moladi - low cost housing in South Africa

Jobs Employment -Transnet vacancies cause stampede

2011-10-08T17:34:00.000+02:00

Jobs Employment-Transnet vacancies cause stampede

Transnet on Friday said about 40 people were injured during a stampede at its Bloemfontein depot after 10,000 people had arrived for job interviews for just 30 vacancies.
As the first group of people were taken inside to write tests, those waiting outside assumed they would not be allowed to apply.
They then tried to force their way in.
Transnet’s Mboniso Sigonyela admitted they did not expect such a response.
“That was shocking; we had planned for about 4,000 people. We had two halls which could accommodate 400 each and we expected it to take about four hours to assess all those people,” he said.

10,000 people arrive for 30 vacancies: HELLO - 10,000 People for 30 jobs - This government is failing it's people!!!

This is sad - this is a shame!

We have "Pew Warmers" in Government with no compassion or ability or will to create employment. We have the capability and technology to impact unemployment in SA creating jobs, but are bottle necked by the "pew warmers".

Government cannot create jobs!! Fish do not teach birds to fly!!

Simple... We train the unemployed to build for the homeless - moladi

How to create employment

HOW TO CREATE SUSTAINABLE JOBS TRANSFERRING SKILLS

Keywords - Jobs, shortage, skills, unemployment, failure, weak, inability, pew warmer, bottle neck, anc, NYDA, IDC, IDT, Andile Lungisa, jacob zuma, cosatu, vavi, Geoffrey Qhena, Industrial Development Corp, failure, anger

New Towns New Cities - moladi

2011-09-27T07:45:00.001+02:00

New Towns New Cities - moladi

Combining shelter and economic development, moladi is set to challenge the tradition bound construction industry in order to allow for the participation of contractors and entrepreneurs to empower and develop communities on a global basis.

Due to the neglect of the poor and very poor over many decades, the real source of market promise is not the wealthy few in the developing world, or even the emerging middle-income consumers: It is the billions of aspiring poor who are joining the market economy for the first time.

moladi - Village - New Towns New Cities

By focusing on aspects of the construction industry, it is possible to generate wealth and opportunities for emerging communities by introducing and facilitating mutually beneficial projects between these communities and the established formal sector. Mobilise joint ventures and partnerships involving business, community based and non-governmental organisations, facilitating the establishment of Co-operatives are but some of the options that can bring forth “Sustainable Development”.

Keywords - innovate green building technologies, sustainable, innovative building technologies, fast turnaround, cost-effective, solutions, housing backlogs, nhbrc, leave a legacy, Zoe Kota-Fredricks, moladi, tokyo sexwale, informal settlements

Zuma to fight corruption

2010-12-10T09:35:00.001+02:00

Zuma's first step to fight corruption - Times LIVE

The establishment of an interministerial committee this week to formulate new strategies on how the government can effectively deal with the rampant scourge of corruption is in many ways a tacit admission by President Jacob Zuma that the pilfering of state coffers has spiralled out of control.

It is significant that such a committee was appointed when the country is still reeling from shock at the Special Investigating Unit's correctional services corruption report tabled in parliament this week.
The report revealed how prison tenders worth more than R1-billion were characterised by kickbacks and bribes channelled to senior public servants, their families and associates by the equally iniquitous service providers.
The ministerial committee's formation comes at a time when the ink has hardly dried on the auditor-general's report that revealed how corrupt civil servants and their families benefited from government tenders worth more than R600-million.
This week, human settlements minister Tokyo Sexwale added salt to the wound when he revealed how his department was compelled to rebuild 40000 defective low-cost RDP houses built by greedy contractors, some of whom have become instant millionaires.
It is matter of public record that many politically connected crooks who have swindled the state - from the corrupt Land Bank deals to milking school feeding schemes - are walking the streets as free men because corruption appears not to be punished in this country.
South Africa risks gaining a reputation as one of the most corrupt countries in the world if we do not nip the scourge in the bud. In the midst of abject poverty and hunger, greed and the speedy accumulation of wealth have become the most defining characteristics of South Africa's post-apartheid democracy.
Public office, in particular, is seen as a stepping stone to instant riches by many officials elected to office. Politicians and civil servants use their new-found status to line their own pockets and those of their associates through illicit and ill-gotten tenders.
We want to believe that by appointing the anti-corruption ministerial committee, Zuma has recognised that corruption has become the real threat to the future of South Africa's democracy.
Whatever recommendations this committee comes up with, it must ensure that it proposes measures that will make it difficult for venal politicians and civil servants to loot any further.
Corruption has burgeoned because culprits get away with it. Zuma needs to set an example by adding substance to the anti-corruption rhetoric. It would send a message of confidence to the citizens of our country and, indeed, the rest of the world if our president ensures that all government officials and their cronies, however politically connected, found guilty of pilfering, are rooted out and face the full force of the law.

Comment:
We have presented moladi at all provisional and national levels as a solution to the delivery of quality homes, creating employment for more than 20 years. moladi won an award at the Eric Molobi NHBRC ABSA Innovative housing competition in 2006. This award was handed to us in parliament by Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, the then Minister of Housing. We presented moladi to the Department of Human Settlements on the 16 September 2009 and are still waiting for correspondence as to the "next step".

The Department is bogged down by "Pew Warmers" with no clue of basic business principles. Never mind logistics, cash flow, JIT, inspection, project management. The irony is that the Housing Department insisted in using "Emerging Contractors" that they had created for unqualified people to use the terminology "Emerging Contractors" to obtain projects. How can you create an "Emerging Surgeon" giving him a scalpel and say "go for it".

What has Minister Lindiwe Sisulu to say about this waste of tax payer's monies during her reign? She must be held accountable!

It reminds me of Kader Asmal statement when he was minister of Water Affairs “ I have given water to 7 million South Africans!
My question to him “ How many dams have you built?

Politicians, keep to politics - Let business to do business “ and do not cross the no mans land" between business and politics

Keywords - moladi, corrupt officials, pew warmer, emerging contractor, Lindiwe Sisulu, waste tax payer monies, NHBRC, ABSA, Innovative housing competition, winner, alternative building technology, material, corruption

rural development | rural housing | rural development project

2010-12-07T23:06:00.001+02:00

rural development rural housing rural development project

moladi

Rural Development Programme
Rural development opportunities
farm dwellers
farm workers
Women Development
agricultural growth
rural development initiatives

Keywords - Rural Development Programme, moladi, rural housing, urban, migration, resources, farm workers, job creation, youth development, concrete houses, concrete homes, human settlements, housing project

Joan Fubbs Fighting unemployment and the creation of decent work through building local industries

2010-12-07T10:12:00.001+02:00

Speech by Joan Fubbs during the debate on 'Fighting unemployment and the creation of decent work through building local industries

Speech by Joan Fubbs during the debate on 'Fighting unemployment and the creation of decent work through building local industries'
17 February 2009

It is only in a developmental State that we can confidently deliver in our commitment to provide decent work for our people

1. Madam Speaker, Honourable Colleagues, Comrades, and our fellow South Africans men and women.
2. Decent work is what we all ask for …each one of us sitting in this House in Parliament. I believe and I know there is no one on these benches who would oppose the principle of decent work for themselves, their families so surely not for fellow South Africans.
3. Surely we cannot stand here and demand for ourselves what we are not prepared to demand and ensure through active implementation for all the people of South Africa.
4. The commitment to the provision of decent work is not simply a new ANC slogan it can be traced to the Freedom Charter, which is embraces the principle of sharing,
5. It is within this environment that the ANC government has over the years, the decades created the conditions in which a Developmental State is being built. This kind of state recognizes that people are its greatest and most essential asset which is why we do not simply talk of but are committed to bring about people centered sustainable solutions.
6. Such solutions are not simply eurocentric, or afrocentric but acknowledges the universal humanity of people and is therefore able confidently to sustain people centered development.
7. When the emphasis then shifts its locus it is only then that we can develop policies, programmes and measures. Indeed instruments that can tackle which perceived through any other paradigm prism would effectively imprison our capacity to respond responsibly and deliver services effectively
8. These include a clear focus on rural poverty and will be and is addressed through the ANC programme for land, agrarian reform, food security and rural development.
9. In this regard the ANC 2009 Elections Manifesto speak to the need to ensure," implementation of special sector programmes embracing industrial, trade and other measures backed by adequate resources". These special sector programmes will "strengthen the manufacturing, mining and other vulnerable sectors". The ultimate aim of these special programmes is to further ensure that jobs are saved and increased especially in such sectors as the clothing and textiles, automobile and components as well as the food industry.
10. Part of building local industries is to ensure that the primary sectors go beyond simply producing goods for export markets that are not value added. At the centre of this is to build downstream industries through beneficiation and ensure broad participation in the economy.
11. This is why the ANC argues for "a comprehensive package of measures to be introduced to promote beneficiation programmes, thus ensuring that the natural wealth of the country is shared, and developed locally". The spin-off from this will be the creation of decent work opportunities in both the manufacturing and services sectors.
12. As we build viable local industries we know that there is also a need to widen the scope of enterprising by also investing in other forms of enterprises such as cooperatives. In this regard the ANC through its 2009 Elections Manifesto has committed to "engage the private sector for the purpose of facilitating its transformation and diversification including the development of the cooperative financial institutions as well as ensuring that the sector contributes to investment and developmental priorities of the country".
13. Fighting unemployment and creating decent through building, nurturing and protecting sectors that both have a potential to create labour intensive jobs and with a high multiplier effect on eradicating poverty is the nerve centre of a National Democratic Society (NDS) as envisioned by the ANC. Accordingly, the ANC argues that: "a National Democratic Society should be founded on a thriving economy the structure of which should reflect the natural endowments of the country and the creativity that a skilled population can offer.
14. "It should be an economy in which cutting edge technology, labour-absorbing industrial development, a thriving small business and cooperative sector, utilization of information and communication technologies and efficient forms of production and management all combine to ensure national prosperity" This is no dream it is indeed what internationally recognized economists now acknowledge.
15. Fighting unemployment will include having to facilitate and ensure an environment conducive for job seeking through provision of other social benefits through social transfers. This is important to ensure stability in society and in particular in households while job searching. To address this, the ANC has called for "a national democratic society that should use the redistributive mechanism of the fiscus to provide a safety net for the poor. As such, built into its social policy should be a comprehensive social security system which includes various elements of the social wage such as social grants, transport and basic accommodation"
16. Critical to ensuring the protection and building of key industries with potential to make a dent on poverty lies at the heart achieving social cohesion and maintaining social stability. In this regard the State also has to make decisive interventions such as the "implementation of integrated anti-poverty programmes geared towards not only social assistance but also the sustainable integration of communities into economic activity".
17. The ANC manifesto is an achievable plan based on principles experience and commitment. Many economists and international financial and political leaders throughout the world are now accepting and acknowledging that an free market system, an unregulated economy, a government that is committed to no intervention and that relies on market forces to correct dangerous economic trajectories, are now finally speechless.
18. Nobel prize economist Joseph Stiglitz reiterated recently that any response should be based on social justice and solidarity that goes beyond national boundaries. He stressed the need to reflect on the role of financial markets in the economy, said they should be evaluated on how they serve citizens and added that they were not an end in themselves - they were a means to economic growth and prosperity for all, including homeowners, ordinary people and the poor. He explained that the underlying doctrine of the current system is flawed and said that this was the root cause of the problem.
19. Pertinent to this issue of decent work and enterprise that benefits the people are the lessons to be learned from the current free global crisis which at its heart is the flawed capacity to market system regarding its capacity to distinguish between "enterprise" and "speculation" and consequently the tendency to become dominated by speculators. These are the get rich quick investors.
20. Instead the commitment of the ANC for decades has been the comprehensive "socialization" of investment, whereby the State, acting on behalf of society, transforms the State and ensures that investment, capital, improves the lives of all our people. Yes provides decent work so that our people can help develop our economy with dignity, dedication and consequently productivity. Economic growth will follow.
21. No This ANC government and the next one coming in this year will not and is not prepared to allow economic growth fueled by unbridled greed and a new breed of unprincipled predators.
22. Instead we will ensure employment creation through state-led development interventions
23. Provide decent work opportunities for all: Yes working together we can do more. Viva ANC Viva the people of South Africa Yes we can do more and we will do more.

Keywords - Joan Fubbs, ANC, ANC manifesto, fighting unemployment, creation of decent work, cutting edge technology, people centered development, unemployment

Poured Concrete Homes moladi

2010-11-16T21:28:00.001+02:00

Poured Concrete Houses Poured Concrete walls Poured Concrete Homes
Poured concrete homes

moladi has been supplying its comprehensive Poured Concrete construction system, of which the formwork is merely a constituent of this technology, for the past 24 years. As a result, we do not simply supply modular plastic formwork, but a holistic building technology, that has been specifically designed and is proven too benefit the end user with its simplicity and ease of use.
For more information visit http://www.moladi.net/

Keywords - Poured Concrete Houses, Poured Concrete walls, Poured Concrete Homes, cast, concrete homes, houses, structures, formwork, thermal, pumped, moladi, construction, building, system, technology, process

Lufhereng settlement - Tokyo Sexwale

2010-08-19T23:46:00.001+02:00

Lufhereng settlement - Tokyo Sexwale

moladi

A new settlement between Soweto and Kagiso would be bigger than Cosmo City, north of Johannesburg, the Department of Housing said on Tuesday.The township of Lufhereng, the Venda word for "the place where people gather", would have 24 000 housing opportunities, said department spokesperson Victor Moreriane.Lufhereng was launched on Tuesday by Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale, Gauteng Premier Nomvula Mokonyane, Johannesburg Executive Mayor Amos Masondo, and Local Government and Housing MEC Kgaogelo Lekgoro.They handed over new houses to six women who were first-time homeowners.The township was created to provide a sustainable community for people waiting for homes in Soweto, the department said in a statement.

Spokesperson Fred Mokoko said Lufhereng was located close to economic opportunities and would provide residents with social and economic amenities such as schools, creches, churches, clinics, parks and business nodes."The development is also set to foster social cohesion by providing housing for the poorest of the poor, affordable housing for other low income households and middle-to-high income bonded housing stock for the general market earning between R3 500 to R10 000 per month," he said.Low-cost (RDP) houses would form half of the project and beneficiaries would be people from a 1996/1997 housing demand database in the area and residents from the Protea south informal settlement.Small farmers from the Doornkop farming community, and who were currently on the development land, would be integrated into the township.The agricultural focus would be on small-scale, intensive field farming and commercial hydroponics, targeted mainly at Black Economic Empowerment small farmer development.Mokoko said the first phase of the project would include the development of 2 433 freehold stands, detached, semi-detached and row-house units, 1 192 of which were earmarked solely for RDP homes.Other land uses included social, institutional, commercial, municipal and public open space.Over 15 primary and secondary schools and more than 60 community facilities, churches and creches were planned

Keywords - township, Lufhereng, Fred Mokoko, Tokyo Sexwale, Nomvula Mokonyane, Soweto, Black Economic Empowerment, Department of Housing, concrete housing, plastic formwork, moladi solution, classrooms, schools

Nandi Sishuba leave the department

2010-08-19T00:06:00.001+02:00

Nandi Sishuba leave the department

moladi

EMPLOYEES of the Eastern Cape Human Settlements Department brought work to a standstill yesterday, demanding that head Nandi Sishuba leave the department.
Employees, who are mostly members of the National Education Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu), said Sishuba’s contract had been “illegally” extended by a further two months after it expired a month ago.
They protested that the extension had been done by the department without union consultation and vowed not to work until Sishuba had vacated her post.
Department spokesman Lwandile Sicwetsha confirmed yesterday’s crisis, but said MEC Nombulelo Mabandla had tried to intervene but workers failed to attend a scheduled meeting with her.
“There was supposed to be a formal meeting yesterday with the employees where the MEC was to be available and answer their grievances. But most employees failed to attend. Instead they picketed outside the building,” Sicwetsha said.
Some employees spoken to yesterday said they would continue with protests until their grievances had been resolved.
“We will not go back to that building until this is resolved. There is no way that we will be ruled by this woman (Sishuba) – she must leave,” said a worker, who wanted to remain anonymous.
Another employee said workers were also not happy with their performance bonuses.
“We just can’t get anything right with the presence of this woman. It’s not that we hate her, but we hate what she is doing.”
One worker said “her recruitment plans are very poor, they are only focussing on the top structures, forgetting about us, the secretaries”.
Sicwetsha said management was busy trying to find a solution to the problems.
“Definitely, the department is trying to resolve the problems so that they won’t affect service delivery,” he said.
Efforts to get comment from Nehawu spokesman Xolani Malamulela drew a blank, as he was in a separate meeting. – Daily Dispatch, Avusa Group News

Keywords: - Nandi Sishuba, Eastern Cape, Human Settlements Department, mec, Lwandile Sicwetsha, post

Plastic Formwork - moladi Technology

2010-08-16T23:06:00.002+02:00

Plastic Formwork - moladi Construction Technology

TECHNOLOGY PLASTIC FORMWORK

moladi is an award winning and unique, lightweight, reusable, patented injection moulded formwork system that has been developed to streamline the cumbersome qualities, and the many inefficiencies, associated with traditional timber and steel formwork as well as other alternative building methods. With the emphasis of the technology being on quality and efficiency, the formwork has been specifically designed to benefit the end user with its unique simplicity.

Key Points;
Emphasis on quality and efficiency
Unique, lightweight and reusable
Simplicity
Lightweight and robust, weighing 8kg/m²
Easy transportation
Speedy assembly
Modular Components
Versatile design
Easily adaptable
Wall cavities of 100mm and 150mm
Formwork re-used 50 times
Smooth off-shutter finish
No plastering
No beam filling
No chasing
No skilled labour

Keywords - moladi, plastic, formwork, plastic formwork, lightweight, reusable, patented, construction system, building technology, modular, low cost, affordable, homes, concrete homes, rural development, classroom

Mine housing | Mining Compounds | mine accommodation

2010-08-02T21:44:00.001+02:00

Mine housing Mining Compounds mine accommodation

Reduce cost of constructing houses for mine workers - Read more at moladi - http://www.moladi.net/

Keywords - conventional construction, mine accommodation, housing, Build double storey, Africa, developing communities, Sustainable Development, Mining houses, Compounds, Mine Workers Housing, mining compounds, mineworker, prefab buildings, energy efficient buildings, building materials, light-gauge steel roof, Steel-frame roof, Rapid construction, Local labour, Light steel reinforcing, technology, mining accommodation, Proven technology, rural construction, mine housing, Energy-efficient, contractor, gold, coal, Mining Charter, Chamber of Mines

Warren Buffett on Housing | Finance Blog - moladi

2010-02-28T22:52:00.001+02:00

Warren Buffett on Housing Finance Blog

“In contrast, very few factory-built homes qualify for agency-insured mortgages. Therefore, a meritorious buyer of a factory-built home must pay about 9% on his loan. For the all-cash buyer, Clayton’s homes offer terrific value. If the buyer needs mortgage financing, however –- and, of course, most buyers do –- the difference in financing costs too often negates the attractive price of a factory-built home.”

“Last year I told you why our buyers – generally people with low incomes – performed so well as credit risks. Their attitude was all-important: They signed up to live in the home, not resell or refinance it. Consequently, our buyers usually took out loans with payments geared to their verified incomes (we weren’t making ‘liar’s loans’) and looked forward to the day they could burn their mortgage. If they lost their jobs, had health problems or got divorced, we could of course expect defaults. But they seldom walked away simply because house values had fallen. Even today, though job-loss troubles have grown, Clayton’s delinquencies and defaults remain reasonable and will not cause us significant problems.”

“We have tried to qualify more of our customers’ loans for treatment similar to those available on the site-built product. So far we have had only token success. Many families with modest incomes but responsible habits have therefore had to forego home ownership simply because the financing differential attached to the factory-built product makes monthly payments too expensive. If qualifications aren’t broadened, so as to open low-cost financing to all who meet down-payment and income standards, the manufactured-home industry seems destined to struggle and dwindle.”

moladi Site Built Homes - non stick housing

Human Settlements - housing officials cited on R18m fraud

2009-10-15T09:05:00.001+02:00

Human Settlements South Africa: Human Settlements - housing officials cited on R18m fraud

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

THE Department of Human Settlements is disciplining more than 1300 housing officials who defrauded the housing subsidy system to the tune of R18million.Human settlements director-general Itumeleng Kotsoane told Parliament’s human settlements committee yesterday that the special investigations unit had finalised 513 cases involving civil servants – many of whom were convicted.The errant officials who “defrauded the housing subsidy system” have signed more than 1440 acknowledgements of debt to the value of R18399778 .The officials have paid government back R1,8million so far, Kotsoane said. A further 795 officials are currently facing disciplinary action. Kotsoane told the committee that the spiralling costs of housing material posed a “huge problem” to the government.He said the Competition Commission’s investigation of possible cartels in suppliers of construction materials such as stock bricks and cement will help reduce the costs of building houses in the future.Meanwhile, members of Parliament urged Kotsoane to check that quality houses are being built as a way of preventing service delivery protests.Committee chairperson Nomhle Dabuza said the human settlements department had also failed to monitor what happens to new housing projects.

Men's Health - Hennie BOTES moladi

2009-05-15T19:50:00.002+02:00

Men's Health - The magazine men live by

MAY THE BEST MAN WIN
Leading the Pack

Best Man was first established by Men’s Health in 2003 with the objective of recognising South African men who are making a difference in society today. These men are leaders in their fields; they inspire us in our daily lives and create unique opportunities for all South Africans to reach their goals and develop themselves. It is once again that time of the year where we acknowledge these men - the leaders in sport, business, science and technology, arts and culture, media and public service. This year’s gala event will take place in Johannesburg on 11 June 2009. Last year’s event also saw the “Editor’s Choice” award, bestowed upon Shaun Pollock in recognition of his calm leadership of the national cricket team in a time when they were publicly and emotionally ravaged.

A true leader and innovator in the field of science and technology, this is a man who is forging a new path, finding new answers and breaking ground.

