It had given DHS and councillors bad names. The database would also cover the families of beneficiaries to make sure that families benefited if the main beneficiary died. The PIE Act was concluded in 2008 and the then new Minister, on the advice of the Deputy Minister, transferred the PIE Act to the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform. The Deputy Minister realised it had been a mistake and the President had been approached for a proclamation to have the PIE Act transferred back to DHS where it originated, and it should be back with the Department within a month.

Mr Tshangana said the DHS was present in all informal settlements, working on the upgrading of informal settlements in collaboration with municipalities. Where it was not upgradeable, a cost benefit analysis would be done to explore the options. If the credibility of the housing list was questioned, the whole housing systems lost its credibility.  It made perfect sense to start at the beginning by restoring the credibility of the waiting list by creating a credible and accurate and transparent database. The Committee could be provided with an example of the form that showed the different categories.  A breakdown was needed of the age, registration date, registration location, race and gender. All that data should be captured so that MECs had all the necessary information before allocations were made.  A challenge was that many people living in informal settlements were not necessarily on the waiting list and it was also found, during in situ upgrading, that many young people were living in the shacks.

Ms Ntobongwana asked if women with disabilities were also included in the ‘Women in Construction’ initiative.

The Deputy Minister said DHS policies did not discriminate and it included women with disabilities.

Mr Gana asked if military veteran beneficiaries were known to the Department in the event of death, so that their families would still receive the house. If not, he proposed a policy position paper to be drafted that included such provisions. Such a policy could also be extended beyond military veterans. He referred to the last group of people that went into exile during apartheid. These people were mostly part of the armed wing of the ANC, Mkonto we Sizwe (MK) in the late 1980s when they were in their early twenties and would now be in their mid-forties. He asked whether those people would be considered as beneficiaries for housing. Not all of those that went into exile as part of MK or APLA, the military wing of the PAC, were now 70 years old.  He asked if the Minister would not consider finishing the N2 Gateway project up to the handing over of the title deed phase and then the Committee could attend the handover of the houses. The process should not enhance the pre-1994 title deed backlog challenge.

The Minister clarified that housing for military veterans were in fact estates with frail care centres with nurses on staff and all the services that older people might need. The title deeds of those houses included the children of the beneficiaries. ‘Veteran’ referred to a particular age and the DHS built houses for military veterans. Mr Gana referred to combatants whom the Department of Defence and Military Veterans had absorbed. They would be eligible for housing once they reached the veteran age. 

Mr Tshanga said the N2 Gateway project encountered no planning issues and the issuing of title deeds were expected to run smoothly. It was included in the contract that the project would not be concluded without the issuing of title deeds.

Ms Mnanga-Gcabashe said when the Department moved in to physically count and number shacks, the number of shacks had increased. What was the Department doing to address this challenge? She clarified her earlier question by saying that based on RHLF’s report, more loans had been granted in Gauteng and although there were farms, Gauteng was not classified as a ‘rural’ province.  The response from RHLF was that while most of the people were in Gauteng for work purposes, the houses were built in Limpopo. The Department should include in their reporting that although this person applied for a loan in Gauteng, the loan would be spent in Limpopo.

Mr Tshangana agreed and said it was a real challenge for the Department, but once the shacks had been counted and numbered, it created a blueprint for the construction that would follow.

The Minister said there was technology available that could be used by HDA as a sort of snapshot of an informal settlement right down to the minutest detail before upgrading. People would be given a letter that confirmed that they were part of the development.

The Minister said in closing that it was not possible for government to solve the housing problem alone.  DHS called on the assistance of Members of Parliament to educate people in their constituencies.

The Chairperson thanked the delegation. The Committee understood that most of the issues discussed were works in progress. It would be closely monitored and the matters arising out of this meeting would be discussed in the follow-up meetings. These types of interactions helped everybody to go out and educate others.

The meeting was adjourned.