Founder of Moladi and the inventor of patented box moulds that allow the rapid erection of low-cost, less labour-intensive quality houses - a finalist

Asia-Pacific Housing Forum - moladi

2009-05-14T23:30:00.001+02:00

Asia-Pacific Housing Forum - Homepage

> OVERVIEW

Building on each other’s strengths More than one billion people around the world live in urban slums and this figure is rising as towns and cities continue to expand. The 2nd Asia-Pacific Housing Forum will examine and propose concrete solutions for housing the urban poor and for dealing with existing slums. The forum will look at alternative approaches and scalable models involving national and local government authorities, businesses and social organizations working together and building on each other’s strengths to provide housing solutions. Slums are particularly vulnerable to fire, floods and other disasters. The forum will provide a venue where major players and stakeholders in relief and development can explore strategies to bridge the gaps between emergency relief and sustainable redevelopment.

> WHO SHOULD ATTEND The Forum is of interest to all who are concerned and engaged in providing urban poverty housing solutions like architects, academics, developers, urban planners, policymakers, NGOs, donor agencies, researchers, private and public sector actors. We invite you to join us at the September 2009 2nd Asia-Pacific Housing Forum in Manila, Philippines to: present a research paper or case study; participate in a dialogue or panel discussion; showcase your initiative or project; join a training event; engage in a “Leaders of Today & Tomorrow” session; be a participant.

moladi is proud and honoured to present our construction technology “The Moladi Approach to Affordable Housing Delivery”

Sexwale to head human settlements ministry

2009-05-11T07:47:00.002+02:00

BuaNews Online homepage

Pretoria - Tokyo Sexwale has been announced as the Minister of Human Settlements.

Announcing his new Cabinet on Sunday, President Jacob Zuma said the Department of Housing will be called the Department of Human Settlements to take on a more holistic focus.

Going through the list of those who will take up seats in his Cabinet, Mr Zuma said: "Minister of Human Settlements - Tokyo Sexwale."

A highly respected businessman, Mr Sexwale has held many senior positions in the African National Congress. He was imprisoned alongside Nelson Mandela on Robben Island were he was expected to serve a life sentence.

As President of South Africa in 1994, Mr Mandela appointed Mr Sexwale as Premier of Gauteng.

In 1998 he left public office and entered the world of business. He formed Mvelapanda Group, a Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed BEE consortium.

He also serves on the board of the 2010 FIFA World Cup Local Organising Committee.

Mr Sexwale was named Tokyo because he enjoyed karate as a youngster. - BuaNews

Minister Sexwale, we at moladi congratulate you on your appointment to head the Human Settlements Ministry. We assure you of our support in your task to address the backlog and quality issues that you face - Congratulations!

News - South Africa: Report slams running of N2 Gateway project

2009-05-04T12:20:00.002+02:00

News - South Africa: Report slams running of N2 Gateway project
The N2 Gateway project was launched in the Western Cape in March 2005 as a pilot to test the government's new low-cost housing policy called Breaking New Ground.

By Ella Smook

A damning audit report of the N2 Gateway housing project reveals costly and widespread deficiencies in the planning, accounting, design and execution of the government's flagship low-cost housing development.

The report, completed in June 2008 but tabled in parliament only last week, backs up complaints that have surrounded the project since its inception.

The national Department of Housing, which has responsibility for the project, commissioned the Auditor General's report, which confirmed the N2 Gateway Project had not been managed "economically, efficiently and effectively".

The Auditor General ordered corrective action, which will include training, as well as the recovery of possible fruitless and wasteful expenditure, and possible disciplinary action.

The policy sought to roll out integrated human settlements, rather than build row upon row of RDP houses in new communities that had no infrastructure or recreational facilities.

N2 Gateway houses would be bigger than RDP houses, and would be available as fully subsidised free homes, affordably bonded units and rental houses.

But in the past years positive reports of home handovers have been overshadowed by the negative press the development has attracted.

The problems have included housing lists, land invasions, politicking, illegal occupations, evictions, skills shortages and allegations of tender irregularities and shoddy workmanship on half-completed homes.

In June 2006, the Cape Argus reported on the "costly bungling" revealed at a mayco meeting.

Although the scope of the Auditor General's report did not extend to all the issues highlighted, it identified 10 areas of concern.

These included the fact that the necessary legislation and policies were not in place when construction started, and the roles and functions allocated to the different spheres of government had not been adhered to. This had resulted in uncertainties over who should take responsibility for specific functions.

In addition, the Auditor General found that construction started before funding had been secured or the business plan finalised

Sufficient land had also not yet been identified and secured, geotechnical surveys which would have revealed the seriousness of the soil problems had not been done, and the selection of beneficiaries had not been finalised.

Qualifying criteria in respect of monthly household income had also not been consistent with policy, and had been inconsistently communicated to different communities.

Because of the consequences of time-frame and affordability miscalculations, legal claims for abortive work and standing time, totalling R43 million, were lodged against the City of Cape Town.

Further fruitless and wasteful expenditure of R20m was incurred due to design changes which resulted from the failure to exercise "reasonable care" during the planning phase.

And because of irregularities in the appointment of initial project manager Cyberia, which "lacked (the) sufficient in-house and specialist expertise" to perform the job it had tendered for, payments of R12m made to Cyberia were found to have been irregular.

Some R72m in irregular expenditure was also incurred as a result of tender processes not being followed in the appointment of implementing consortia.

The appointment of Thubelisha Homes as project manager in 2006, after the new multi-party coalition-led City of Cape Town administration was removed from the project, was also done without proper procurement processes being followed.

Since the completion of the Auditor General's report, the government's Housing Development Agency has taken over from Thubelisha, which has since reportedly become insolvent.

All Thubelisha employees have transferred to the new government agency.

In response to the report, the Department of Housing said it would ensure "all corrective and necessary control measures are put in place as a matter of urgency".

It added that the "lessons learnt from the successful implementation of the (project) would be shared with other state-funded projects nationally".

How is it that an NGO sponsered by Government to the tune off R760, 000, 000 (that is R760 million) per annum to perform the duty of implementor/Project Manager is closed because of NON DELIVERY, be re-employed in the Housing Development Agency (HDA) when they did not fulfill their mandate????

How can they make a difference under a new entity???? Should this not be lesson 1?

Ask them (Thubelisha Homes) what they delivered over the past 5 years??? Or even better - since inception?????

The special advisor to Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, Mr Sath Moodley headed this project. He was ousted from the Mpumalanga Housing Department because of allegations...and reemployed as advisor?

I pray that more of this is exposed and the culprits charged and exposed.

Mr. Moodley, why have you not implemented moladi as you promised when we met you in Parliament AND after winning the ABSA NHBRC Award in 2006???

moladi

Housing Microfinance 'To Take Off in Africa' | Newsroom | NextBillion.net | Development through Enterprise

2009-04-23T08:52:00.000+02:00

Housing Microfinance 'To Take Off in Africa' | Newsroom | NextBillion.net | Development through Enterprise

The trend of providing microloans to poor people to buy houses is likely to rocket in the next few years as an alternative to conventional bank mortgages, says low-income finance expert David Porteous.

While delegates to the African Microfinance Conference in Cape Town agreed that "housing microfinance" was gaining ground across Africa, commitments by the large South African banks could provide a fresh twist to this tale.

Under the Financial Sector Charter, SA's big-four commercial banks had agreed to divert a far greater amount of funds into low-income housing and were on the verge of nailing down a deal with government to manage the risk.

But with banks set to extend mortgage lending downwards to low-income earners, and microfinanciers extending upwards through "housing finance", the two groups could yet clash in the middle of the previously underserviced market.

Porteous said the burgeoning trend of microfinanciers providing housing finance was being driven by a greater number of people moving to the cities.

He said in SA 58% of people live in cities, a growing group that requires finance to build, buy and improve houses.

Porteous said that while there was a need for more "housing microfinance" in SA, "there is an even greater need in the rest of Africa", where conventional mortgages are few and far between.

The Millennium Development Goals, which aim to improve the conditions of 100-million slum-dwellers by the year 2020, were another factor driving the boom in housing microfinance.

Porteous said housing microfinance differed from conventional microfinance, where institutions give unsecured loans to low-income groups. "Housing loans are larger, and (are repayable) over a longer term, so it puts pressure on lenders' balance sheets."

There are a number of microfinance institutions providing money for housing across the world, including Sewa in India and Grameen in Bangladesh.

Because people with access to microloans would not qualify for normal bank debt, the interest rates were usually a lot higher on microloans.

But as finance would be provided over a longer period and the repayment record on home loans was good, interest rates would be less than for an average microloan.

moladi response

Horse before the cart?

It is wonderful that there is momentum in providing microloans to people to buy houses is gaining ground in Africa.

The only issue is that there is "no product". Most of the houses for sale are above the majority of buyer’s ability to qualify for the loan.

Therefore product has to be provided for the BoP market - this is where moladi plays its roll. We build more QUALITY homes FASTER BETTER for LESS by applying a technology driven housing delivery system employing local labour.

Lack of resources, insufficient funds, skills shortage, time constraints, work flow control and waste are key challenges embodied in affordable housing shortages.

What a challenge and opportunity to create jobs? Allowing the BoP to move up and make use of Housing Microfinance in the future. In order to capture this market more effectivly a "Push Pull" long term marketing strategy should be seen as the "Way forward".

Visit www.moladi.net for more information

Habitat for Humanity International invitation - “The Moladi Approach to Affordable Housing Delivery”

2009-04-16T03:34:00.001+02:00

We are very proud and honoured to accept the following invitation received from Habitat for Humanity International to speak about the moladi approach to affordable housing delivery.

“Habitat for Humanity International is organizing the 2nd Asia Pacific Housing Forum to be held at the Asian Institute of Management Conference Centre, Makati City, Metro Manila, Philippines on September 7-9, 2009. The first APHF was held in Singapore in 2007 and was attended by 230 participants representing 28 countries.

The 2nd Asia Pacific Housing Forum promises to be a bigger event. It will look at both alternative approaches and scalable models where government, business and social organizations can work together and build on each other’s strengths to provide urban housing solutions particularly the elimination of slums.

We are fully aware of your expertise and dedication to the cause of the needy particularly the homeless poor. It is therefore our honor to cordially invite you to speak at the 2nd Asia Pacific Housing Forum on the topic “The Moladi Approach to Affordable Housing Delivery”.”

See you there…

www.moladi.net

Be PROACTIVE – YOU can make the difference

The Times - You can build a house in a day

2009-03-29T08:54:00.001+02:00

The Times - You can build a house in a day

Government shows no interest in innovative and cheap solution for SA’s millions of homeless.

His first attempt at building a boundary wall ended up as a duck pond. Two decades on, Hennie Botes has perfected his building technology and is now exporting houses that can be built in a day.

The Port Elizabeth-based entrepreneur spent many late nights during the 1980s experimenting with moulds, cement and water and his perseverance has paid off.

Today he exports his housing units consisting of plastic moulds and mortar to 16 countries around the world.

“Close to 95% of our production to date has been for exporting, but that is changing,” said Botes.

He said he has yet to persuade the government to use his invention for its RDP housing programme, because there was still some reluctance in South Africa to deviate from conventional bricks and mortar structures.

The simple design requires minimal skill and has earned him several awards, including the SABS Design for Development Award. Plastic moulds are pegged together and mortar is poured in. Later the moulds are taken apart and the roof is fitted.

The entire process of building a standard 40m² house — from laying the foundation to installing plumbing and putting up the roof — takes only two weeks.

The houses cost about R1000 a square metre, which means a 40m², three-bedroom house with kitchen and toilet can be built for as little as R50000. An RDP house of between 18m² and 23m² (one bedroom and a combined lounge, kitchenette and toilet) is said to cost the government up to R53000.

“We look at the home as little boxes and then we put those boxes together,” said Botes.

It needs at least 30 people to build the house, but women can do it as easily as men — or even better. “ Women are more meticulous and conform to repetition easier than men,” said Botes.

He said his company had built about 250 units, mainly show houses, around South Africa, but that they had exported “thousands” to other countries including Mexico, India, Iraq and Nigeria.

Originally from Durban, Botes created his first invention in 1980 when his wife complained about carrying bath water for their baby.

Botes came up with a simple baby bath that hooked inside the traditional bath — and that kicked off his obsession with innovations to make life simpler.

Several other ideas followed, but the one which has paid off the most is the technology behind his houses. It began to take shape when Botes decided to build a wall around his property.

“It was difficult work to lay one brick on top of the other, and then to go and plaster that wall was an impossibility because it kept falling off,” he said.

“Then I thought there must be a different way of doing this, and that is where I started working on casting a wall. My first wall formwork didn’t work and it ended up as a duck pond.”

But he did not give up.

He had his mortar formula tested at several universities to ensure that it would withstand pressure when used in construction.

In 1991, Botes set up shop, calling his company Moladi, which means to give birth.

Earlier this month, Moladi completed a show house in Ghana, and Botes said officials there have already ordered 3000 units.

He hopes to open plants in Ghana and India within the next year.

Locally, he aims to train other entrepreneurs to use the Moladi technology so they too can go out and build more cost-effective, less labour-intensive quality houses.

“I don’t do this for the money, I do this for the love of housing people, that emotion that goes with when a person moves into a house,” he said.

“That’s emotion that money cannot buy. That granny that kissed me on the hand, a guy that hugs me. All life-changing, and that is what motivates me.”

The Herald Online

2009-03-23T08:07:00.001+02:00

The Herald Online: "WHAT was once a thriving and bustling Karoo farming town is on the verge of total collapse because service delivery has ground to a halt.
Tarkastad is believed to currently have an unemployment rate of about 98 per cent, with many of these residents in desperate need of housing.
Despite this, there are more than 500 incomplete RDP houses in township areas that have been standing empty since 2003 after the Tsolwana municipality failed to wrap up a housing project for just over 1000 units.
Some of the homes have been demolished and the building materials from them used by impoverished residents to complete other unfinished houses.
Others are being illegally used to run small businesses like spaza shops and taverns.
Several housing project beneficiaries complained that municipal officials had even charged them R400 before they could occupy their allocated houses.
“One woman asked me if I could lend her R400 in order for her to get her house,” said local councillor Bob Sparrow. “She was desperate.”
Hundreds of young pupils also have to go to school every day without having any access to water.
Some are forced to carry water to school in plastic bags and other containers to have a drop to drink during the day.
The schools are also not being maintained properly, with some classrooms having broken windows and missing panels.
“The children almost freeze to death during the winter,” said long-time resident Eddison Buswana, 84.
A few of the very poor parents have been forced through attorneys to pay school fees even though they do not have a decent income.
One parent, Rubin Godfrey, receives a small government pension and cares for his children and grandchildren with the money.
Godfrey received a summons from an attorney in Queenstown to pay R20 for outstanding school"

Corrupt and un skilled officials and inexperienced contractors rape our country!!

Affordable housing units for Ghana - modernghana.com/general news

2009-03-15T18:05:00.001+02:00

Affordable housing units for Ghana - modernghana.com/general news

Mr Botes - MD of Moladi In most cities in Ghana, low-income earners cannot afford good quality housing. They either rent usually in poor quality overcrowded dwellings or build in illegal settlements.

They cannot get conventional housing finance because their homes are in illegal settlements and they lack the income or formal documentation that housing finance agencies require.

In order to address this problem and provide affordable housing units for Ghanaians, Moladi, an international low cost housing construction company based in South Africa is gearing up to launch an affordable housing unit in Ghana. The company has successfully built housing units using the moladi plastic construction concrete framework for over two decades.

The company which arrived in the country last week said it has already conducted a number of feasibility studies on the country's housing sector.

The company has developed a technology for producing low cost housing, mainly intended for third world countries, by a patented process of reusable plastic formwork.

The process involves creating a mould in the form of the complete house. This wall mould is then filled with an aerated form of mortar. The process is also claimed to be faster than traditional methods.

Moladi has been a pioneer in the development of alternative housing systems, since its inception in 1986, with housing projects having been built successfully in over 15 countries over the past 22 years.

The Managing Director of the company, Hennie Botes, told the media in Accra that moladi system involves the use of a removable, reusable, recyclable and lightweight plastic formwork mould to produce a durable and permanent structure, which has been subject to numerous tests and independent reports.

“As the system is not pre-fabricated off the building site or dependant on skilled labour, the use of the moladi system allows for local, unskilled labour to be employed,” he stated

Women, who have traditionally been either reluctant or discouraged from working within the male-dominated sector, are encouraged to participate in the non-labour intensive building process, Mr Botes added.

He explained further that the process involves assembling a mould the size of the designed house, with all the electrical services, plumbing and steel reinforcing located within the wall structure, which is filled with a South African Bureau of Standards approved lightweight mortar to form all the walls of the house simultaneously.

The method, he noted, eliminates the time and labour intensive work of chasing, beam filling, plastering and generates no waste.

By Felix Dela Klutse

Ghettoverit’s Weblog

2009-03-15T18:04:00.000+02:00

Ghettoverit’s Weblog

By Nqobile Shoba

The Reconstruction and Devleopment programme was implemented by the ANC almost fourteen years ago. The programme was put in place in order to aid the poorest of the poor. According to the ANC’s Reconstruction and development programme monitor website

The RDP is a plan to address the many social and economic problems facing our country - problems such as…

violence
Iack of housing
Iack of jobs
inadequate education and health care
Iack of democracy
a failing economy.
However like many of the programmes put in place by our beloved government it has dismally failed. Besides the fact that almost half the houses that it builds for our poverty stricken South Africa are dismal, dispicably put together pieces of somewhat thrown together architecture, they have become no more than just money making schemes for poor and rich alike. I guess the question on everybody’s mind right now is ” What the hell is she talking about?” Well it is common knowledge, and by common knowledge I mean to the gossip mongers/ local church going folk in the townships, and the local governement in any city or town in South Africa that these so called RDP houses for the poor are given and awarded to those who have connections within the local governement. This is despite the fact that there are individuals who have been waiting on the list for more than ten years, to get ann RDP house.

Whilst covering a television news story in Vukani , Grahamstown about the renting out of these houses, I met a few individuals who had been waiting for ten years or more. In fact these were the individuals who were forced to rent out the RDP houses from local fat cats keen to pocket extra money from the poor. If not the fat cats it’s the local people from the townships themselves who somehow strike a connection with the local municipality, or its councilors and mange to own more than two houses in two different township areas, to only spend the profits they gain on alcohol or running a shebeen anyway.

The problem here is that no one takes the blame for what is clearly a system riddled with corruption. When one asks the local municipality about the awarding of RDP houses we are only told that they are not responsible for the awarding of houses and we should speak to the construction companies in charge ,The ANC has its promises. Free housing was one of them. I’m still baffled by the fact that people have waited this long for such a basic need.

used to complain about squatter camps but what else are the poor to do. If you can not afford rent, been waiting for more than ten years for a house, why not but build one? I think that is real vision and courage. So the rich get richer whilst the poor as they say get poorer . So as I switch off my bedroom light in my furnished home , slip into my warm bed I realize how lucky I am to have four sturdy cement walls to shelter me. Paying for a free house? I don’t get it.

South Africa's affordable-housing programme is maturing, but the delivery pressures are mounting

2009-02-23T21:55:00.000+02:00

South Africa's affordable-housing programme is maturing, but the delivery pressures are mounting: "South Africa’s affordable-housing programme is maturing, but the delivery pressures are mounting
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By: Dennis Ndaba
11th July 2008
TEXT SIZE The areas which were engulfed by violence and attacks on foreign nationals were in informal settlements and in hostels. These areas often experience a lack of service delivery and are where the poorest people reside. Characteristic of the violence in some areas is a lack of development, while in others there is a suspicion among some residents that they will be left out of the delivery of houses and services.”
This was one of the main conclusions of the ‘Report of the Task Team of Members of Parliament Probing Violence and Attacks on Foreign Nationals’ released in late June, highlighting, once again, the importance of housing delivery in safeguarding social stability.
It is not a new realisation, though. After the 1994 transition to democracy, it was generally accepted that it was imperative to stabilise housing provisioning, to overcome the fragmented housing regime with its skewed racial focus and to immediately start delivery.
Indeed, the African National Congress’s Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) noted that the lack of adequate housing and basic services in urban townships and rural settlements had “reached crisis proportions”. It went on to endorse the principle of ‘housing as a human right’, adding that one of “the RDP’s first priorities is to provide for the homeless”.
On average, 250 000 subsidised houses were built every year"

Morocco to decentralise urban development (Magharebia.com)

2009-02-23T18:11:00.000+02:00

Morocco to decentralise urban development (Magharebia.com)

By Sarah Touahri for Magharebia in Rabat – 25/01/09

[Getty Images] Moroccan officials hope that greater authority at local levels will reduce the growth of shanty towns around major cities.

The Moroccan government rolled out its new national urban development strategy (SNDU) during a two-day planning forum attended by local and national officials last week in Skhirat. The project unveiled by the Interior and Housing ministries increases state support for cities by focusing on effective urban governance through greater decentralisation.

According to a 2008 government report presented to the meeting on Thursday (January 22nd), 59% of Moroccans live in urban areas. More than a million rural Moroccans moved to cities between 1994 and 2004. Urban centres are also responsible for wealth creation, accounting for more than 75% of the Kingdom's GDP.

Cities, however, are hotbeds of social fragility and consume vast quantities of environmental resources. The government's goal with the SNDU is to create a more harmonious urban policy which integrates social, economic and environmental concerns.

The difference between this new plan and proposals discussed at a similar forum two years ago is the greater role given to local authorities. The Skhirat forum sought to "strengthen the role of local actors", said Housing, Town Planning and Land Management Minister Ahmed Taoufiq Hejira.

Three factors are essential to the success of the SNDU, he said: "the delegation of powers by way of regionalisation, efforts to develop synergies between ministries to ensure that projects do not overlap and efforts to bring citizens closer to the authorities".

Community officials and organisations are key to the latest urban renewal policy. A national town planning reference framework will be created by developing the urban dimension of the National Land Management Plan and linking it to structural reforms such as the Town Planning Code.

Now, Hejira said, the challenge of urban development is to both address demand and focus on quality.

"Everyone has a voice," said Noureddine Boutayeb, the governor of the country's local councils. The rampant urbanisation Morocco is witnessing is a matter for all actors, including local elected representatives who need to be able to address urban challenges such as social cohesion, environmental protection and employment, he said.

Casablanca mayor Mohamed Sajid agrees that the country needs a broad-based vision at the local level, backed up by a desire on the part of the central authorities to get involved in urban development.

One priority is the continued eradication of shanty towns. Thirty Moroccan cities are already classified as free of slums, thanks to work over the last few years.

To solve the problem of squalid housing conditions once and for all, Hejira said his department will accelerate the slum-clearance rate. A new awareness-raising campaign includes television programmes warning of the dangers of improvised housing.

People living in Morocco's urban slums are eager to see results. Many believe the state should do more to provide them with better housing.

"No one likes living in these conditions. If I had the money, I wouldn't stay a day longer in this shanty town," Mohamed Saoud told Magharebia.

"We hope the government will act more quickly to get us out of places like this," he said.

moladi is ready for your reconstruction program for low cost housing in Morocco!

BBC NEWS | World | Africa | South Africa: Behind the violence

2009-02-22T10:51:00.002+02:00

BBC NEWS | World | Africa | South Africa: Behind the violence
Bribery and corruption

For a number of years now this has led to allegations that they take bribes in return for housing and this has led to many protests.

In 2005, for example, residents in the town of Musina, close to the border with Zimbabwe, marched on the municipality to protest about the lack of action against certain councillors accused of giving houses to foreigners for money.

We must put a stop to this practice

Gwede Mantashe
ANC Secretary General

Housing crisis

Sinkie Makushu, chairman of the Greater Musina Unemployment Forum complained that they had provided ample evidence of corruption, but that no action was taken.

"The police have every bit of information regarding corruption at the municipality, but they keep saying they are still investigating," he said.

The previous year angry residents chased about 50 people out of RDP houses after claims that they were foreigners, who were paying rent or had bought the homes outright from local councillors.

Some of those evicted from the RDP houses produced bank receipts proving they were paying rent of 50 rand ($6.5) or more to some councillors. Other occupants said they had bought the houses for 6,500 rand ($850) each.

'Fertile ground'

Anger at the allocation of housing in return for payments has been seen in several places during the xenophobic attacks carried out over the past two weeks.

People living in Alexandra, on the outskirts of Johannesburg where the violence originated, said foreigners had jumped the low-cost housing allocation lists by paying bribes.

The government builds 180,000 houses a year but it is not enough

The housing department in the Gauteng region which surrounds Johannesburg said it had allocated nine houses to foreigners in Alexandra but argued in a report that those people had permanent resident permits.

The opposition Democratic Alliance said the government needed to clarify its housing policy and explain who qualified for state-owned houses.

Since most councillors are members of the African National Congress, it is the party that has been blamed.

The problems were acknowledged by ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe.

"Many people have taken occupation of more than one RDP house and sell their houses instead of living in them. We must put a stop to this practice and expose all who are corrupt," he wrote on the party's website.

A similar point was made by the leader of the ANC's ally, the South African Communist Party.

"Some of our own councillors illegally take bribes and allocate RDP houses to undeserving people who are South African and non-South African citizens," said Blade Nzimande, the SACP's general secretary.

"These corrupt practices create fertile ground for intra-community conflict and xenophobia," he said.

Taking action

The government has attempted to deal with this issue.

Recently the department of housing said that more than 7,000 civil servants have acquired RDP houses illegally.

The attacks have prompted widespread demonstrations

"We have 7,363 pending cases of fraudulently acquired RDP houses by government officials throughout the country," says Simphiwe Damane-Mkhosana, head of an anti-corruption unit in the housing department.

"We intend to prosecute all the individuals who benefited."

But the practice has become so widespread that rooting it out is proving difficult.

The resulting tensions have only served to exacerbate differences between South Africans and foreigners living in the so-called Rainbow Nation.

moladi - the solution to quality low cost rdp housing

Scramble to spend half a budget in five weeks

2009-02-22T08:10:00.001+02:00

IN A desperate bid to spend over R550 million remaining from its budget allocations in five weeks, the provincial Department of Housing will unload millions of rands to municipalities, including Buffalo City, to fix defective houses.

Since the start of the financial year in April 2008, the department has spent only 54percent of the R1.2 billion it was allocated.

Last year, over R500 million of unspent money was taken away by National Treasury.

National Housing spokesperson Ndivhuwo Mabaya said the task team’s responsibility was to lay the foundation for a system that would enable service delivery in the provincial department.

He added that the provincial Housing Department faced challenges of capacity.

“The province is still responsible for spending the money, not the national intervention team. Ours is to help develop processes.

“I am aware that there are discussions between the MEC and the minister (Lindiwe Sisulu) regarding non-spending. In some cases the projects may not be ready to implement and therefore money can’t be used … If a province is not ready we take money to another province that is ready, but we are confident that Eastern Cape will deliver.”

Housing MEC Thobile Mhlahlo, who has been overseeing the department since August last year, vowed this week that the department would spend the remaining R552.172m in the next five weeks.

The grand plan kicks off with R100m to Mount Ayliff, Mount Frere and Flagstaff to fix defective structures.

In an apparent attempt to avoid penalties from National Treasury, the department also plans to fix houses in municipalities including Cacadu, Buffalo City and Chris Hani.

“The R552.172 million is part of the conditional grant. It is the remaining amount from the grant and it is being currently spent,” said department spokesperson Lwandile Sicwetsha .

“Rectification in Chris Hani, Buffalo City, Cacadu and other areas in the province began last year. The total cost for the rectification of these housing projects is over R100m and will come out of the remaining money in the budget.”

The rest of the money, said Sicwetsha, would be spent on flagship projects, land acquisition, emergency housing and current running projects.

Advertisements on bus shelters in various East London suburbs boast that 2.7 million houses have been built in 14years. Sicwetsha said the figure was a national one.

Last year the under-performance of the provincial department was noted by Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, who sent a task team to deal with the province, identified as one of the worst performing in terms of providing housing.

DA MPL Bobby Stevenson said the “last ditch” effort at spending money was proof the task team had been ineffective. “The proof is in the underspending. Failure to spend shows they are not successful in speeding up housing delivery in this province.

“It’s time for a major shakeup of the department and an MEC that can ensure delivery. Failure of the department to spend money is destroying the housing opportunities for the people of this province.” - Daily Dispatch

Hands On - The Earth Report from TVE.org

2009-02-19T19:58:00.000+02:00

Hands On - The Earth Report from TVE.org: "Report 1 of 4: Shacking Up - South Africa
Introduction
One of South Africa’s most pressing problems is the provision of suitable shelter for the huge numbers of people living in shacks in the sprawling settlements. These shacks are constructed from anything which can be acquired, such as scrap timber, old roofing sheets etc. and, while they may give some protection from rain and the heat of the sun, they do not provide adequate housing. The poor materials and the makeshift way in which they are constructed also lead to a risk of fire.
The construction of low cost houses in the township of Khayelitsha is based on locally-made building components and has been made possible by the development of equipment which is itself low in cost.
The low cost housing project for townships in South Africa
Work on the project started early in 1994 as a co-operative venture between the International Development Group (IDG) of Birmingham School of Architecture and the Margarette Pierson Research Trust (MPRT), with the support of the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID).
The project included a study, at an early stage, of various low-cost housing schemes in South Africa, built by contractors using standard building materials. The study found that most were built to very low standards and were, in some respects, worse than the shacks they were intended to replace. The study concluded that many of these housing schemes produced houses which:
are neither structurally sound nor suitable for living
have high maintenance requirements due to poor construction
have no control or contribution from the owners
The study indicated that the involvement of the owner as unskilled labour could have saved more than 12% of the cost w"

allAfrica.com: South Africa: Tax Incentive for Employee Housing (Page 1 of 1)

2008-12-16T23:01:00.000+02:00

allAfrica.com: South Africa: Tax Incentive for Employee Housing (Page 1 of 1)

Johannesburg — A NEW tax allowance is on the cards for employers who sell low-cost housing to their employees.
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But the proposed allowance set out in the Revenue Laws Amendment Bill excludes taxpayers who wish to provide low-cost housing for their domestic workers.
Tax analysts say these employers will not benefit from the legislation as income tax laws disallow as deductions any expenses for the maintenance of taxpayers' families or establishments.
"For this reason, expenses related to the employment of domestics do not qualify for deduction," David Warneke, a tax partner at Cameron & Prentice Chartered Accountants, said last week.
It seemed the government might have missed a trick, he said. "The cost to the fiscus would be considerably less if private individuals were to be given a tax incentive to provide low-cost housing than if the state had to provide the low cost housing."
The idea is that the sale of low-cost housing to employees has to be on an interest-free loan account, for a price that is no higher than the cost of the housing to the employer.
The allowance granted to the employer is 10% a year of the loan balance at each tax year-end of the employer.
For instance, if the employer sells a low-cost house to an employee for R100000 and does not demand any repayment for 10 years, the employer would enjoy an allowance of R10000 each year for 10 years.

Even better thn FREE!

Badly-built RDP houses collapse: South Africa: News: News24

2008-12-16T18:19:00.000+02:00

Badly-built RDP houses collapse: South Africa: News: News24

Sydney Masinga
Bethal - Thirty-six RDP houses that collapsed during heavy storms in Emzinoni township outside Bethal in January were built with mortar that was too weak.
Independent tests indicate that in some instances, one bag of cement was mixed with nearly 20 wheelbarrows of sand, instead of with three wheelbarrows of sand as per recommended building standards.
Spokesperson for the Mpumalanga Department of Local Government and Housing, Simphiwe Kunene, said on Friday that if the contractor was found to have taken shortcuts on the R17m housing project, legal steps would be taken.
"We used a qualified contractor to build those houses and he was required to follow strict building specifications," said Kunene.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) took samples of the rubble to Soillab in Trichardt for an independent analysis.
A copy of the results were sent to local government and housing MEC Candith Mashego-Dlamini on Wednesday and indicate that the cement/sand ratio was up to seven times weaker than required.
Kunene said the department would conduct its own investigation and tests.
The contractor, Golden Nest International, is a Chinese-based company and was given a R17m contract in 1998 to build the RDP houses. The project was completed in 2002.

The biggest problem - Why give a Chinese firm contract to build houses in SA? What about job creation? Bad quality and not in the country?

RDP house crushes woman: South Africa: News: News24

2008-12-16T18:16:00.000+02:00

RDP house crushes woman: South Africa: News: News24

Johannesburg - The government was to blame for the death of a 49-year-old Limpopo woman who was crushed to death when a pile of bricks fell on her during a storm that damaged RDP houses in Hoedspruit, the Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF) said on Wednesday.
"A storm is a natural disaster that we don't plan for and it can hit at anytime causing havoc... but for me they (government) are the guilty party.
"It is a fact that the quality of RDP houses is of a poor standard and the government doesn't hide this point," spokesperson Silumko Radebe said.
He was responding to an article published by the Sowetan on Wednesday, saying that Maria Mathebula died under a pile of bricks that fell on her when she was sleeping with her three children in Molalane village around 19:00 on Monday.
The vicious storm also destroyed 300 other RDP houses in the area.

Why not use moladi? This would never have happened!

A roof of one's own - Mail & Guardian Online: The smart news source

2008-12-14T09:47:00.001+02:00

A roof of one's own - Mail & Guardian Online: The smart news source

construction faults are at last being repaired or demolished and rebuilt. This rectification process is under way in two provinces and is being planned for the rest of the country. "Where we find that there's a fault and that it's due to the contractor we force him to go back," Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu told the Mail & Guardian this month. In a wide-ranging interview she reviewed progress on housing delivery since she took office in 2004, commenting on overall delivery as well as on specific flashpoints such as the N2 Gateway project in the Western Cape. The government has provided 2,6-million houses since 1994, but complaints about poor quality have been prolific. Sisulu said she felt comforted by the progress she saw in housing delivery, but that the challenges her ministry faces "have been particularly bruising. It's not nice to wake up and think 'I'm doing this for the people' and the feedback you get is the protesters."Since 2006 the housing department has worked with the Special Investigating Unit to trace unscrupulous contractors who, if found guilty of shoddy construction, are required either to repair faults or to return government money. If a construction company refuses to rectify its sub-standard work, it is blacklisted and denied any further government contracts, Sisulu said.About 60% of low-cost houses in the Western Cape had serious defects. The defects included severe cracks in walls and foundations, leaking roofs and windows and doors that did not function properly. Dampness was found in nearly half the houses audited.Sisulu noted that many houses found to be faulty were built between 1994 and 2002 -- before the introduction of the National Home Builders Registration Council building standards. Since 2002 the council has been responsible for ensuring the quality of government-built houses. The rectification process is under way in Khahlamba, Ugie and Zanemvula in the Eastern Cape. In the Western Cape it includes the Delft part of the N2 Gateway project as well the N2 Gateway's phase 1 project next to the Joe Slovo settlement. Prince Xhanti Sigcawu, general manager of Thubelisha Homes -- which is responsible for houses in both provinces -- confirmed that the rectification process involves several construction companies subcontracted by Thubelisha. He said the faults being addressed included poor workmanship, roofs that are easily blown away by wind and walls built with an inappropriate mixture of cement and sand.

Tax payer monies being wasted by giving contracts to unscrupulous contractors. What is the cost going to be to rectify these units? South African tax payer's monies, so not to worry! Why has moladi not being used and this would never happened?

ME developers plan low-cost housing projects in Pakistan

2008-12-10T20:06:00.000+02:00

ME developers plan low-cost housing projects in Pakistan:

"Senior Vice President of FPCCI Sub committee on Housing and Construction, Munir Sultan commented that investments could be higher if the government realized the worth of Pakistan’s real estate industry and concentrated on it.

He said that the construction sector employed the highest number of labourers and also contributed significantly to the GDP of the country and yet the government was neglecting it.

He asserted that the government should stop facilitating developers launching projects for the elite who were not, “in need of shelters on their heads, as much as the poor people of our society.”

Sultan commented that it was a positive sign for foreign investors to come to the country despite sensitive political and economical situation in Pakistan and if these low cost houses were constructed as planned, investments worth millions more can be expected soon as Pakistan is on its path towards the revival of the real estate sector."

Sustained public investment required to boost growth, ease poverty – DBSA

2008-11-19T19:26:00.000+02:00

Sustained public investment required to boost growth, ease poverty – DBSA

It would be possible for South Africa to achieve both higher growth and reduce its poverty levels by 2014 if its strong public investment programme continued beyond the Medium-Term Budget Framework and if its industrial policy led to an increase in employment creation, the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) reported.The DBSA on Wednesday unveiled its biennial 'Infrastructure Barometer 2008' report, which focused on the relationship between infrastructure spend and its impact on economic growth and development.The report highlighted the progress government had made in the past two years in terms of its objective to halve unemployment and poverty by 2014, as well as what challenges remained.The report also sketched potential scenarios of what infrastructure in South Africa could look like in 2014.The DBSA group executive for research and information Ravi Naidoo commented that accelerated public investment in infrastructure could support shared economic growth and could allow government to reach its objective, but under very specific circumstances.He noted that the challenge remained as to how government would continue to overcome the deep inequalities in household infrastructure, while simultaneously dealing with the bottlenecks in core infrastructure and ensuring that the provision of infrastructure contributed to a more inclusive economy.Further, Naidoo said that the country had to reduce the amount of products imported for its infrastructure programme, which currently stood at about 40%.With infrastructure programmes generally stretched out over a number of years, he said that there would be enough time for South Africa to develop local competitive suppliers for some of the products it imported.Further, in terms of the maintenance of infrastructure, Naidoo asserted that government could create jobs through infrastructure programmes allowing communities to, for example, maintain roads in certain areas of the country.Meanwhile, Naidoo said that the country faced the risk of higher tariffs increasing inflationary pressures in light of the current global financial markets leading to an increase in the cost of raising capital.He suggested that South Africa had to develop innovative financing plans with a clear understanding of who would pay for the infrastructure and who would benefit.SOCIAL UPLIFTMENTMeanwhile, the DBSA project manager for the report Marie Kirsten said that shared economic growth also would have to include the investment of social assets, such as schools and health clinics, to improve living standards and productivity.She noted that government's infrastructure programme thus should also include investment in the more socially related sectors of health, education, water and sanitation and local government, and not only in the more economically related sectors of transport, energy and information and communication technology (ICT) sectors.Kirsten said that the ICT sector had probably made the most progress in the past two years, followed by local government service provision and then transport.The percentage of households with access to water had increased to 88,7% in 2007, compared with 79,8% in 1996, while those with sanitation services increased to 89,6% in 2007, compared with 82,5% in 1996.In 2007, 80,1% of households had access to electricity, compared with 57,3% in 1996, while 61,6% of households had access to refuse removal by 2007, compared with 53,4% in 1996.More than 72% of households had cellphones by 2007, compared with 31,9% in 2001.Households with land line telephones, on the other hand, declined to 18,5% in 2007, compared with 23,8% in 2001.However, the DBSA said that more investment was required in all these sectors.Further, the water and education sectors were highlighted as two of the sectors that required the most investment and work.The DBSA said that investment in water infrastructure should be put at the centre of infrastructure development in the country and that the establishment of a national agency to manage the infrastructure and distribution projects would form an important part of this development.The researchers noted that the draft National Water Resource Infrastructure Agency Bill had been published and submitted to Parliament, but that the process to pass the Bill likely would be a lengthy one.Further, raw water pricing, issues of the maintenance and better operation of water infrastructure, municipal tariffs that were too low to meet all running costs and a shortage of technical capacity within municipalities to ensure the quality and reliability of water, were issues that had to be dealt with.Meanwhile, the researchers said that it was important for the country to invest in education infrastructure now, despite the global slowdown, otherwise there would be even less skilled people available when economies picked up again.The DBSA commented that school buildings alone were not enough, noting that the backlog in schools was very real with about two-thirds of secondary schools without laboratories and more than 60% of schools without libraries.

Fin24.com>>Companies>>PPC zooms in on low-cost homes

2008-11-12T21:33:00.000+02:00

Fin24.com>>Companies>>PPC zooms in on low-cost homes

PPC zooms in on low-cost homes

Johannesburg - Construction materials supplier Pretoria Portland Cement Company (PPC) says that even though the residential and formal house-building sectors have slowed, low-cost housing could be a part of its future.
"Low-cost housing could be the single largest area of demand going forward," said PPC CEO John Gomersall at a company presentation on Tuesday.
Gomersall said that over the last few years, PPC didn't seem to get above the 250 000 units a year level, "and that ain't going to eliminate the three million backlog by 2014".
According to Gomersall, gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) data for the last 15 or 20 years - a measure of SA's spending on investment - show that infrastructure is "still edging up".
Heavyweight construction firm Murray & Roberts says in its latest report that since 2002, GFCF has grown steadily relative to the country's growth, surpassing the critical 20% barrier in 2006 for the first time in 20 years en route to a government-set minimum target of 25% of GDP by 2014.
"There is every reason to believe this growth will continue into the 2020s," it said.
But Gomersall said the latest forecasts by some of SA's leading bank economists are predicting that the minimum target will be reached ahead of 2014 - and as early as 2010.
"So there isn't talk of infrastructure grinding to a halt. Government's political will has been reinforced by the medium-term budget statement which says there will be R600bn infrastructure spend over the next three years," he said.
The current economic climate did have a further impact on the formal residential sector, said Gomersall, adding that despite this, PPC has seen statistics showing that housing construction started to slow at the end of 2006.
"The formal residential slowdown hasn't been waiting for Lehman Brothers to collapse," he said.
If the residential sector still has to fall as much as some believe, "we wouldn't have seen a decline of only 1.6% in regional cement demand this financial year", he said.
"There were a lot of prophets of doom who were predicting a major collapse earlier in the year, who didn't necessarily agree with our view that infrastructure demand would offset the decline of formal residential construction," he said.

"Low-cost housing could be the single largest area of demand going forward," said PPC CEO John Gomersall at a company presentation on Tuesday."

Mr. Gomersall, why did you not see this as an opportunity and a stable market when i requested a meeting 2 years ago? Is it purely that there is no more consumption in the upmarket segment? The official figure for the financial year 2005/06 was only 121,000 units, not 250,000. www.moladi.com

allAfrica.com: South Africa: Minister Welcomes Proposals for Revenue Laws Amendment Bill (Page 1 of 1)

2008-10-22T21:49:00.000+02:00

allAfrica.com: South Africa: Minister Welcomes Proposals for Revenue Laws Amendment Bill (Page 1 of 1)

Cape Town
The Minister of Housing Lindiwe Sisulu has welcomed the proposed tax incentives for employers who release affordable and low-cost housing to their workers as per the Revenue Laws Amendment Bill.
The Revenue Laws Amendment Bill was tabled by Finance Minister Trevor Manuel during his Mid-Term Budget Policy Statement in Parliament.

Finance Minister Trevor Manuel tabled the Revenue Laws Amendment Bill and the Revenue Laws Second Amendment Bill, which gives effect to the revenue proposals announced in the budget in February.
The Bill allows for certain sections of the Transfer Duty Act of 1949 to be amended.
In a statement, the minister said she welcomed the proposals.
According to the proposals, an employer would qualify for an annual write-off if a property is released for sale to an employee, who obtains an interest-free loan from the company.
In addition, the already existing tax incentives applicable to an employer's rental units are updated. These tax incentive proposals peg property values at R200 000 for houses (excluding land and bulk infrastructure) and R250 000 for flats.
The proposed tax incentives, particularly on the sale of affordable and low-cost housing to employees, represents a potentially exciting new avenue in making housing accessible to more and more South Africans, the minister said.

It dovetails other initiatives by Housing such as the R42-billion rand commitment from the banking sector to secure mortgages in the affordable housing market and the facilitation of other innovative access to housing finance through, for example, the National Housing Finance Corporation

A very good example of changing the way that houses can be funded - Thank you Minister of Housing Lindiwe Sisulu and Finance Minister Trevor Manuel from moladi

The Herald Online Business

2008-09-23T19:48:00.000+02:00

The Herald Online **Business**

‘Serious‘ lack of skilled construction workers
Sipho Masondo BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT
THE domestic construction industry‘s serious lack of skilled personnel was high on the agenda of speakers who addressed yesterday‘s opening session of Master Builders SA annual congress at The Boardwalk.
Opening the congress, public works minister Thoko Didiza said the country urgently needed high-calibre skills, not only for new projects but also to maintain infrastructural assets currently being constructed, as well as for general rehabilitation of public assets.
She said there was an urgent need to employ more skilled women on building sites.
“We have to find ways of transforming the construction sector in a gender-sensitive industry. Women could surely be effectively employed not only in offices but also in supervisory capacities on site – in the role male foremen are currently playing.”
Grinaker-LTA‘s managing director, Neil Cloete said there was currently only one engineer for every 3166 South Africans, compared with, for example, Norway‘s 455.
“About 80% of South African schools are now said to be ‘dysfunctional‘ and the declining matric pass rate has reached alarming proportions. The pass rate in essential engineering subjects such as mathematics and science is constantly dropping,” he said.
Samuel Isaacs, chief executive of the South African Qualifications Authority (Saqa), said building contractors too often adopted an attitude of “wait until we get the contract before we think about training”.
Isaacs said there was a tendency to employ unqualified staff, who could be paid less and that the construction sector‘s skills shortage extended further than just building sites.
“We are not only short of artisans and engineers but also of other vital skills, such as town planning.”

Daily Dispatch Online

2008-09-17T17:02:00.001+02:00

Daily Dispatch Online

Careless contractors investigated

EASTERN Cape’s Housing Department is investigating low cost housing building contractors for their shoddy workmanship on thousands of homes in the province.
“Contractors who built the houses are under investigation by the department in an effort to recover the monies paid to the contractors,” MEC Thobile Mhlahlo said in a statement.
Departmental spokesperson Lwandile Sicwetsha yesterday said he could not name the constructors under investigation. This was because they were waiting for the launch of the department’s turn- around plan on September 30.
“As part of the anti-fraud strategy the department will launch a turn- around plan on how to deal with crime and fraud in housing,” Sicwetsha said.
The investigation comes two months after Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu met emerging contractors as part of an assessment of housing delivery in the province.
This was after a national team of officials was sent from her department to help accelerate housing delivery.
In April a decision was taken to dispatch a team by the Cabinet after considering a report on the province’s failure to deliver houses.
This was after the provision of houses plummeted from 37000 units in 2005 to 11750 in the last financial year, resulting in R500million remaining unspent in the housing budget. This had to be returned to the national Treasury for allocation to other provinces.
According to Mhlahlo, R75m has been set aside to rectify about 19000 defective houses built after 1994.
“The quality of these houses was so poor that we could not let people occupy them as it would have compromised their safety,” he said.
The defects include disfunctional walls, foundations, doors and roofs.
“We want to hand over houses that people can live in and be proud of. Hence we are starting this process of rectifying them so that people can have quality houses,” Mhlahlo said.
Work on the defective houses has already started in projects found in Buffalo City and the district municipalities of Chris Hani and Ukhahlamba.
Work on projects in King Sabata Dalindyebo municipality and the district municipalities of Alfred Nzo and OR Tambo will start soon.
Last week the provincial and national technical committees visited the sites to assess the extent of the damage and requirements for rebuilding.
“The process of awarding the tenders has already begun,” said Mhlahlo.
The department is one of four identified by Premier Mbulelo Sogoni for reprioritisation of its plan as part of a government intervention strategy. - By MAYIBONGWE MAQHINA
Senior Political Correspondent

As they say - "better late then never"

The Herald Online News

2008-09-17T16:24:00.000+02:00

The Herald Online **News**

Days of low-quality houses over, says MEC
Yolandé Hayward HERALD REPORTER
THE days of building low-quality RDP houses in the Eastern Cape are over and those guilty of this will suffer the consequences, Safety and Liaison MEC Thobile Mhlahlo said in Port Elizabeth yesterday.
Mhlahlo visited Port Elizabeth to find out from contractors what challenges they faced and to discuss a way forward.
He did make it clear, however, that contractors who did not deliver would not be tolerated. “We will not compromise on quality. We want to make sure our people receive the best quality houses.”
He said his department was investigating various contractors in the province who had not delivered high-quality houses and was also attempting to recover the money paid to these contractors.
After the investigation was concluded a report would be compiled and thereafter the culprits “will be dealt with. At the same time, we are also fixing the houses that are falling apart because of these problems”.
About R75-million has been allocated to accomplish this.
Challenges the contractors raised at the meeting yesterday included difficulties with the approval of environmental impact assessments and VAT claims.
Mhlahlo said his office would interact with the relevant people to sort out these issues. He committed himself to opening up communication channels with contractors and his department.
He also touched on the issue of spending, saying that by the end of the current financial year his department needed to spend R750-million to build about 15000 houses and urged everyone concerned to support him in accomplishing this goal.

The Herald Online News

2008-09-15T21:50:00.000+02:00

The Herald Online **News**

Nearly 20000 EC houses identified as defective
Patrick Cull POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
NEARLY 20000 houses in the Eastern Cape have been identified as defective, Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu has told the National Council of Provinces.
Replying to a written question from Watty Watson (DA), the minister said that 19953 houses that had been built in the Eastern Cape were defective, with 150 units at “various states of completion”. The total cost of repairing the houses is about R99,7-million.
Sisulu said provincial housing departments had initiated a process to determine the number of housing units with building defects.
Various methodologies such as surveys and requests for beneficiary applications had been used to determine the projects involved and the number of units with defects that needed to be repaired.
The services of the National Home Builders Registration Council (NHBRC) were being used “to ensure that the same contractor who initially built the units, is not appointed to do the rectification and that contractors appointed adhere to the necessary requirements”.
She said the verification process to date had revealed a number of projects with some sub-standard workmanship and the findings had been forwarded to the relevant provincial departments “for further investigation”.

The Herald Online News

2008-08-04T20:40:00.000+02:00

The Herald Online **News**

Repairs to schools will run to R25bn
Patrick Cull POLITICAL EDITOR
THE Eastern Cape education department requires R24,8-billion to address infrastructure backlogs and carry out repairs and maintenance – R1,3-billion in Port Elizabeth alone and a further R575,7-million in Uitenhage.
In Grahamstown, just under R300-million is required, in Cradock R250-million and in Graaff-Reinet R192-million. The biggest amounts are required in Transkei, which was “severely under-resourced prior to 1994” with “insufficient effort” made to address the situation after 1994.
The department‘s 2009/10 draft infrastructure plan tabled in the Bhisho legislature last week also reveals that currently only 621 (11 per cent) of the 5704 schools in the province are in a “good condition” with a further 237 (4%) being housed in new buildings.
The condition of 1060 (19%) is described as “very weak”, 1601 (28%) as “weak” with a further 2088 (37%) in need of repair. Just 71 schools are currently being upgraded.
Against that background, the department is hopelessly underfunded with only R1,3-billion allocated for the 2009/10 financial year for infrastructure-related projects and a fraction under R3,1-billion for the next two years.
It says that while this amounts to a “significant improvement on previous years, these budgets are still wholly insufficient to begin addressing backlogs”.
“The current budget is insufficient to eradicate mud structures and address backlogs and also maintain existing infrastructure adequately.”
The department states that there are three options for a funding strategy:
Increase the annual budget to meet the needs at the agreed levels of service;
Lower the levels of service to reduce financial requirements to budget levels; and
Extend the period in which backlogs will be eliminated – at current funding levels this is impossible if adequate funds are still to be made available for maintenance.
The department states that the final strategy may have to be a combination of all three, but warns that “the only alternative that will find acceptance within the affected communities” will be increasing the budget and it recommends strong lobbying to redress funding to eliminate backlogs. The national government, it states, should be requested to access donor-funding to assist.

The Citizen: Massive service delivery mess - housing

2008-08-01T09:57:00.001+02:00

The Citizen: Massive service delivery mess

CITIZEN REPORTER

JOHANNESBURG - More than 60 000 people in five provinces have been failed twice by the government in 14 years because they still don’t have a proper roof over their heads.
These citizens still live in shacks despite the fact that Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu set R2 billion aside three years ago to finish houses, which were promised to them in 1994.
The City Press yesterday said political analysts laid the problem at the door of the ANC and infighting, which had distracted officials from their service delivery mandate.
In some provinces slabs were laid for homes but the houses were never built.
Corruption has eaten into some projects where unscrupulous developers were paid but houses were never built.
National Housing spokesman Xolani Xundu said some projects had been blocked because contractors claimed they hadn’t been paid when, in fact, they had.
The department said it had asked the national treasury for more money to complete outstanding projects.

Tax payers money! Who is responsible for giving out the contracts to these unqualified unscrupulous developers? Who paid them? Why is the money not taken back? EISSHH!

SABCnews.com - africa/west_africa

2008-08-01T09:41:00.001+02:00

SABCnews.com - africa/west_africa

Housing summit to tackle growing slums in Africa
The conference seeks to find solutions for the growing number of slums across Africa July 28, 2008, 17:30

Adel van Niekerk, AbujaDelegates to a housing conference in the Nigerian capital are deliberating on how best to eradicate the continent's growing slums. Housing ministers from across the continent and representatives of international aid organisations have converged on Abuja as part of the second African Ministerial Conference on Housing and Urban Development.
With more than 70% of the continent's urban residents staying in slum areas, delegates are faced with an enormous challenge. They say the continued influx of people into Africa's cities and the pressing need to address the escalating housing needs of the poor is becoming more urgent.
The body was created in 2005 and South Africa has been chairing it ever since. South African Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu says the lack of proper housing in Africa is a crisis waiting to explode.
The summit is also looking at setting up a possible African Fund under the African Bank to eradicate slums on the continent.
The latest research indicates that more than 1.6 billion Africans will be living in slums by 2020.

Call in the army to build houses???

2008-07-27T21:01:00.001+02:00

Daily Dispatch Online

Military called in to build EC houses

2008/07/05
THE army is on standby to move into the Eastern Cape and fix the province’s broken infrastructure – with the housing backlog as a priority. The intervention plan follows Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu’s meeting with emerging contractors in Bhisho this week to hear their problems.
Yesterday, Housing MEC Tokozile Xasa said her department welcomed the commitment from the South African National Defence Force (SANDF).
Their areas of assistance would be spelled out clearly at a meeting on Monday. Then the SANDF would know what was expected from it, she said.
Tuesday’s gathering was arranged after Deputy Defence Minister Mluleki George came to Sisulu’s assistance during her department’s investigation into ways of helping the province.
“He came to me and said: ‘I have soldiers under me. If there is anything I can do to assist you, I will be able to’.”
Sisulu, who related this to the local contractors at the Skenjana Roji Hall in Bhisho, later unveiled her ideas to the press.
She said the idea of the army helping was suggested after “we discovered capacity is severely restricted”.
Sisulu said the province faced problems around bulk infrastructure, and had failed to implement its housing programme or register contractors.
George said the army had engineers who could fix or build bulk infrastructure anywhere, including the Eastern Cape.
Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka had previously asked the SANDF for its engineers and other qualified people to help with constructing bulk infrastructure such as water and sanitation facilities.
“We committed ourselves,” he said. “When there is no war, there is no reason why soldiers can’t assist in the areas of their speciality. We would want the situation changed.
“We have that responsibility as the Defence Department.”
The move comes after United Democratic Movement president Bantu Holomisa called on President Thabo Mbeki in January to commission engineers from SANDF to review the state of the Transkei’s run-down infrastructure.
In April, the national Cabinet decided to dispatch a team to Bhisho after considering a report on the provincial department’s failure to deliver houses.
This was after the provision of houses plummeted from 37000 units in 2005 to 11750 in the last financial year. - By MAYIBONGWE MAQHINA

Why call in the Army and not moladi? They know how to shoot, we know how to build!

The Herald Online News

2008-07-23T20:31:00.000+02:00

The Herald Online **News**

Land use bungling hampering progress

Guy Rogers

A PUBLIC-PRIVATE land use planning body has called on the government to investigate the department of land affairs for “actively hampering” sustainable development, and undermining government policy.
Ashraf Adam, chairman of the SA Planning Institute (Sapi), said yesterday the department‘s muddling was illegal and hugely damaging.
Sapi represents over 1500 town and regional planners. It is the only body of its kind that regularly engages with national, provincial and local government on land-use planning issues.
“This is vital work in terms of our development and our democracy. If there is not good town planning, for instance, cities will become fragmented. No sustained prosperity will be possible,” Adam said. South Africa‘s planners are among the best in the world and, because they regularly get poached by overseas countries, there is now a dire shortage of people with these skills in the country. In the government‘s 10-year review, land planning was pinpointed as one of the key skills capacity areas that needed to be shored up, he noted.
“It means development applications cannot be processed or will not be processed at a fast enough pace. Right now it is hampering the achievement of a 6% sustained economic growth rate.”
Adam said one of the problems that stemmed from the department‘s lax approach was that it had let the term of office of the sector‘s key regulating body, the SA Council of Planners (Sacplan), expire.
Sacplan is designated by government to “set the standards and competence” of the planning profession.
This situation exists despite the fact that this shortage and the urgent need to rectify it have been identified in government‘s 10-year review, in its macro-economic policy and in the Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition initiative, he said.
Sacplan is also meant to define the work done by planners, Adam said. “But there is no statutory body any longer. Not only is this illegal, it undermines the fundamental basis on which all forms of development takes place.”
Although Sacplan‘s term ended on June 8, no process to address this situation has been set in motion by the minister, whose legal duty it is to appoint the council, he said.
Adam said the department‘s tardiness and lack of attention was also manifest in the new Land Use Management Bill. The bill has finally emerged 10 years after the publication of a White Paper which promised to streamline land-affairs law.
But several problems remained, including outdated regulations on sub-division. “Last year, this regulation (regarding sub-division) was declared unconstitutional. But nothing was put in its place. So now anyone can sub-divide agricultural land. This threatens agriculture and food security.”
The bill also fails to address the problem around parallel decision-making, involving various national and provincial institutions. “The result is that decision-making is badly hampered,” he said.
“The South African Planning Institute calls upon parliament to investigate how the land affairs department has been permitted to undermine government policy in such a blatant way.”
The department‘s chief director for communications, Eddie Mohoebi, said he was “following up”. No further response had been received by the time of going to print.

News - Development: 'Low-cost housing under threat'

2008-07-11T10:53:00.000+02:00

News - Development: 'Low-cost housing under threat'

By AnÉl Powell

The increased cost of cement and soaring fuel prices mean the delivery of low-cost houses "is becoming impossible", housing associations say.Rising building costs would not only mean fewer houses would be built to ease the city's housing backlog, but they could also affect the quality of the homes provided. Bheki Nkonyane, of the Cape Town Community Housing Company, said steep building costs meant there was "no way people could afford structures that would not compromise on quality".The issue of quality was more serious in the Western Cape because of such environmental factors as flooding and strong winds, he said.

The auditor-general's report on the administration of low cost-housing projects in the Western Cape has said most of the units inspected are "of a poor quality". Of 110 houses inspected, more than 60 were found to be sub-standard.Nkonyane said housing companies needed to work with "policymakers" such as the government and municipalities to find ways of dealing with rising costs.Johan Snyman, of the Bureau for Economic Research, said the rises in cement prices had exceeded the inflation rate since 1999. One reason was that the energy-intensive production of cement made it vulnerable to fuel price hikes.Retail cement prices had risen more than 8 percent since last year, Snyman said. The building sector was "transport-intensive" as labour and materials had to be transported long distances to construction sites.The prices of cement and bricks have each increased by about 140 percent since 2000. With the 96 percent increase in the price of diesel in the past year, builders have been hit hard by rising costs and lower profits.

Thubelisha Homes, a section 21 company that undertakes low-cost housing projects for the national Department of Housing, said amounts tendered for developments were beginning to reflect the price increases in materials.The most recent study by the Economic Bureau for Research found that amounts tendered last year were on average 15 percent higher than those in the year before.

The bureau predicted the amounts tendered this year would be on average 12 percent higher than those last year. Nkonyane said the average 42 square metre house would cost about R120 000, half of which would be subsidised by the government. The government needed to increase subsidy amounts to take rising prices into account, otherwise affordable housing would be "an illusion", he said.A survey by the University of the Witwatersrand's School of Construction Economics and Management has found, however, that cement accounts for only a small percentage of residential building costs.

The South African Housing departmnet only pay R43,000 per house!

Serious defects in low-cost housing: South Africa: News: News24

2008-07-08T19:57:00.000+02:00

Serious defects in low-cost housing: South Africa: News: News24

Abigail Isaacs, Beeld
Cape Town - More than three-quarters of low-cost housing recently investigated in six provinces by the Auditor General (AG) had serious defects.
This was one of the shocking findings in the AG's report on housing which was presented to Parliament on Thursday.
DA MP Eddie Trent said he would raise questions next week over the costs involved in the repair of these houses, after the AG found defects in 76% of the 970 house he investigated.
The defects included cracks in the walls and foundations, roofs and toilets that leaked, and outside doors which did not close properly.
"For many who moved from informal settlements to low-cost housing, the houses that were provided to them were no better than the houses from which they had moved," Trent said.
The AG also found that many of the houses' residents were not yet in possession of the houses' title deeds.
"This means that the residents can't use their homes as security for loans.
"The provincial departments of housing and local councils' inefficiency holds them prisoner," Trent added.
Trent did say that it was commendable that the number of houses which state officials obtained illegally had decreased; housing subsidies to state employees decreased from over R300m between January 1999 and March 2004 to just under R3m in November 2005.

Why not use moladi and this would not happen - http://www.theherald.co.za/herald/news/n06_

The Herald Online News

2008-07-08T13:46:00.000+02:00

The Herald Online **News**

Audit shows up major cracks in low cost housing
Janine Oelofse GARDEN ROUTE BUREAU CHIEF
STRONG action has been called for following a damning auditor general‘s report on low cost housing in the Western Cape.
The DA wants the report debated in the provincial legislature and also wants parliament‘s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) to “deal with it”.
DA MPL Robin Carlisle said yesterday he would request Scopa to deal with the report as a matter of urgency.
A performance audit report published by the auditor general in May revealed that 60 per cent of low cost homes in the province had serious defects.
The report focused on the allocation of housing subsidies and the administration of low cost housing projects by the Western Cape local government and housing department.
It found that at least 2210 municipal employees who earned more than the subsidy threshold of R42000, and thus were not entitled to a subsidy, had in fact received subsidies to the value of at least R65-million.
Carlisle said: “This is only the tip of the iceberg as the sample only covered municipal employees at seven councils. During the period of the audit, some 200000 subsidies were allocated, and on the basis of the auditor general‘s sample, the fraud must be massive.”
In a physical inspection of a sample of low cost housing projects from across the province, the auditor general found the general condition of the houses to be poor.
The report said 60% of the houses had one or more serious defects, including severe cracks in walls and foundations, leaking roofs, windows and doors that did not function properly, and reticulation services that did not function properly.
In addition 49% of the houses experienced dampness, many erven had been serviced but the top structures had never been built, and there was a difference in the department‘s books where the accounts in respect of subsidies failed to balance by an amount of R15,8-million.
Vusi Tshose, a spokesman for housing MEC Richard Dyantyi, said the provincial administration had already spent R80-million on a rectification programme.
“That programme is still taking place, specifically in Cape Town,” he said.
“In George, the MEC got together with construction companies and asked them to come back to him with a programme of how they would rectify shoddy work.”
Tshose added that they had “learnt a strict lesson” from the past and only paid out the full amount owing to construction companies once the building inspectors were happy with the work done on low cost houses.
“Province has a plan in place and is working with the local municipalities to identify and rectify the shoddy work,” he said.
Carlisle said that quality assurance measures put in place by the government did not seem to be working.
“Developers are allowed to build sub-standard houses and get away with it. Projects on which millions have already been spent on infrastructure come to grinding halts. Brand new houses are vandalised because the owners cannot be found, or the house was not allocated in the first place.”

The Herald Online News

2008-07-03T17:15:00.000+02:00

The Herald Online **News**

Owning a home almost out of reach now, say bank experts
Rochelle de Kock HERALD REPORTER
THE property boom which hit the market in 2001 and the constant rise in interest rates have made it almost impossible for most South Africans to own homes.
This meant, Nedbank Home Loans divisional manager Pramod Mohanlal said yesterday, that one would have to earn no less than R31600 a month to afford a house.
With the interest rate resting at a high of 15,5%, “the basic mortgage repayment on a R700000 home loan is R9477 A month,” Mohanlal said.
Although R700000 could previously afford you a comfortable four-bedroom home with two bathrooms and a double garage, it is now “barely enough to purchase a three- bedroom townhouse in the suburbs,” said Bond Choice Port Elizabeth manager Andrea Atkinson.
“The average price of a three-bedroom house in the Kabega Park and Westering areas is between R800000 and R850000,” she said.
Major banks said affordability was a major downfall for clients when applying for a home loan, because salary scales were not nearly enough to meet the soaring prices of homes and the escalating payback rates, as well as the current cost of living.
When it released its residential property gauge on Tuesday, Standard Bank said the outlook for the residential property market remained bleak.
The monthly cost of servicing a mortgage, the bank said, was now 36% more than it was 24 months ago.
Before the National Credit Act was introduced in 2006, banks used to consider 30% of your net income before approving a home loan. But now they consider your overall expenses and disposable income after deductions before approving or denying a loan.
“The average single or joint gross income should not be less than R31600 to qualify for a R700000 home loan,” Mohanlal said.
To be considered for a home loan, the bank has to assess whether the client can afford the loan, “which means that there must be surplus income after taking all expenses, including the new loan instalment, into consideration,” he said
Many people are now losing their homes because they cannot meet their monthly bond payments as a result of these increases.

Why pitch the figure at R700, 000? Why not provide a moladi home at R350,000?

The Herald Online News

2008-06-26T22:37:00.000+02:00

The Herald Online **News**

Moved on, but still no houses
Tabelo Timse MUNICIPAL CORRESPONDENT
“WE were told vote ANC and get a free house – but little did I know they meant I would still be waiting more than 14 years later,” said Katie Mentor as she watched her brother put the final touches to her shack in Chatty, Port Elizabeth, yesterday.
A mother of five, Mentor said she had moved to Chatty from Damascus three weeks ago. Her neighbour, Bonita Holben, said the city‘s housing and land officials had held several meetings with the residents late last year and told them they needed to move.
“We were told the land we were staying on was municipal land,” Holben said.
Speaking about relocation day, Mentor said: “I had to wake up at 3am to break down my shack. The truck came at about 8am and my building material, furniture and my children were put on the back of the truck.”
When she arrived in Chatty, the truck stopped at a vacant piece of land, off-loaded her belongings and then drove off to fetch another family. “Just like that. I was left alone with the children to rebuild my shack. I had no help.”
She said she and her children had slept outside for three nights while her brother helped her rebuild her shack.
When families were moved the children did not go to school as the families rebuilt their lives, Holben said. “You just buy bread, sliced polony and mixer drink so you can eat. Sometimes you make a fire outside and cook supper. Thank goodness it did not rain that week.”
Lorraine Witbooi said she had been waiting for a house for more than 20 years. “We thought at least there would be toilets or taps nearby and maybe electricity when we came here. Instead, we only found taps and they are far away. We have the bucket system but the municipality doesn‘t come to empty them.”
Siphokazi Mthwa moved yesterday to Chatty 5, from Nelson Mandela Village in New Brighton. “I am sad today. I have lived there since 1990. We named the squatter camp after Nelson Mandela as he was released in 1990. We had so much hope then.”
At this week‘s housing and land committee meeting, ward 41councillor Trevor Louw said there was a lot of frustration in the community. He said many children had to drop out of school because parents could not afford taxi fare.
Committee chairman Eldridge Jerry said he was also frustrated and concerned, but “unfortunately there is nothing we can do. Our hands are tied as we do not have the budget ... it is up to (the province).”

The Herald Online News

2008-06-24T22:03:00.000+02:00

The Herald Online **News**

Will R525m for housing be spent in time, ask councillors

THERE are still some uncertainties about whether the Nelson Mandela Bay housing and land directorate will be able to spend R525-million allocated for housing by 2010.
Councillors questioned yesterday if there was written commitment from province on the allocation and whether the municipality had submitted project plans to the provincial housing department.
DA councillor Andrew Gibbon said he was concerned that the municipality could have its plans ready but the province could pull the plug and not allocate the funds.
United Democratic Movement councillor Mongameli Bobani said he was concerned about the pace of submissions as the municipality could only have the money once plans were submitted.
“Have we started to submit our plans yet? Because if not we are late. We have a problem of environmental impact assessments (EIA) having to be approved. What contingency plans are in place?” he asked.
ANC councillor Andile Mfunda said the issue of the R310-million housing allocation reserved for 2008/09 should be taken seriously.
He was also concerned about the number of vacancies in the middle management section of the housing delivery sub-directorate.
Housing and land executive director Seth Maqetuka said the municipality was ready for the application process for about 26 future projects. Although there was still the challenge of EIA approval, the municipality was in consultation with the department of economic development and environmental affairs and had received a commitment from the regional office that the municipality‘s housing delivery application would take priority.
The provincial department had appointed the PT Naidoo consulting company to help the municipality speed up the EIA approvals, he said. “Now we are waiting for the figures to be formally gazetted.”

moladi is based in Port Elizabeth?????

BuaNews Online homepage

2008-06-12T21:48:00.000+02:00

BuaNews Online homepage

Compiled by the Government Communication and Information System---------------------------------------------------------------Date: 11 Jun 2008Title: Mpumalanga exceeds housing target-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------By Thandy NdlovuNelspruit - Mpumalanga's Housing Department built 12 320 low-cost houses last year, exceeding their target of 8 583 units for the 2007/8 financial year.Housing MEC Candith Mashego-Dlamini in her 2008/09 budget speech said this year her department would be focusing on completing the 10 436 houses that were abandoned by shoddy contractors.

No new low-cost housing projects will be started this year, she said.The department will also address the problem of poor quality houses built during the apartheid years before 1994."These houses are falling apart. We have set aside R2.4 million to assess such houses in the Umjindi, Emalahleni, Steve Tshwete and Lekwa municipalities. "After the assessment, we will cost the work to be done and budget for their rehabilitation in the next financial year.

"The 300 houses which were built between 1994 and 2002, will be repaired in the Umjindi, Mbombela, Dipaliseng, Emalahleni, Thembisile, Dr JS Moroka and Steve Tshwete municipalities, she added.The department will also build 1 677 houses this year through the People's Housing Process at a cost of R72.1 million and 500 through the Rural Housing Programme at a cost of R23 million.The People's Housing Process encourages people to help build their own homes by establishing housing cooperatives. The government provides subsidies for the houses, while other organisations offer technical, financial, logistical and administrative help."We would like to call upon the communities to cooperate with the appointed support organisations to make this programme a success," the MEC said.The Rural Housing Programme seeks to provide shelter for rural dwellers and enables rural women to own houses in their own names."Through this programme, the beneficiaries may decide collectively to opt for other services needed, other than housing," MEC Mashego-Dlamini explained.

This year, 500 units for the Rural Housing Programme will be built in the Mbombela, Bushbuckridge, Nkomazi, Dr JS Moroka and Albert Luthuli municipalities.Another 340 houses will be built for farm workers at a cost of R16 million for farm workers in the Mbombela, Nkomazi, Thaba Chweu, Umjindi, Govan Mbeki, Lekwa, Msukaligwa, Delmas, Emalahleni and Steve Tshwete local municipalities."The relevant communities have been extensively consulted and as soon as the approvals are in place, contractors will be appointed for the construction of the houses," she said.MEC Mashego-Dlamini acknowledged that housing delivery remained slow, but that housing chapters had been established in municipalities to speed up the process. The department has set aside R5 million to help municipalities fully develop the housing chapters within their Integrated Development Plans.She said 440 hostel units will also be converted into community residential units this year that can be rented in Kwa Guqa, Sakhile and Mzinoni. Similar conversions are being planned for next year for hostels in Mashishing (formerly Lydenburg), Emgwenya, Emthonjeni and Phola in Ogies.Veterans of the liberation struggle have also been captured on a database compiled by the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) and their particulars are being verified to determine housing needs.Meanwhile, relief assistance is being offered in the form of housing subsidies for families who lost their homes in disasters such as fires and storms. Some 283 families are being helped in Thembisile municipal area, 178 in the Albert Luthuli municipal area, 86 in the Govan Mbeki municipal area, 81 in the Mbombela municipal area and 522 in the Bushbuckridge municipal area. - BuaNews

?????????????

Politics.za : Gauteng Housing MEC To Drop Contracts With Ex-employees

2008-06-09T19:46:00.000+02:00

Politics.za : Gauteng Housing MEC To Drop Contracts With Ex-employees

Gauteng MEC for Housing Nomvula Mokonyane is planning to blacklist any company that employees a senior department official. I guess she’s decided to accelerate the proposed cooling off period for civil servants entering private enterprise.
The MEC however still has a lot of explaining to do for the housing backlog in Gauteng and can’t place all the blame on departing staff. Perhaps she’d like to explain how a R58 million contract to build low cost housing granted in 2004 has yet to actually produce a house.

Update: And now the Department of Correctional Services is coming under fire for the same problem
Correctional Services came under fire on Tuesday as parliament demanded to know why the very same high-level officials who awarded contracts for the construction of new prisons later became directors of the same companies that won the lucrative tenders.

L Sisulu: Housing Dept Budget Vote 2008/09

2008-06-09T00:20:00.000+02:00

L Sisulu: Housing Dept Budget Vote 2008/09

Speech by LN Sisulu Minister of Housing at the occasion of the Budget Vote 2008/09 for the Department of Housing
28 May 2008
Madam speakerHonourable members of ParliamentInvited guestsLadies and gentlemen
Madam speaker
It is a dark gloomy room we have been assigned for our budget vote. It reflects no doubt the cloud that hangs over our horizon as we navigate our way through a number of very unfortunate issues, ranging from the international economic meltdown to the violent and barbaric incidents in Alexandra, Diepsloot, Du Noon and Imizamo Yethu over the past fortnight.
The events that unfolded over the last two weeks cast a terrible pall over all else that we would otherwise be discussing today, making our budget vote single-mindedly focused therefore on the ugly situation that has been thrown up where matters of housing, somewhat unjustifiably in my view, feature quite prominently. We have had to stop in our tracks and examine a number of critical factors: to see how we mend our country, repair the broken spirit of those we have hurt, repair the broken spirit of our humanity. Apart from the immediate relief for the affected community, we have had to look at ensuring that this disaster does not ever befall us again.
Conditions of poverty, especially within the informal settlements are unacceptable. We have drawn attention to this ad museum. It is precisely on this realisation that we, as the housing sector have prioritised the informal settlement eradication and have given it a target date. For this we would like to mobilise the rest of government and civil society to join us. In a country with our level of economic development, it is not justifiable to have these pockets of poverty and vulnerability where the poor scramble for scant resources and when they experience periods of severe hardship, their frustration knows no moral bounds.
This is in no way an attempt to explain or justify barbarism through poverty. But there is something in this situation which is in our power to change, and that is to remove those environments which do not create a better life and which, by their very nature, are beyond the normal reach of governance and government services, and create fertile ground for the kind of situation we have had to deal with.
I have noted that it is all too easy for analysts to blame this situation on the failure of government, easy to deflect blame. The moral fibre of our society and tolerance of “the other” are not government responsibility, they are our responsibility jointly, the Churches, the NGO sector, you and I as responsible citizens of this country. This is our collective failure and I hope, as we learn from this, we can work together to alleviate some of the conditions of unbearable circumstances.
We must create a better world for the poor, where tolerance can take root. We call on all to join us in our bid as we once again heed the call of the Freedom Charter, which enjoins us to create a country where slums are eradicated and in their place, decent, secure communities are created where our children can grow up in dignity to respond to their responsibilities as citizens.
Life will always throw up disasters such as we have experienced. However, progress is not determined by how hard we fall, but how quickly we can get up. And in this case, how quickly we can effectively respond to and repair some of the attendant matters. In housing very specifically, we have been confronted by the fact as perceived that our houses are allocated to foreigners. Allow me to assert and clarify what our policy position is. Our allocations policy provides that houses are given to indigent South African citizens who meet the qualification criteria and are on our waiting lists.
Allegations have been made that councillors are at the forefront of some corrupt practices to divert these allocations to foreigners who do not qualify. Last year the Auditor-General concluded a lengthy and exhaustive audit on the granting of housing subsidies to people who do not qualify, a matter Scopa paid particular attention to. He did not come across a single incident where a foreign national specifically was awarded a house. However, as we all know, it is true that some of our houses are occupied by foreign nationals. This could only mean that our people – the beneficiaries of these houses – have either sold them before the period of limitation has elapsed, or are renting them out. I will deal with this matter at a little later. For now, the point is we have taken note of the concerns raised about housing allocations, and for our own comfort and the comfort of our citizens we have tightened our regulations to ensure that this is effectively addressed.
To ensure that this is adhered to at all levels, we are introducing compulsory adherence to the national housing demand database, which does not allow any municipality the right of allocation outside of this verified and audited database. The data, together with the housing subsidy data will be monitored by an independent audit company and will report to Parliament on an annual basis. This will ensure that our processes are aligned to the necessary transparency and integrity required for universal acceptance. Our policy has been amended accordingly and provincial workshops are currently underway to ensure compliance.
Secondly, and following up on my earlier assertion that our people are selling off their houses, we are implementing initiatives to conduct occupancy audits to establish if the original beneficiaries of the houses still live in them. We have been very concerned about the incidence of the sale of our houses. Our laws prohibit this, but the practice goes on. As an urgent measure, we have decided to enlist the services of the Special Investigations Unit to take action against the practice.
Having said this, the incidents of the past fortnight have thrown up a number of other challenges that have been a consequence of our policies as a government. On three occasions, 1995, 1996 and 1998 we took the decision that people who had been in our country as illegal for a certain specified period, would be given amnesty, exempted from the requirements of our immigration legislation and therefore granted permanent residency. Many of these have since qualified for naturalisation, which in terms of our laws can happen five years since exemption. We therefore have a number of people who would have all the attributes that our people attach to foreigners, but who are, in terms of our laws, South African citizens.
Two years ago we requested Cabinet to approve a policy that was aimed at immediately alleviating the very stressful conditions that invariably exist in high density informal settlements. The policy, which we termed Emergency Housing, was approved by Cabinet. Using this policy instrument, we will be requesting special funding that will help us with some of the severest cases that we have encountered. We will also be stepping up our subsidised rental stock to ensure that those who live among us, but do not qualify for state houses, will have access to affordable rented accommodation. We hope that this intervention will provide some sustainable solutions.
It has been pointed out, and I would like to believe it, that in fact, at the bottom of government's woes, is its own successes. Here I would like to quote from a Sunday Times article of 18 May 2008 by Rowan Phillipi, an article I might not agree with in its entirety , but one whose clarity I find very persuasive:
“The Democratic Alliance (DA) is wrong in its claims that the xenophobic violence seen Alexandra, Diepsloot and elsewhere this week was triggered by an absence of service delivery. For 14 years, South Africans have shown a Job-like tolerance for lack of delivery. Instead, it is precisely when delivery does happen – and happen visibly – that perceptions of injustice translate to violence.
In the Western Cape, it was only after the N2 Gateway housing project began physical construction that major clashes broke out between poor coloured communities and Xhosa migrants from the Eastern Cape. Even long time Xhosa residents of settlements such as Joe Slovo attacked the domestic migrants as “outsiders”, believing them to have jumped the housing waiting lists. And it was only after service delivery was fast-tracked in Khayelitsha that neighbouring informal settlers began to seal off streets with burning barricades.
The Alexandra renewal project is both a staggering failure and a remarkable success. Launched in 2001 the project has accelerated dramatically in the past two years, with the erection of new schools, police stations and almost completed residential units, with a new focus which emphasises construction over “soft projects” specifically so residents would be able to see the fruits of the grand plan. The plan worked too well.
This analysis gives me some comfort and leads me to this next point. This week I got information that tells me that despite the glitches we are changing our world for the better, that behind the gloomy view, there is so much we have achieved, as a people, as a government and as a department and to borrow a beautiful phrase I picked up from the Business Day, there is yet “survival of hope”. When we took over this government in 1994, the then Minister of Housing, Mr Joe Slovo, set out a vision for housing, where within five years we would have provided 1 million houses. When after five years we had not achieved our goal, analysts and commentators crucified us for that. Nothing else that had been achieved was of value to them. We had fallen short of our target and therefore, by implication, we had failed. We took a conscious decision thereafter that we would not be making numbers projections.
When I took over as Minister of Housing in 2004, the government had produced 1.6 million houses. An achievement we were all rightly proud of, despite negative comments. Today, four years later, we have produced 2.6 million houses. This means that in four years we have provided 1 million houses. The target that had seemed so elusive, we have finally achieved, not in five years, but in four years. In plain language, this would mean that we have provided houses for in excess of five million people in four years!
To put this achievement in perspective, we have housed almost the entire population of Scotland 5.1 million in the past four years or if we want to bring it closer to South Africa, we have housed the combined population of Swaziland 1 million, Namibia 1.8 million and Lesotho 2,2 million in the past four years.
It is worth emphasising this point so that any misconceptions are cleared. It never was the intention of the government to give free houses to all. The intention was to provide all the assistance that was necessary to ensure that the poor have access to housing.
It soon became very clear to us that years of dispossession and poverty had pushed some of our people beyond the threshold where they could reasonably provide any meaningful resources to add to the subsidy. As a result we had to take the decision effectively to provide free housing for the poorest, those that we refer to as the indigent. It is worth repeating. No country in the world provides free housing for its people. No other country in the world has provided 2,6 million houses to its people, translating again to providing shelter for 13 million people, free of charge. None anywhere. Our commitment extends to covering another 2.1 million houses.
Not only have we exceeded our own dreams so far as numbers are concerned, we are now producing a bigger product, a decent home. We are providing comfort; we are building communities and transforming South Africa at its very nub. If ultimately we are to succeed in creating a new society, we would not succeed outside the foundation we have laid.
Of course there are again other consequences to our success we now have an avalanche of urbanisation.
Human beings are the most rational species of all animals. Using that rational instinct, our people have responded to free houses predominantly available in the urban areas. Why would any remain on the impoverished land when there is little prospect of employment and when in fact in towns, they can get free houses? The resultant shocking rise in urbanisation has been coupled with a drastic drop in the agricultural productivity and development of the rural areas with dreadful repercussions for us as we grapple with rising food prices. While the international trends in migration to urban areas is estimated at an averaging 2,7%, we occupy the upper end of the spectrum and are faced with the situation where, for the first time, our urban population equals in numbers, that of the rural areas. A dire situation as urbanisation of poverty takes root.
These developments are bound to affect negatively the provision of all the services that government provides. It is sure to put more strain on the health, education, water, sanitation, transportation and the housing infrastructure. However, without a stabilised urban environment, an environment that does not allow for the establishment of more slums, without an environment that opens people's living spaces, the quality of all the other services would diminish. And this in turn has consequences for our fight against poverty. This would dictate that as we deal with a clear and present problem, we should be mindful that this does not happen at the expense of rural areas.
And now, Madam Speaker, to the matter of the budget itself, from 2004, government's housing expenditure has increased from R4,8 billion to R9 billion in 2007/08, representing average growth of 23.2 per cent per annum. The housing budget is projected to grow from R9bn last year to R10.6 billion in 2008/09 and R15.3 billion by 2010/11, at an average annual rate of 19.4 per cent. We have repeatedly pointed out that the funding for housing delivery is grossly inadequate in the face of the backlogs we face.
To begin with, and as I indicated last year, while the housing grant allocation has been increased over the 2008 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) period and although this increase may appear substantial, the effects of inflation have eroded the Rand value, and hence, together with our efforts to produce better quality of houses, the average cost of building a house has increased, in excess of the Consumer Price Index (CPIX) for the current period. Secondly, it does not fulfil our needs to fund the number of houses that will adequately assist us to reduce our ever increasing backlog. Nor does it make economic sense. This is borne out by the Financial Model evaluation study of the impact of Breaking New Ground (BNG) which was undertaken in 2006 by KPMG and which concluded that continuing with the current trend in the housing budget would lead to a funding shortfall of R102 billion in 2012, which would increase to R253 billion in 2016 to eradicate the housing backlog.
To alleviate our present circumstance through the budget process, we will be seeking to introduce a once off injection of resources estimated at around R12 billion and an extraordinary effort so we can impact on the housing backlog and poverty in the next 12 months and increase housing delivery.
I am happy to inform this House that our expenditure patterns have been consistently very good. In the year just ended we received R9 billion and have spent 96% of this amount. Our bold steps in exercising control in respect of expenditure include that, if provinces are likely to under spend their pre-determined unspent funds received from the Integrated Housing and Human Settlement Development Grant, the receipt of further funds for that year will be stopped in terms of the Division of Revenue Act and be reallocated to performing provinces. We have implemented this approach in respect of the Eastern Cape and the Free State whose rate of expenditure reflected under spending.
Unfortunately this action is not desirable but, if there is a problem with delivery in one area, it is necessary to ensure that funds are moved to where delivery is being achieved. The intention, however, is to reimburse the provinces that relinquished the funds at a stage when the planning, capacity, and delivery capabilities improve to such an extent that normal delivery can take place. And when this measure does not improve the situation, we will not hesitate to take the necessary steps as permitted by our laws. Again as we unfortunately, have had to do in the Eastern Cape.
At this point I must thank the Portfolio Committee again, for processing and passing the Housing Development Agency (HAD) bill with unusual speed. Through the HDA, we want to ensure that the state has the institutional, technical and administrative capacity to own and manage land for housing purposes. Through this capacity, the state will be able to effectively draw in the private sector in partnerships in creating an integrated non-racial society. It will provide a variety of housing options in well located areas and facilitate access to social amenities and economic opportunities to the poor.
We are also able, using the Housing Development Agency to take over the land parcels that we negotiated and bought from Transnet, as well as all the land parcels that previously belonged to the National Department of Housing. The Housing Development Agency could potentially own thousands of hectares of land, which we desperately need to relieve the pressure on housing delivering. Significantly, we have negotiated with several municipalities the take over of buildings within their inner cities for major refurbishment and use for social housing. We are in the process of negotiating partnerships with various government departments where we could acquire land in their possession in exchange for the provision of affordable housing for some of their employees.
In a major partnership in the Western Cape, the National Department of Housing and the Western Cape Provincial Government are about to conclude a Memorandum of Agreement in terms of which a substantial amount of well located land shall made available in Plumstead, Driftsand, Oudemolen and Southfield. We have also been offered land by our partners, the SDI in Phillipi. These joint ventures will not only significantly contribute to the number of housing units built in the course of the year but will, in a fundamental way, enhance the benefits of the Extended Public Works Programme (EPWP).
We are now putting transitional arrangements in place for the Housing Development Agency that should give some comfort to the staff of Servcon and Thubelisha Homes. They have, understandably been agitated about their place in the new entity. We'll be requesting the Chief Executive Officer of one of our partner housing institutions to come and assist us in putting all the necessary building blocks in place to fast-track the creation of the HDA.
He is a man who will bring outstanding skills and expertise to the HDA and has won us as a country international awards and acclaim for his outstanding pioneering work in housing delivery. We depend on his credibility to build the reputation of this very important entity. The man, Madam Speaker, is Mr Taffy Adler and I ask him now to consider this at his earliest convenience. We ask him this as part of his national commitment to housing, to help us put the ship to sail.
I am convinced that this development will enable us to take command of the critical resources we need in housing delivery. This, after all, is the requirement to maintain the hope that regardless of the obstacles being faced, our struggle will ultimately bear its fruits. It must be borne in mind, however that in as much as the development breaks yet another new ground in our policies, government would not act as though it possesses all the knowledge and have all the solutions. The private sector which too has to improve its delivery remains an important contributor.
We have made significant progress in dealing with the matter of corruption, especially as it relates to government employees. The department, together with the Special Investigating Unit (SIU), led by Willie Hofmeyr, investigated allegations of fraud, corruption and maladministration in relation to the development and delivery of low cost housing in South Africa.
The SIU embarked on a massive forensic data analytical investigation and identified 31 259 potentially irregular housing subsidy transactions awarded to government employees nationally. The SIU has begun the process of prosecuting and finalising criminal cases against the corrupt officials in different provinces around the country. 29 cases have already been finalised with sentences including the payment of the value of the houses. The total amount of debt we expect to recover is R6 827,036.30. A cash amount of R1 103,772.00 has been paid back. The SIU will make recommendations to the department in order to curb future systematic or opportunistic abuse of the Housing Subsidy System.
It is envisaged that 200 cases will be placed on the court roll in the new financial year. The prosecution of fraudulent beneficiaries will have a significant impact in terms of deterrence and promoting a culture of legal obedience.
Developers' failure to perform in terms of the contractual obligation to the department often result in severe reputation damage to the department through its failure to provide sufficient and adequate low cost houses and also significant losses to the department. The second phase of the SIUs intervention will be in relation to this scourge. Preliminary analysis of all contracts submitted by the various provincial Housing Departments has commenced. The list of prioritised housing contracts consists of 65 housing projects, which will require a forensic audit, and, depending on the outcome, a full scale forensic investigation and legal action.
In an effort to further our transformational agenda and empower previously disadvantaged persons, Absa Bank, in collaboration with National Housing Finance Corporation (NHFC), the Estate Agent Affairs Board (EAAB), Sophie Ndaba and Maravi will see 400 black intermediaries trained as real estate agencies and supported through infrastructure in this financial year. These new entry real estate agents will be enrolled in accordance with the new educational dispensation for estate agents. This is to ensure that we can effectively begin to address the matter of the transformation of this industry.
Finally Madam Speaker, we want to recognise an aspiring politician in the gallery, Miss Christine Duvenhage who is not only interested in politics, but wants to participate in political debates on matters that impact on our communities. We welcome the involvement of the youth in politics, because they are the future politicians who will be attending to matters that concern us when we sit in the retirement villages.
Madam Speaker, we have come to the end of our term in government. We leave behind a very solid housing delivery framework, acclaimed as one of the best. We leave behind a policy that fundamentally transforms South Africa's apartheid spatial planning to one that is integrative and can transform South Africa into the kind of society we fought for. We have provided a policy that allows for a bigger product, that lays the basis of the development of communities.
We leave behind an innovation hub that creates the market for new technologies (moladi). We leave behind a department that has a solid delivery mechanism where we can acquire land from the State and remove major blockages in the provisions of housing.
We have brought on board very strong partnerships with the financial institutions and major civil society organisations that deal with shelter. We are beginning to turn major inner city slums into habitable and safe environments.
Madam Speaker, we could not ask for more from the joint effort of a remarkable group of people who have walked this road with us against all odds, hope did indeed survive.
I thank you.
Issued by: Department of Housing28 May 2008Source: Department of Housing, (http://www.housing.gov.za/)

SA reels under housing backlog : Mail & Guardian Online

2008-06-08T23:38:00.000+02:00

SA reels under housing backlog : Mail & Guardian Online

The backlog of housing currently stands at 2,4-million houses across South Africa, and the government hopes to reduce or do away with the shortfall by 2014."Yes, there is a problem with the backlog," housing director general Itumeleng Kotsoane said in an interview in Pretoria on Thursday.Kotsoane detailed the obstacles faced in the housing sector and outlined current plans to tackle the problem.He said the government builds about 250 000 houses a year, and 2,3-million houses had been built since 1994.However, many South Africans tend to gloss over the issue of backlogs in the Housing Department without putting the matter into context."Historically, policies of the previous government excluded African people from having access to land for housing and when the takeover took place in 1994, we knew drastic measures were needed."We didn't understand the depth of need by people and recently when we reviewed progress made in the past ten years, we found that gaps in our delivery process had to do with planning," he said."Poor construction work and availability of land are some of the hindrances we have in the delivery programme, but we are on target."The government is in the process of finalising the policy for inclusionary housing, which will see low-cost houses being built in the same area as high-cost housing. There are currently ten programmes that have integrated this system, with one being launched next to the R59 in Pretoria on Friday.Kotsoane said research done in the United States and United Kingdom showed that these countries had implemented inclusionary housing."It is possible for people to live together in harmony irrespective of race and class," he said.On whether such a plan will work in South Africa, Kotsoane said: "It must work. It's going to be legislation enforced by law."Inclusionary housing will be applicable irrespective of whether or not the land is privately owned. While people argue about putting the poor and rich next to each other, most dwellers in the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) houses complain that government-built houses are falling apart.The problem started when big developers in 1998 moved out of the low-cost housing market.Kotsoane said these were replaced by emerging contractors who occupied their space and their "quality of work wasn't up to scratch"."We are in the process of correcting this with the help of the National Homebuilders' Registration Council and each province is busy with audits on the damage of houses."Provinces like Gauteng and Limpopo have already started with the audits."We will only be looking at the houses that became defective as a result of poor workmanship."HE said owners of RDP houses need to be aware that regardless of whether the house is free, it is an asset and the value of it is based on how one takes care of it."We need to educate people about title deeds and about what they mean and that having a house is a great asset as property appreciates over time," Kotsoane said. -- Sapa

BBC NEWS | Africa | South Africa: Behind the violence

2008-06-08T12:37:00.001+02:00

BBC NEWS Africa South Africa: Behind the violence

What was it that led to around 100,000 foreigners being driven from homes in South Africa?

Camps have been set up for people fleeing the attacks
One factor could be rising anger at allegations that foreigners have corruptly been given subsidised housing.
At first South Africa's Minister of Intelligence Ronnie Kasrils said that some kind of subversive "Third Force" was behind the attacks.
"We are not just seeing spontaneous xenophobic attacks," he said during a tour of the worst affected areas.
"There are many social issues at the root of the problem, but we have reason to believe that there are many other organisations involved in sparking the attacks," he added.
But later he withdrew the accusation, saying: "I accept that we have had a spontaneous outburst of xenophobia here."
So what really caused the attacks?
With the violence having been perpetrated across such vast areas of the country, there is no simple answer.
But one source of tension has been intense competition for the subsidised housing built by the government under its Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP).
The problem with the RDP housing is that although the government now builds over 180,000 units a year, there are never enough.
They are allocated not by municipalities or officials, but by the locally elected councillors.
Bribery and corruption
For a number of years now this has led to allegations that they take bribes in return for housing and this has led to many protests.
In 2005, for example, residents in the town of Musina, close to the border with Zimbabwe, marched on the municipality to protest about the lack of action against certain councillors accused of giving houses to foreigners for money.
We must put a stop to this practice
Gwede Mantashe ANC Secretary General
Sinkie Makushu, chairman of the Greater Musina Unemployment Forum complained that they had provided ample evidence of corruption, but that no action was taken.
"The police have every bit of information regarding corruption at the municipality, but they keep saying they are still investigating," he said.
The previous year angry residents chased about 50 people out of RDP houses after claims that they were foreigners, who were paying rent or had bought the homes outright from local councillors.
Some of those evicted from the RDP houses produced bank receipts proving they were paying rent of 50 rand ($6.5) or more to some councillors. Other occupants said they had bought the houses for 6,500 rand ($850) each.
'Fertile ground'
Anger at the allocation of housing in return for payments has been seen in several places during the xenophobic attacks carried out over the past two weeks.
People living in Alexandra, on the outskirts of Johannesburg where the violence originated, said foreigners had jumped the low-cost housing allocation lists by paying bribes.

The ANC builds 180,000 houses a year but it is not enough
The housing department in the Gauteng region which surrounds Johannesburg said it had allocated nine houses to foreigners in Alexandra but argued in a report that those people had permanent resident permits.
The opposition Democratic Alliance said the government needed to clarify its housing policy and explain who qualified for state-owned houses.
Since most councillors are members of the African National Congress, it is the party that has been blamed.
The problems were acknowledged by ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe.
"Many people have taken occupation of more than one RDP house and sell their houses instead of living in them. We must put a stop to this practice and expose all who are corrupt," he wrote on the party's website.
A similar point was made by the leader of the ANC's ally, the South African Communist Party.
"Some of our own councillors illegally take bribes and allocate RDP houses to undeserving people who are South African and non-South African citizens," said Blade Nzimande, the SACP's general secretary.
"These corrupt practices create fertile ground for intra-community conflict and xenophobia," he said.
Taking action
The government has attempted to deal with this issue.
Recently the department of housing said that more than 7,000 civil servants have acquired RDP houses illegally.

The attacks have prompted widespread demonstrations
"We have 7,363 pending cases of fraudulently acquired RDP houses by government officials throughout the country," says Simphiwe Damane-Mkhosana, head of an anti-corruption unit in the housing department.
"We intend to prosecute all the individuals who benefited."
But the practice has become so widespread that rooting it out is proving difficult.
The resulting tensions have only served to exacerbate differences between South Africans and foreigners living in the so-called Rainbow Nation.

BBC NEWS | Africa | South Africa: Behind the violence

2008-06-08T12:37:00.000+02:00

The Herald Online News

2008-06-04T21:29:00.000+02:00

The Herald Online **News**

Plea for action on dismal housing delivery record
Tabelo Timse MUNICIPAL CORRESPONDENT
COUNCILLORS serving on Nelson Mandela Bay‘s housing and land committee have called for the municipal manager to account for why the municipality has managed to build only 1000 houses instead of 7000.
The committee has suggested the mayoral committee compel municipal manager Graham Richards to submit a full performance report on housing delivery. It has also asked Richards to submit a report on how the unit could be reorganised to ensure service delivery.
The committee has also recommended a task team to probe illegal occupation and selling of RDP houses be set up.
Committee chairman Eldridge Jerry said he had received several complaints about empty houses sometimes used by criminals. The other problem was people selling their RDP houses.
The recommendations came at a meeting on Monday after all the committee members fully endorsed Jerry‘s proposal for a public inquiry.
Jerry said the fact that the unit had about 700 employees but had managed to build only 1000 house this financial year was unacceptable.
DA councillor Andrew Gibbon said the person responsible for municipal administration and service delivery was the municipal manager and he should prepare a full report on why there was no service delivery.
ANC councillor Andile Gqalane said he fully supported the idea. “We can‘t sit here with a staff of 700 only to build 1000 houses. We should be ashamed of ourselves. People judge service delivery by houses built. We need to fulfil our obligations.”
Councillor Elizabeth Trent said building fewer than 1000 houses was a monumental failure by the municipality. “There are people who have waited for more than 22 years and now we have to tell them they will not be getting a house again this winter.”
Trent also questioned why a forensic audit report, compiled three years ago, had not yet been seen.
ANC councillor Mzwandile Hote said the municipality could not afford to lose money received from Bhisho. “Instead of losing money, we must lose people who do not perform.”
However, DA councillor Terry Herbst said: “My colleague is polite. I say these officials should be sacked.”

The Herald Online News

2008-06-01T23:05:00.000+02:00

The Herald Online **News**

Nomahlubi Sonjica HERALD REPORTER
THE Eastern Cape education department is to hold disciplinary hearings next month for more than 200 education employees implicated in housing subsidy fraud.
The hearings follow a request by the education department‘s labour relations unit to the Public Service Accountability Monitor (Psam) to supply it with a list of education officials implicated in the housing fraud.
The monitor received a list of 645 Eastern Cape government officials under investigation for low-cost housing subsidy fraud after obtaining a High Court order compelling the department of housing to release it.
Of the 645 officials, 290 are from the department of education, 120 from health and 60 are members of the SA Police Service.
Education department spokesman Loyiso Pulumani said the employees‘ status and salary range disqualified them the benefit of a low-cost housing subsidy.
“We are considering charges of bringing the department into disrepute.”
Pulumani said most of the cases were in Libode, King William‘s Town and East London.
According to Pulumani, officials implicated were from the department‘s 23 provincial districts.
Provincial housing and local government spokesman Phumlani Mdolomba said the department had filed criminal charges against the implicated officials.
“We handed the matter to the special investigative unit after we received a report from the auditor general in 2006.”
He said some of the officials were involved in negotiations with the unit on how they would pay back the department.
“Some have paid back the money already, but they still face criminal charges.”
He said the unit was tracing more officials in the province and nationally.
According to Psam, at least two teachers have been convicted of low-cost housing subsidy fraud. Both were sentenced to a fine of R10000 or three years‘ imprisonment.
“Psam commends the department of education for the steps it has taken to crack down on fraudulent employees, and calls on other departments to do the same,” said media and advocacy head Derek Lyt.

The Herald Online News

2008-06-01T23:02:00.001+02:00

The Herald Online **News**

Nomahlubi Sonjica HERALD REPORTER

THE Eastern Cape education department is to hold disciplinary hearings next month for more than 200 education employees implicated in housing subsidy fraud.
The hearings follow a request by the education department‘s labour relations unit to the Public Service Accountability Monitor (Psam) to supply it with a list of education officials implicated in the housing fraud.

The monitor received a list of 645 Eastern Cape government officials under investigation for low-cost housing subsidy fraud after obtaining a High Court order compelling the department of housing to release it.

Of the 645 officials, 290 are from the department of education, 120 from health and 60 are members of the SA Police Service.

Education department spokesman Loyiso Pulumani said the employees‘ status and salary range disqualified them the benefit of a low-cost housing subsidy. “We are considering charges of bringing the department into disrepute.” Pulumani said most of the cases were in Libode, King William‘s Town and East London. According to Pulumani, officials implicated were from the department‘s 23 provincial districts.

Provincial housing and local government spokesman Phumlani Mdolomba said the department had filed criminal charges against the implicated officials.
“We handed the matter to the special investigative unit after we received a report from the auditor general in 2006.”
He said some of the officials were involved in negotiations with the unit on how they would pay back the department.
“Some have paid back the money already, but they still face criminal charges.”
He said the unit was tracing more officials in the province and nationally.
According to Psam, at least two teachers have been convicted of low-cost housing subsidy fraud. Both were sentenced to a fine of R10000 or three years‘ imprisonment.

“Psam commends the department of education for the steps it has taken to crack down on fraudulent employees, and calls on other departments to do the same,” said media and advocacy head Derek Lyt.

The Herald Online News

2008-06-01T23:02:00.000+02:00

The Herald Online **News**

Nomahlubi Sonjica HERALD REPORTER

THE Eastern Cape education department is to hold disciplinary hearings next month for more than 200 education employees implicated in housing subsidy fraud.
The hearings follow a request by the education department‘s labour relations unit to the Public Service Accountability Monitor (Psam) to supply it with a list of education officials implicated in the housing fraud.

The monitor received a list of 645 Eastern Cape government officials under investigation for low-cost housing subsidy fraud after obtaining a High Court order compelling the department of housing to release it.

Of the 645 officials, 290 are from the department of education, 120 from health and 60 are members of the SA Police Service.

Education department spokesman Loyiso Pulumani said the employees‘ status and salary range disqualified them the benefit of a low-cost housing subsidy. “We are considering charges of bringing the department into disrepute.” Pulumani said most of the cases were in Libode, King William‘s Town and East London. According to Pulumani, officials implicated were from the department‘s 23 provincial districts.

Provincial housing and local government spokesman Phumlani Mdolomba said the department had filed criminal charges against the implicated officials.
“We handed the matter to the special investigative unit after we received a report from the auditor general in 2006.”
He said some of the officials were involved in negotiations with the unit on how they would pay back the department.
“Some have paid back the money already, but they still face criminal charges.”
He said the unit was tracing more officials in the province and nationally.
According to Psam, at least two teachers have been convicted of low-cost housing subsidy fraud. Both were sentenced to a fine of R10000 or three years‘ imprisonment.

“Psam commends the department of education for the steps it has taken to crack down on fraudulent employees, and calls on other departments to do the same,” said media and advocacy head Derek Lyt.

The Herald Online News

2008-05-29T12:37:00.000+02:00

The Herald Online **News**

Officials caught in massive housing subsidy corruption
Cape Town – The Special Investigations Unit (SIU) has uncovered wide-scale corruption among government officials involved in the awarding of housing subsidies, Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu told MPs yesterday.
“The SIU ... identified 31259 potentially irregular housing subsidy transactions awarded to government employees,” she said before debate on her department‘s budget vote. “(A total of) 29 cases have already been finalised, with sentences including the payment of the value of the houses. The total amount of debt we expect to recover is R6827036. A cash amount of R1103772 has been paid back ... It is envisaged that 200 cases will be placed on the court roll in the new financial year.”
Regulations and procedures governing the allocation of state-built houses would be tightened to ensure they were occupied by “indigent South African citizens who meet the qualification criteria and are on our waiting lists”. There was a perception such homes were being given to foreigners by councillors, but an audit by the auditor-general last year had not found a single incident.
“However, as we all know, it is true that some of our houses are occupied by foreign nationals. This can only mean our people ... have either sold them before the period of limitation has elapsed, or are renting them out.”
For this reason, “occupancy audits” would be conducted to establish if the original beneficiaries still lived in them.
“We have been very concerned about the incidence of the sale of our houses. Our laws prohibit this. As an urgent measure, we have decided to enlist the services of the (SIU) to take action.”
She said “compulsory adherence” to the national housing demand database now prevented any municipality from making allocations outside of it.
Sisulu said the state had provided 2,6 million houses for 13 million people since 1994, but a once-off R12- million in additional funds was needed to clear the backlog of 2,1 million units. – Sapa

The Times - Not enough being spent on housing, says minister

2008-05-28T09:13:00.000+02:00

The Times - Not enough being spent on housing, says minister

Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu complained bitterly on Tuesday that her department had not been given enough money to get rid of the backlog in housing.

In fact, she said at a media briefing in Parliament given before she addresses the National Assembly in Wednesday’s debate on her departmental budget, she has not enough even to keep up with the flow of rural migrants into the urban centres of the country.
She said that the backlog was at present 2.1 million units. More than 1.1 million households are living in informal settlements, and another million are in backyard houses.
But each year she estimated that another 1.2 million people leave the countryside to join the teeming throng in the city slums mainly in Gauteng mainly Johannesburg and the Western Cape.
In order to get rid of the backlog entirely by the year 2012, she would require a budget of 120 billion rand. "If we conclude the same backlog four years later," she said, "it will cost three times a much."
The housing budget will be 10.6 billion rand this year, up from 9 billion rand last year. The medium-term budget forecasts for 2009/10 and 2010/11 are 12.7 billion rand and 15.3 billion rand. She complained that the present budget would only allow her to build 266,000 houses.
However, she said, much was being done to tackle the backlog. She was particularly interested in modern building techniques, which her officials said would more than halve the cost of a 40 square metre house. The present traditional method of construction of such a house would cost 260,000 rand. The new tech house will cost only 110,000 rand.
She praised the banks for fulfilling their part of the financial services BEE charter which required them to spend 42 billion rand on housing. "They have already spent 38 billion," the minister said, "and they will have spent 48 billion by the end of the year."

31 000 have illegal houses: South Africa: News: News24

2008-05-28T09:01:00.000+02:00

31 000 have illegal houses: South Africa: News: News24

Johannesburg - Thousands of public servants face prosecution for fraudulently acquiring houses meant for the poor, said the Department of Housing on Tuesday.
Spokesperson Xolani Xundu said about 31 000 civil servants were under investigation by the special investigations unit (SIU) for possibly using fraudulent and corrupt means to acquire low-cost housing.
Of these, 3 800 public servants already are facing prosecution.
President Thabo Mbeki issued a proclamation last year in April to begin the investigations after the 2006 auditor-general's report indicated possible fraud, corruption and maladministration in the housing-subsidy system.
Housing director-general Itumeleng Kotsoane said a lot of the fraud took place in the late 1990s and early 2000.
He said that since then the department had improved its monitoring and verification systems to root out fraud.
44 to appear this week
He said 443 public servants had signed acknowledgements of debt with the SIU totalling R9.3m.
Nearly R1m of this amount has been paid back.
A maximum period of 60 months is given for people to repay the money, otherwise the cases go to the department or state attorney.
On Wednesday and Thursday, 34 public servants will appear in Pietermaritzburg for fraudulently obtaining government-subsidised houses.
Ten public servants will appear on Friday in Venterstad in the Eastern Cape for the same crime.

7 000+ in RDP housing scam: South Africa: News: News24

2008-05-28T09:00:00.000+02:00

7 000+ in RDP housing scam: South Africa: News: News24

Johannesburg - More than 7 000 civil servants have acquired RDP houses illegally, the Housing Department said on Wednesday.
Simphiwe Damane-Mkhosana, head of an anti-corruption unit in the housing department, said: "We have 7 363 pending cases of fraudulently acquired RDP houses by government officials throughout the country.
"We are still investigating the cases, but we intend to prosecute all the individuals who benefited."
She said the officials were getting the houses by providing false information in the application forms.
"Some of them said they were unemployed when filling in the forms while others mis-declared (sic) their income to fit the criteria, so they could qualify for the houses," said Damane-Mkhosana.
Some of the civil servants were renting the houses out to tenants while others were living in them, she said.
"We discovered that some of these officials own about two houses in different provinces."
The bigger the province, more cases were uncovered according to the department.
Gauteng province had the highest number, KwaZulu-Natal was second, followed by the Western Cape, Eastern Cape and the rest of the other provinces depending on their population.
Seven teachers guilty
Damane-Mkhosana said seven teachers, one of them a principal, were found guilty of fraud in Vryburg on Tuesday.
The seven were sentenced to five years' in prison suspended for five years on condition they paid back the amount at which the houses were valued and not commit the same offences within the same period. They were also given an option of a R20 000 fine.
"We are expecting more cases because since yesterday I have been receiving calls from people who are prepared to report more officials who have benefited from the houses."
Damane-Mkhosana said the department was compiling a list of the people involved and this would be sent to various departments.

Serious defects in low-cost housing: South Africa: News: News24

2008-05-28T08:55:00.000+02:00

IOL: Housing agent Thubelisha is R67m in the red

2008-05-27T20:58:00.000+02:00

IOL: Housing agent Thubelisha is R67m in the red

Thubelisha Homes, the government's housing agent which was mandated to implement low-cost housing and now faces closure, is technically insolvent.This was revealed when the company presented its performance review for the financial year (2007-08) to Parliament's portfolio committee on housing on Tuesday.The company had targeted a profit of R49,5-million and instead made a loss of R67,5-million, a variance of R117-million.While Thubelisha had projected revenue of almost R975-million, its actual revenue stood at R338,4-million, a difference of R636-million.
'We are struggling without top-level staff'"With that deficit, the company could be liquidated," said committee member Butch Steyn, who also lamented that not a single one of the company's other targets had been reached.The presentation revealed that of the 38 407 stands and houses approved for implementation, only 22 717 were actually implemented - a deficit of almost 16 000.

The company had handed over only 2 889 of the 5 422 built houses to clients. Its target had been to hand over 16 290."This is very disappointing," said Steyn.While Thubelisha's general manager of finance, Wayne Bothma, admitted that "technically we are insolvent at the moment", its acting chief operations officer, Annie Orgill, explained discrepancies leading to the shortfalls.

She said Thubelisha had been losing top-level technical staff, which had had a negative impact on the company's performance."We are struggling without top-level staff. It's difficult as we are not at full staff," Orgill said.She said the resignations had to do with "the concept of the incoming Housing Development Agency (HDA)".The HDA will be established under the Housing Development Agency Bill and will be "the engine for driving and facilitating acquisition of land and landed property in a way that supplements the capacities of government across all spheres".Orgill also mentioned problems with the N2 Gateway housing project and said they were working in a very political environment, involving the three spheres of government.She said that although Thubelisha was a project management company, the company had found itself doing "developer's work".This was because they were working with emerging contractors because medium-sized contractors had moved on to big projects like building stadiums for the 2010 World Cup.Orgill said these emerging developers didn't have the capacity or capital to even purchase materials. "We have had to help them. We buy material and they provide labour."We thought because we had a consortium, matters would be easier, but we are struggling with funding," she said.Earlier, national Housing Department director-general Itumeleng Kotsoane had brief-ed the committee on the closure of Thubelisha and its sister company Servcon.Kotsoane said this should be finalised in six months.He also told the committee that they would encourage the HDA to consider appointing staff or employees from the two institutions.The closure of these companies was because of the government's rationalisation of institutions whose original mandates had matured.Kotsoane explained that the HDA was not a replacement of the two companies, as their mandates were different. "Some of the things Thubelisha and Servcon did will be done at micro and macro levels by the HDA," he said.

Building quality affordable houses quickly and cost effectively

2008-04-23T22:04:00.001+02:00

A building concept developed in the Eastern Cape holds promise for entrepreneurs in rural areas who would like to enter the township development and farm housing markets. The Moladi building system builds a 52m² two-bedroomed house for R40 000 in five days. The basic structure for farm buildings is even cheaper and quicker to erect.

These “instant buildings” are mould-formed according to a method designed by Port Elizabeth entrepreneur Hennie Botes, for which he was presented a subsidy housing merit award at the Innovation Housing Competition sponsored by the National Home Builder’s Registration Council and Absa Bank, as well as a PRW award in the UK.

“The concept came to me in 1986 while I was building a wall around my first home. It took a long time and thought there must be an easier way to do it than laying one brick on top of another,” Hennie recalls. “suddenly realised that it would be much simpler to mould a planned house or outbuilding and cast it with brick or block material. The big advantage lies in the speed of construction. doesn’t need skilled labour, yet it’s good quality and socially acceptable in that the end product is solid rather than prefabricated. Banks have no problem granting bonds with the house as collateral,” he explains. “It’s a cost effective, holistic design-and-build technology that far outweighs poorly designed, costly concrete-block and masonry structures.”

The mortar dries within 12 hours and is ready for the top structure, plumbing conduits and window and door frames. “But these buildings don’t fall into the low-cost housing category, which has negative connotations in SA because of a history of sloppy workmanship by contractors,” adds Botes.

He has been exporting his building technology for the past decade. His company, Moladi, mainly targets developing countries such as Panama, Mexico, Angola, Botswana, Brazil and Kenya. An 800-house project is currently under way in Mexico. Moladi doesn’t build the houses, but sells the concept to contractors who use it to build cost-effectively. Moladi sends project managers to other countries to help contractors build the first showhouse, thereby transferring skills. Thereafter the contractor buys the mould from Moladi.

The moulds are manufactured in Markman, outside Port Elizabeth and exported from the city’s harbour. They are presently only available to builders who want to build 50 or more houses. The concept is patented and Botes has received South African Bureau of Standards’ approval for the concept. Patents are pending for improvements on the original design, as well as complementary products. – Chris Nel

Top: The Moladi system consists of modular shuttering that serves as a mould. The space in between is filled with mortar.

Bottom: A quality 52m² two-bedroomed house,
ready for occupation in five days, costs about R40 000.

- Farmer's Weekly

IOL: Bill for repairs to low-cost homes balloons

2008-04-10T00:45:00.000+02:00

IOL: Bill for repairs to low-cost homes balloons

By Anel PowellThe bill to repair more than 2 400 crumbling houses built by the Cape Town Community Housing Company (CTCHC) between 1994 and 2000 has almost tripled from the initial R35-million to more than R90-million.The completion of repairs to houses with damp walls, inadequate foundations and poor plumbing is being delayed by resistance from the communities and the discovery of fresh structural problems. The remedial project is two months behind schedule.Many residents have also refused to pay their monthly instalments, with some boycotting rent payments because of the poor quality of the houses.Fungai Mudimu, a senior member of the housing company, told the city's housing portfolio committee on Monday that the provincial department of housing had agreed to pay the extra costs of repairing houses in Manenberg, Philippi, Mitchells Plain and Gugulethu.

Meanwhile, "legal processes" were under way to determine why the 10 low-cost housing projects were so shoddily built."The contractors took short cuts. There was no proper supervision," Mudimu said."That is why we are ensuring we have no problems (again)." After complaints from irate residents, the housing company asked the National Home Builders' Registration Council to appoint an independent consultant to audit the houses.The audit found houses with severe cracks, poor brick-laying, loose roof tiles, soil erosion, gaps between walls and door frames and rusting window frames.Mudimu said R35-million had been allocated for an urgent remedial programme, but further problems had been discovered when work began.In Luyoloville, Gugulethu, an audit of the 246 units found plaster was cracking in most of the homes. In Newfields, the 412 units had not been plastered.Repairs in Eastridge have been delayed by six or seven months because of resistance from the community. In Phillipi, residents complained that the houses did not have proper foundations. Work was delayed by almost four months.The replacement of rusted window frames added R19m to the initial repair bill. Most of the houses need gutters, which will cost R2,3-million.A further R13,8-million will be needed for mandatory plastering and roof insulation needed to reduce the effects of coastal condensation.It will also cost just more than R1-million to improve the storm water management. Mudimu said the consultant fees cost in excess of R10-million.Councillor Claude Ipser (DA) said it was "tragic" that R38 000 was being spent on each house for remedial work.Mudimu said the remedial programme meant that each house had been checked. The new contractors were registered with the National Home Builders' Registration Council and were being monitored. The CTCHC was meeting community leaders about payment plans, Mudimu said.

moladi builds new 40 square meter houses for the same amount it cost to repair these 2400 units

Banking association warns of low-cost housing market crisis

2008-04-06T16:04:00.000+02:00

Banking association warns of low-cost housing market crisis
Date: Wed 26 March 2008 Category: South African Electricity Crisis
The Banking Association of South Africa has warned that Eskom's electricity supply problems has caused a major crisis for the low-cost housing market in the country which could result in social instability in the country. Eskom recently shocked developers, builders, unions and organised business with their decision to delay electricity certificates for new building projects by up to six months.The decision applies to apartment and office blocks, factories, shopping malls and all other large projects that use more than 100kVA.According to the Banking Association of South Africa's financial services charter housing initiative co-ordinator, Pierre Venter, there is a backlog of 2.3 million houses for the subsidy market.Venter said building costs within the charter housing market had increased by 25 percent year on year, which was above the inflation rate. He believed the investigation by the competition commission into the construction sector was probably warranted "for certain products".Xolani Xundu, the chief director and spokesperson for housing minister Lindiwe Sisulu, said the low-cost residential housing market was a priority of both the housing department and the national government.

The Herald Online News

2008-04-02T09:37:00.000+02:00

The Herald Online **News**:

"Knysna officials inspired by UK housing study tour
Katherine Wilkinson GARDEN ROUTE CORRESPONDENT
AN international study tour and conference attended by Knysna municipal officials provided new insights on housing options, says Knysna mayor Eleanore Bouw-Spies.
“The differences in housing processes are huge, but we can take many of the principles back to South Africa and make them our own,” she said.
The group, including Andrew Finn, the Knysna portfolio chairman of infrastructure development and integrated human settlements, attended a housing study tour and conference in the United Kingdom.
Knysna community services and housing director Lauren Waring said: “The range of tenure options, housing typologies and funding sources are quite remarkable. I have been inspired by the comprehensive integrated approach to housing, and the recognition of the social role and impact of housing.”
The trip, from February 28 to March 13, also included meetings with politicians and potential developers in the Republic of Ireland and in Germany.
The busy schedule also included visits to public parks and other community facilities, a housing initiative for young adults with no families, alternative building systems including pre-manufactured units, waste management and recycling, a rehabilitation centre, and meetings with potential investors."

The Herald Online News

2008-04-02T09:36:00.000+02:00

The Herald Online **News**

Shack dwellers upset over delays in RDP housing completion
Katherine Wilkinson GARDEN ROUTE CORRESPONDENT
PROSPECTIVE RDP housing recipients in Mossel Bay remain extremely unhappy and anxious about the lack of building progress, even after a meeting was held on Monday night in an attempt to alleviate the situation.
Community members broke down their shacks in June and July last year as requested to make space for RDP houses. Families then constructed smaller, temporary, one-room shacks on the edges of the stands, to have somewhere to live while their RDP houses were being built.
Mossel Bay Ward 2 committee member Ernest Kanana said: “Not a single house has been completely finished since July last year and many houses are already cracked.”
He estimated there were about 100 houses and said the families for whom the houses were intended were still squashed into one- room shacks, which provided no privacy.
Thobeka Beyi, one of the housing recipients, said: “My new RDP house has two holes in the roof. Soon it will be winter and it will be raining, and there are old people here as well.”
Municipal housing, environment, sport and facilities head Johan van Zyl said: “We are also anxious and find ourselves in a predicament.”
He said Thubelisha Homes was an agency appointed by the government to assist municipalities with delivery of RDP houses and Thubelisha had, in turn, appointed Ujima Contractors to build the houses.
“The two companies are in a legal dispute, so now there is a stand-off. The council has assurance from Thubelisha that the project will continue and that houses will be completed, but not on time.”
He said the council was not party to Thubelisha‘s contract with Ujima Contractors.
Thubelisha Homes spokesman Xolani Tyilana said: “Thubelisha Homes was appointed by the Mossel Bay municipality to manage the building of RDP houses for the community of Elangeni. The houses were to be built on the same plots where people‘s shacks were. People were never asked to vacate their plots at any stage.
“Thubelisha appointed a contractor to build the houses. The contractor under-performed and Thubelisha had no choice but to terminate its services.
“We hope that by the end of this month the new contractor will be on site. We urge the people to stay where they lived before, and not to move anywhere else until advised by Thubelisha Homes, the Mossel Bay municipality or the new contractor.”

IOL: Building low cost houses up by 25 percent

2008-04-01T07:57:00.000+02:00

IOL: Building low cost houses up by 25 percent

Building costs for poor households have increased by 25 percent year-on-year, mainly due to the cost of serviced sites going up, the Banking Association of SA said on Tuesday."This increase is primarily due to the increase in the cost of serviced sites, and not because of increases in building materials or as a result of developers making excessive profits," the association's managing director Cas Coovadia said in a statement.The increase related to low-income households targeted by the Financial Sector Charter, which aimed to increase poor households' access to basic banking services such as loans.The association believed that as much as 20 percent of the cost of building a home was due to the fact that it took up to three years to convert land into stands. This translated into higher operational risk and holding costs for developers.

"The critical issue here is to improve drastically the process management within municipalities to substantially decrease the 'land to stands' continuum," Coovadia said.A recent study by the major banks in three municipalities proved that this time could be cut in half, reducing building costs "substantially".Municipalities' housing delivery had to triple to eliminate the current backlog in 10 years. This could only be achieved if more infrastructure was made available, development processes were improved and the regulatory framework was reviewed.Many municipal housing developments were however being delayed or shelved because of a lack of bulk infrastructure - sewage, water, roads, electricity - needed for development."The Banking Association believes that this must be high on government's agenda if it is to achieve its ambitious social welfare housing programmes, including its Millennium Development Goal commitments."The banking sector had aimed to provide housing finance loans worth R42-billion to poor households over the five-year period ending December 31, 2008. The Banking Association estimated that the target would be exceeded by R10-billion.The association said that lenders had been able to circumvent the severe housing shortage, high interest rates and building costs that have outpaced inflation."[Lenders] have been able to... aggressively enter the home improvement, home extension and the rural housing markets by providing these families with non-mortgage loans which have been used for housing purposes." - Sapa

Bloomberg.com: Africa

2008-03-31T23:03:00.000+02:00

Bloomberg.com: Africa

South Africa Power Crisis Hurts Housing, Business Report Says
By Vernon Wessels
March 26 (Bloomberg) -- South Africa's low-cost housing shortage is being compounded by a power crisis that has halted property development, Business Report said, citing the Banking Association of South Africa.
The backlog of 2.3 million homes may foment social unrest if it isn't addressed, the Johannesburg-based newspaper reported. The cost of building low-cost homes climbed 25 percent over the past year, it added.
South Africa's four biggest banks lent 38 billion rand ($4.7 billion) for the low-cost housing by the end of last year, reaching 810,000 families, Business Report said. Banks will probably exceed by a fifth a government target of providing 42 billion rand in loans by the end of this year, it added.
To contact the reporter on this story: Vernon Wessels in Johannesburg at vwessels@bloomberg.net Last Updated: March 26, 2008 02:38 EDT

The Times - Banks to beat FSC housing target

2008-03-25T18:44:00.000+02:00

The Times - Banks to beat FSC housing target

Banks to beat FSC housing target By Tiisetso Motsoeneng, I-Net Bridge Published:Mar 25, 2008

South Africa banks are confident that they will exceed the 42 billion rand low-cost housing finance origination target by year-end, an industry body said.

The low-cost housing finance loans commitment forms part of the 2003 Financial Sector Charter, in which the banking sector committed to originating loans to low-income households totaling 42 billion rand over the five-year period to the end of December 2008.
"The Banking Association (of SA) is confident that the industry will have exceeded its origination target a year in advance, and is equally confident the industry will be about 20% ahead of the its housing finance origination commitment by the end of the year," the body said.
It added that early indication pointed to a 52 billion rand in housing finance would have been originated by year-end because by the end of last year, loans worth 38 billion rand had been originated.
"This is a success story. We achieved a hell of a lot against all odds," said Pierre Venter, a low-cost housing official at the Banking Association of SA.
Venter said that the sector achieved this despite a "severe" shortage of housing supply, an affordability crunch due to interest rate increases and sharp increases in building costs.
Housing delivery is hampered by legislative red tape, with developers waiting up to three years for land to be converted into stands, while a 4% interest rate hike since June 2006 has shaved 20% off prospective homeowners’ purchasing power, the body noted.
Buyers also face a 25% y/y increase in building costs, which the association said was not due to increases in building materials or as a result of developers inflating costs, but due to the primary cost of serviced sites.
Cas Coovadia, MD of the Banking Association of SA, said the sector has been "able to overcome this obstacles through aggressively entering the home improvement, home extension and the rural housing markets by providing these families with non-mortgage loans, which have been used for housing purposes."
Of the 38 billion rand worth of loans disbursed by the four major banks up to the end of last year, 25.4 billion rand were in mortgages and 12.6 billion rand were in non-mortgages with 810,000 families having benefited from this initiative. Just over 200,000 families benefited through mortgages and 610,000 through non-mortgages.
"Given that other member banks include substantive non-mortgage lenders who provide housing related loans, such as African Bank and Capitec, I believe if their achievements are included, the 42 billion rand housing origination target has already been exceeded and that well over one million families have benefited from this initiative," said Coovadia.
The association estimates that the number of beneficiaries could be as high as 2 million by year end.
However, the body expressed concern about Eskom’s curbs on new property development, saying it has brought the primary residential housing market "to a standstill, which will have a serious impact on the provision of new houses".
Power supplier Eskom, which faces capacity shortages, said the approval of applications for power for new properties will take four to six months.

Still no payment for work done

2008-03-22T20:36:00.002+02:00

Both the cessionary and the subcontractors at the Refentse Low Cost Housing Project in Rietfontein have still not been paid and after an extended deadline for the Local Municipality of Madibeng to respond to a letter of intent it seems that a court application may be inevitable.

Kormorant reported last week on the fact that neither the subcontractors nor the cessionary have received any payment for work done since December with the municipality saying that they have not received invoices and that is why the money has not been paid.

Work at the site has been standing still for the past weeks and according to information material are now being removed from the site. Subcontractors said last week that their lives are being threatened by disgruntled employees who have not been paid for the past three months. Some employees have gone as far as confiscating household appliances from the subcontractors’ homes and announcing their intent to keep the appliances until they are paid. The subcontractors have told Kormorant that they are afraid to walk in the street for fear of being attacked. They are also afraid to sleep for fear that their houses will be burnt down.

They are supposed to be paid by the cessionary, Mozaza Civil Engineer, on a fortnightly basis for work done but have not received any payment since 21 December last year.

One of the subcontractors threatened to confiscate material from the site but have since decided to try through legal means to get his money. The subcontractors have spoken to the Local Municipality of Madibeng about their problem on several occasions but say that this has not helped in any way. “We were told by the municipality that they have not received invoices from the cessionary, Mozaza Civil Engineers, and that that is the reason why payments have not been made,” the subcontractors said.

Jan Maphosa, from Caconny Construction which is one of the subcontractors, said this week that he has been advised to approach the National Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Housing and that he plans to do so soon.

Investigation have led to information that the cessionary, Mozaza Civil Engineers, did submit invoices to the municipality and they took the first step towards legal action last week when they served the Local Municipality with a letter of intent to bring high court application should the invoices not be rectified and the money paid.
According to the agreement between the municipality, the cedant and the cessionary monies for work done are to be paid within 30 days to the cessionary on submission of invoice.

The letter of intent follows a letter to the municipality from the company in early March in which they request the municipality to pay the money owed for work done. According to Mozaza, although they did submit invoices the money had allegedly already been paid out, but not to them.

In response, Mr. Tumelo Tshabalala, communications officer for the Local Municipality of Madibeng said that only one invoice was submitted by Mozaza Civil Engineers and that that money had been paid. According to him the other invoices received were from the cedent. “Other payments were released as per invoices submitted by the developer and not the cedent as it is alleged,” Tshabalala said.

Mozaza Civil Engineers indicated this week that they received no response to the letter of intent last week and that the deadline was extended. “The matter is in the hands of the legal team and they have indicated that should there be no response again that a high court application will follow,” a spokesperson for Mozaza Civil Engineers told Kormorant.

The cedent referred all enquiries to the Local Municipality of Madibeng. - Kormorant

Millions to be given to local government for housing developments

2008-03-12T10:31:00.001+02:00

The Nelson Mandela Bay municipality will hear today whether it has received the R530-million it has asked for from Local Government and Traditional Affairs MEC Thoko Xasa when she delivers her policy speech in the legislature.

However, The Herald has reliably learnt that the municipality will be getting just more than R300- million. Provincial housing department spokesman Phumlani Mdolomba said he could not reveal how much the municipality would be receiving.

Housing and land executive director Seth Maqetuka reported to the housing and land committee meeting, held yesterday at city hall, that the municipality had already received R230-million to continue with old projects and current housing projects. In addition, the municipality also received R54-million from the Social Coastal Condensation Areas (SCCA) grant given to coastal areas for plastering of RDP houses and providing ceilings.

He said the R530-million was only for 31 future projects that the municipality wanted to implement.

Maqetuka also said he hoped the provincial housing department was going to sign contracts with the municipality so work could start soon.

- The Herald

SA‘s target to eradicate mud schools unrealistic

2008-03-09T21:44:00.000+02:00

Mud school poses danger to pupils

Government Watchdog, the Grahamstown-based Public Service Accountability Monitor says government will not reach its target of eradicating mud schools by 2008.

The problem is worst in the Eastern Cape, which reportedly has about 80% of the country's schools that are partly or fully made of mud. The province received an additional R8 billion from National Treasury for the 2008/9 financial year but only allocated R100 million to eradicating mud schools.

The Public Service Accountability Monitor says the target to eradicate all mud schools by next year is unrealistic. It says in the Eastern Cape especially, the backlog is just too much to be eradicated in one financial year. The 100 million set aside by the province for building proper schools this financial year is simply not nearly enough.

According to a report released by the Office of the Premier, there are still about 832 mud schools in the province. Nearly 200 000 learners receive tuition in these unsafe structures.

A number of mud schools are flattened by the violent storms typical of the area every year. The department of education has refused to respond to questions in this regard until after Education MEC Johnny Makgatol presents his policy speech this week. - SABC

Legalbrief - Housing schemes fingered for corruption

2008-03-07T12:57:00.001+02:00

20 August 2007

The DA says it has discovered that R2.363bn has been spent on incomplete housing schemes. ‘There are many elements to this. We primarily suspect corruption and collusion between national Department of Housing officials and developers,’ said the DA’s Butch Steyn. According to a Sowetan report, he said the projects date as far back as September 1995 and up to September 2005. The figures reveal that millions have been squandered on incomplete projects in every province, except Gauteng. Topping the list is Limpopo with 193 projects at a cost of R1.684bn, followed by Eastern Cape with 64 blocked projects at a cost of R268.4m.Full Sowetan report

Fresh evidence of corruption has, meanwhile, been uncovered by the Scorpions in the allocation of housing at Winnie Mandela informal settlement on the East Rand, reports the Sowetan. President Mbeki has authorised the Scorpions to investigate allegations alluding to the irregular allocation of houses in Esselen Park, a development in which people from Winnie Mandela were to be settled.Full Sowetan report

East Cape loses R500m of its housing budget

2008-03-07T12:52:00.000+02:00

05 November 2007

national government has launched an emergency intervention plan for the Eastern Cape‘s ailing housing department, withdrawing R500-million in conditional grants earmarked for the province and appointing project managers from the private sector to assist in housing delivery.The national department said the province had no capacity to spend its budget, and that the withdrawn funding would be given to other provinces which had projects ready to be implemented.The decision was taken at a Minmec (Minister- MEC) meeting held at parliament in Cape Town last week.National housing director general Itumeleng Kotsoane yesterday said there was a serious shortage of capacity in the province to deliver houses.“We will appoint project managers from the private sector to assist the province. It is a joint effort between the province and the national department. We are very concerned about the slow pace of delivery.“The province relies heavily on municipalities for housing delivery, but municipalities do not have the capacity to build houses.”He said municipalities should continue providing the land and the provincial department should deliver on its mandate of building houses.“We have put in a proposal,” he said. “We are buying skills from the private sector in the form of paid project managers to assist the province.”Kotsoane said the Eastern Cape was delivering below its budget and a certain amount of national funding would be “diverted” to other provinces whose projects were ready for implementation. “The current expenditure and delivery patterns of the province are not good.”He said the fear was that if the money was not spent during a particular financial year, it would be taken back by the national treasury. “We do not want to lose that money,” he said.The Eastern Cape was allocated R1,052-billion by the national treasury for the current financial year for the Integrated Housing and Human Settlement Grant. Of this, R386-million had been transferred to the province. The Eastern Cape had spent R95,3-million – or just under 25 per cent.Kotsoane also said a lot of money was being kept in municipalities‘ trust accounts, including Nelson Mandela Bay.“This is because there are disputes between different parties – politicians and municipal administrations – on how the money should be spent.”He said the national department would appoint auditors to look into how funds were being spent and what was happening to the interest accrued from unspent funds.Housing MEC Thoko Xasa confirmed that half of their budget for this financial year had been taken by the national housing department.She said her department had presented its turnaround strategy at the Minmec meeting. The strategy was aimed at calling all housing delivery stakeholders to assist the province.“This strategy is not going to work overnight, it needs time. We are first looking at emergency cases – those houses destroyed by storms, and people living in floodplains.”She said it was projected that the provincial department would spend about R888-million by the end of the financial year. About R300-million was in the trust accounts of municipalities in the province. Personnel from the national housing department would be deployed in the province to assist.According to a report compiled by the provincial housing department as part of its turnaround strategy, there are 484 projects to be implemented this financial year, 60 of which involve the repair of houses damaged by the 2004 and 2005 storms.

The time is right for moladi to assit in this backlog of non delivery!

Politicsweb - PARTY - ANC to blame for Delft crisis – Zille

2008-03-07T11:58:00.000+02:00

Politicsweb - PARTY - ANC to blame for Delft crisis – Zille

Speech by Mayor of Cape Town March 6 2008.
Mr Speaker, today we meet to discuss the situation that has developed in Delft following last month's eviction of several thousand people from N2 Gateway homes.
Given the serious nature of the situation in Delft , it is important that we put all the facts on the table, and debate the matter in an open forum.
Let me begin with the assurance that the City has provided, either itself or through intermediary NGOs, comprehensive services to the Delft evictees, including shelter, food, blankets, sanitation, electricity, water and waste skips.
Our officials are also preparing a piece of land in order to offer this community full, formal services and the opportunity to continue living in the area.
Mayoral Committee Member for Housing, Dan Plato , will present this council with the full details of our intervention in response to the ANC's letter that has been tabled in this council.
I have also personally visited Delft twice since the evictions to check on the condition under which people are living, once on the night of Sunday 24 February after I returned on a late flight from Durban, and again last Saturday morning.
From what I have seen I am satisfied that our officials are providing as much support as possible to the majority who wish to accept it.
I am further encouraged by a letter that we received from the Human Rights Commission on 26 February, thanking the City for our role in Delft .
There are still, however, very serious challenges associated with this situation.
Certain members of the Anti-Eviction Campaign are trying to keep evictees alongside Symphony Way in their dire and squalid circumstances and are trying to prevent them from moving into the City's tents, apparently in an attempt to keep up the pressure to move them back into houses.
As a result of this, some people have remained out in the open, withstanding the offer of shelter, although that group has gradually reduced in size.
There have also been outbreaks of diarrhoea and chicken pox, which our health officials are working to contain.
For this reason we have had to exert a very strict control of food donations coming into the area. We don't want to add food poisoning to the situation.
So, through all of these challenges, the City has been there, 24 hours a day, to assist and support the evictees in Delft.
The question is, where have the Province and National Government been?In fact where has the ANC been?
As usual, they have been more interested in inflammatory statements and public posturing, rather than assisting people in dire circumstances.
They have been more interested in trying to blame the DA in general and Frank Martin in particular for the total failure of their housing policy, which Speaker, is the real cause of this crisis in Delft.
Let me be quite plain, Speaker, it is the ANC's racist and elitist housing policy that lies at the root of this crisis.
If Cllr Martin has done something wrong it will emerge and be dealt with in both the Speaker's investigation and the current court case on the matter.
But, absurdly, the ANC and the Provincial Government have tried to portray this tragic episode as a political conspiracy.The truth, as always, is precisely the opposite of what they claim.
They have even spread ridiculous stories, like the recent gem from MEC Koleka Mqulwana, accusing me of holding secret late night meetings with the people of Delft in order to whip up racial polarisation.
The exact opposite is true.
I went at night, in my own car, after I arrived home after a trip to Durban , in order to ensure that we were managing a potential disaster situation properly and to try to defuse the situation.
Again, where was the Province, the National Government and the ANC?They were likely issuing absurd statements, like MEC Mqulwana's, that in fact do what she falsely accuses me of doing - whipping up racial conflict.
Meanwhile MEC Mqulwana and the Premier were probably warmly tucked up in bed while DA public representatives were dealing with the problems of the ANC's making on the ground.
The reason for all their noise is obvious, Speaker.
The ANC has made such a mess of the N2 Gateway Project, and has made so many promises around this project, that it is now desperately trying to find someone else to blame for its failure.
But they will not succeed in their favourite game of scapegoating. Capetonians of all races know the truth.
The truth is that the cause of the racial polarisation in this project started in 2005, when the ANC was still in power in Cape Town , but desperately worried that they would lose the 2006 local government elections.
That is the real reason that the ANC started this major project and drove it through irregular procedures, benefiting several ANC crony companies through tenders in record time. The purpose was to pretend this would benefit its own supporters, and as visibly as possible along the highway, so that the ANC's disillusioned support base would have reason to come out and vote the ANC back into power in 2006, despite that party's dismal record in the City.
This was all a big con trick of course.
In the run-up to that election, the ANC promised that the N2 Gateway would produce 22 000 houses before 2006. The result was the same as all its promises.It delivered 700 flats in Joe Slovo, and about 16 houses in New Rest.That is 3% of what was originally promised. That symbolises the ANC in government.
And worst of all, Speaker, those housing units, on well located land near to town, were allocated exclusively to middle class people while the poor residents of Joe Slovo, who had previously endured repeated fires and other miseries, were pushed 15 kilometres away, to the perimeter of the City.Amazingly, only one original Joe Slovo family qualified for a flat in the project.
The rest have been left to the pitiless mercy of Thubelisha Homes, who have dismally failed in their management tasks to communicate or facilitate the allocations process.
They have even stubbornly failed to keep the City informed, despite the fact that we nominally chair the allocations process.
It is my strong contention that had Thubelisha Homes done its job properly, communicating and explaining the beneficiary list allocations transparently and properly, these invasions could have been avoided.
Instead they aggravated the impression of massive favouritism through their secrecy and issue avoidance.
They behaved exactly like the ANC, which is not surprising, because just as the anger and resentment in Delft was reaching its peak in December, the CEO of Thubelisha was in Polokwane at the ANC's conference instead of being on the ground dealing with a crisis of his company's making.
That just proves exactly how much the Thubelisha process is an extension of the ANC.
That is why the ANC and Thubelisha have helped to pit community against community in the struggle for the Delft houses offered in a scheme that massively favours shack dwellers, who had only recently been included on the housing database, over backyarders, some of whom had been on the waiting list for over 20 years.
It was a recipe for conflict, and I warned of this from the start.
When we inherited this project, we worked hard to change the grossly unfair allocation ratio of 80:20 in favour of one group over another. We were only partially successful, bringing it down to a still hopelessly unfair 70:30 ratio. When I continued to protest the inequities and injustices of this project, I was kicked off it by the national Minister, but typically, this did not stop her from blaming the City at every turn for all the project's failures.
Despite the fact that the City had been removed from the project, the government demanded the transfer of the City's best located housing land, and when I protested, I was repeatedly accused of blocking housing delivery.
The subsequent transfer of the land under extreme duress has done nothing to accelerate housing delivery.
On the contrary, our best land has been allocated to a project that is unviable, designed to generate conflict, and that allocates many times the available housing subsidy per family to middle class housing, that could and should be delivered through financial institutions and developers without state subsidies, while the poor are marginalised and disadvantaged further.
When I made an appointment to see the Minister and warn her of latent conflict in the project, she granted me an interview but failed to arrive, leaving me to wait in vain for two hours.
I also met with representatives from Thubelisha homes to discuss the allocation process in an attempt to avoid conflict. All of this was fruitless. In the normal arrogant way, the ANC/Thubelisha coalition dismissed us, failed to provide the information we required, continued on the fateful path, and then tried to blame us when things went wrong, as we will again see here today.
It has taken me weeks of asking to actually get a beneficiary list out of the Province and Thubelisha. I am now insisting on an audit of the people actually in the homes to ensure that we have been given the right list.
Let me say it plainly, Speaker: It is the ANC's policy, arrogance and incompetence that lies at the root of this tragedy.
But their approach of providing houses for a small group of elite, well-connected people should not surprise us at all.
It is exactly the same as their so-called transformation policy that provides jobs to a small group of politically well-connected cronies instead or broadening opportunities for all.Their jobs for pals approach resulted in the Eskom crisis.
Their houses for pals approach has resulted in the Delft tragedy. That is the truth, Speaker.
If they had spent the money that was allocated to the N2 Gateway flats on creating housing opportunities for the poor, we could now have delivered 2100 such opportunities, enough to accommodate the fire victims of Joe Slovo and the families currently living in misery along the road and in the sand at Delft today.That is the reality.
Instead the N2 Gateway has left poor people of all races and in all places, extremely angry and alienated.
The people still living in shacks in Joe Slovo are angry because instead of getting the houses promised to them, they are being forced to make way for homes they can't afford.
They protested violently on the N2 last year, and took the Housing Minister to the Cape High court.
The people from Joe Slovo living in Delft houses are angry because they were told they would be able to move back to the Joe Slovo flats.
But now they can't afford them, and have to stay where they are.
The people living in backyards in Delft are angry because the shack dwellers from Joe Slovo are getting preference over them.
They have been waiting for up to 30 years on the housing list, while the Joe Slovo shack dwellers have waited as little as 4 years.
Even the people who moved into the flats in Joe Slovo are angry, because they cannot afford the rent being charged. They marched to Parliament last year in protest.
Soon after becoming mayor I warned on each of the points above. It was all entirely predictable. And let me say here without any satisfaction at all: We will probably be seeing more community conflict over this project in the months and years ahead.
It is simply not feasible, in the context of a waiting list of over 400 000 extremely poor families, to start pumping billions of Rands of state subsidies into middle class housing for a small elite.
So it is not surprising that the ANC is looking for a scapegoat.
In fact, they should be thanking us, and especially Councillor Dan Plato , as the Housing MEC did in December.
They should be thanking us for the exceptional work done in trying to contain the chaos created by this policy while ANC Ministers and MECs, as well as the management of Thubelisha Homes were in Polokwane.
On the morning before the protest that led to the invasion of houses in Delft , Cllr Plato went to a volatile community meeting at great personal risk to try and stop the people from taking the law into their own hands. He became the target of their anger, as he tried to sort out the ANC's mess, and had to be escorted away by the police.Again I ask - where were the architects of this chaos - the national and provincial government and Tubelisha homes?They throw a match into a tinder box and walk away, leaving Dan Plato and the City to resolve the crisis, and then for good measure turn around and blame us for it.It is rich indeed.
The real lesson we need to learn is that the policy of houses for pals, just like its policy of jobs for pals, is dangerous and detrimental to our nation.
Unfortunately, I doubt that such a lesson will sink in.
The only way to ensure that Cape Town does not have more Delft-style conflicts in the future is for us to focus on helping as many people as possible, rather than trying to do a lot for the well-connected few.
This is the focus of this multi-party government.
And, contrary to the Premier's claims last week, we are spending our budgets on delivering housing opportunities, as Cllr Plato will outline in detail in a moment.
The Premier's claim that we are going to underspend our housing allocation from Province by R150 million is an outright fabrication.
We are projected to spend about 90% of our R450 million allocation for housing.
Premier Rasool's statement that the Province wants to take the housing function away from the City is also empty rhetoric from an increasingly empty vessel.
The Constitution does not allow a Provincial Government to take functions over from a municipality, unless it can be proven that a municipality cannot deliver.
However, the Multi-Party Government of Cape Town has delivered more housing opportunities than the ANC when it was in office. Here are the figures:

DA -2001/02: 4 110 housing opportunitiesDA - 2002/03: 9 729 housing opportunitiesANC - 2003/04: 1 808 housing opportunitiesANC - 2004/05: 3 469 housing opportunitiesANC/MPG - 2005/06: 4 585 housing opportunitiesMPG - 2006/7: 7 519 housing opportunities
Although there have been delays on some of our projects for 2008/9, we are projected to deliver at least 6000 housing opportunities by the end of the financial year.
This is still more than the ANC has ever delivered in Cape Town .
Having said that, it is nowhere near enough given the scale of the challenge - a backlog of 400 000 units.
We would be able to speed up the housing process significantly if the Provincial Government handed over all of the housing land it is sitting on, as the national Housing Act requires it to.
The Provincial Government holds over 434ha of vacant land in the eastern metropole alone, where demand is greatest. The National Government also holds about 150 ha of land in this area.
The only significant undeveloped piece of City land in the eastern metropole is ‘ The Hague ' in Delft , which is currently out on tender for development.
For further projects we have to purchase land from the private sector at extremely high land prices.
Meanwhile, instead of making its housing land available for the poor, the Provincial Government has started to sell its land to the private sector to make profits.
For example, in Blueberry Hill 75 ha was sold for R18 million. This could accommodate about 6000 houses, but only 500 units in this project are being planned for the poor.
The selling price of this land by Province to private developers is a real bargain at R250 000 per hectare while the City struggles to buy land within the urban edge for less than R1 million per hectare.The Province should be transferring their land to us so that we can extent housing delivery to the poor.It is a sick joke that the ANC claims to be a pro-poor party.
Why are they giving away our prime housing land to rich developers at bargain basement prices?I can make a few guesses.
By so doing, Province is undermining housing delivery to the poor in this City.
The Housing Act also requires Province to grant housing accreditation to this municipality.
Accreditation would speed up our delivery of housing by removing the red tape of Provincial approval processes for new City housing projects, and enable us to get access to more land.
So far the Housing MEC has blocked this process, and we have had to initiate a formal intergovernmental dispute.This has already wasted more than a year, but of course that is the ANC's purpose.They don't mind if the people suffer, as long as they can block the DA's delivery.
I met with Provincial and Local Government Minister Sydney Mufamadi this morning to address this matter.I am not in a mind to be patient because the people are suffering.We have met the criteria according to law, and now we MUST get accreditation.It is not discretionary.
Community conflicts over the shortage of housing will only get worse until we resolve these matters.
And I now move a proposal that I believe will resolve this matter in the issue of the N2 Gateway, Speaker.

Say no more...

Cheap housing maker opens PE office

2008-03-06T23:53:00.003+02:00

A company specialising in inexpensive construction technology for mass housing schemes has just established a new factory in Port Elizabeth.

The inventor, Hennie Botes, said that the decision to open the factory was based on reducing production costs, in order to capture the affordable and low-income housing market. According to Botes this is achieved by consolidating the supply chain involved in the construction of a whole house, and to offer a comprehensive supply entity.

Botes said that the concept came to him in 1986 while building a wall around his first home. The building process took up quite a bit of time and he investigated alternatives to reduce the construction time and still create a good quality wall.

According to Botes, Moladi is a low construction cost technology and has nothing to do with low-cost housing systems. The principle can be applied to any house, whether low-cost housing or for up market developments.

The concept is unique in that it forms all the walls in a building simultaneously. It is can be adapted to various design specifications, whether they are schools, homes, clinics or factories whist maintaining design aesthetics for social acceptability. - Property24.com

For more information contact:
Hennie Botes on 041 372 2152
or send an email
Click here to visit the website.

Caretaker for building Seta

2008-03-06T23:18:00.002+02:00

THE National Skills Authority is considering a recommendation that the construction education and training authority (Ceta) be placed under administration. The authority had begun to look closely at Ceta after the labour department’s performance management unit recommended it do so, Sam Morotoba, executive officer of the authority, said.Ceta has been wracked with financial problems since 2005, when it was discovered that employers and skills training providers had defrauded it of about R150m.

Ceta chairman Narius Moloto said yesterday a forensic team was steadily recovering the lost funds, and there was no basis to place the training body under administration. Ceta management had submitted documentation to prove it was on the road to financial recovery after a meeting with the authority last month, Moloto said.Ceta was R63,9m in credit by the third quarter of 2006-07 financial year.But Morotoba said the authority’s concerns for Ceta’s future were not only about its financial health. “Financial management is one thing, but there’s also meeting (statutory) targets and governance,” he said.“We will look at corrective measures they’ve put in place and only if the authority thinks these won’t help will we put Ceta under administration.” SA is crying out for construction and engineering skills amid a first industry boom in 30 years, and instability in Ceta, which is funded by a tax of 1% of payroll, has already caused problems in construction training.Last year, Ceta’s problems resulted in the Master Builders’ Association of SA investigating a scheme for its members to train construction workers without the authority’s help. - Caretaker for building Seta

How long before you realize that R150 million is missing out of your company? Or is it OK if it is not your funds?

Long wait ends for homes in Kagiso : Mail & Guardian Online

2008-03-06T00:47:00.001+02:00

Long wait ends for homes in Kagiso : Mail & Guardian Online: "More than 100 houses were finally received by Sinqobile residents in Kagiso on the West Rand after a housing project that began in 2003 was completed, the Gauteng housing department said on Sunday."

Project started in 2003 and 100 houses delivered in 2008...

Low-cost Cape govt homes falling apart

2008-03-06T00:09:00.002+02:00

Damp ceilings, cracked walls, bad plumbing and shoddy bricklaying are among the structural defects plaguing the owners of about 2 500 low-cost houses across the Cape Peninsula.

Poor workmanship on the part of inexperienced building contractors has been blamed for the defects, the Local Government Research Centre reports in its latest South African Local Government Briefing

The centre says an investigation by the National Home Builder's Registration Council (NHBRC) revealed widespread evidence of such defects.

According to the council's executive director of technical services, Jeffrey Mahachi, most of the 2 473 houses inspected late last year -- after numerous complaints from homeowners -- had structural defects that, if not addressed soon, may pose a serious threat to the lives of thousands of low-income homeowners.

Houses in nine areas -- including Guguletu, Manenberg, Mitchells Plain and Philippi -- were checked individually, and it was found that 98% of them had defects.

Although most of the houses had only minor structural defects -- which would not affect a home's structural integrity -- many of these "affect the habitability of these houses" and some would "end up being structural if not attended to in time", the registration council reported.

Using a scale of 0% to 100%, with 100% for a house without defects, most of the houses scored between 65% and 70%. In one area, the average was 30%.

The council said it would cost about R20-million to repair homes with major defects and about R15-million for those with minor defects. The total of R35-million is nearly twice the amount spent to build them. This excludes R10-million that has already been spent by the Cape Town municipality in recent years on short-term repairs.

The low-income rental houses were built in 2000 by the Cape Town Community Housing Company (CTCHC), in which the City of Cape Town and the National Housing Finance Corporation (NHFC) were equal partners.

The CTCHC has appealed to the city council for a contribution to the R35-million repair bill, the research centre reports.

The centre's head, Clive Keegan, says a report by the University of Cape Town found that the CTCHC had contravened building regulations. It was also recently reported that the municipality and the NHFC would spend R2,6-million fixing the structural problems.

In May last year, the council approved the appointment of a third social housing company, Communicare, to help it build 5 000 houses by 2008.

Meanwhile, serious defects have also been detected in virtually all of the 705 units completed six months ago as the first phase of the N2 Gateway housing project.

The N2 Gateway -- the national flagship pilot project for the government's comprehensive plan for the creation of sustainable human settlements -- was supposed to have provided 22 000 houses by last June, but has so far completed only 705 units, which have proved unaffordable for the potential tenants whom they are meant to house.

The controversy-ridden project has also overrun its initial budget by an estimated R135-million, with units that were originally budgeted to cost R80 000 eventually costing more than R130 000, the centre reports. -- I-Net Bridge

EC Housing MEC announces low-cost housing plan

2008-03-05T21:35:00.002+02:00

EASTERN Cape Housing MEC Thoko Xasa has responded to a tongue lashing from her national counterpart, by announcing a low-cost housing delivery turnaround plan for the province.

Recovering from a stern warning issued late last year by Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu that "somebody's head will be cut off" if the Eastern Cape Government did not create the capacity to spend its full housing budget, Xasa said this week her department would in the new financial year, beginning April 1:

Build 26000 quality houses of at least 40m2 each;
Repair badly built houses that are falling apart;
Continue to upscale the tempo and quality of housing delivery;
Win back the R500 million her department had to hand back to national government due to a lack of capacity in spending it;
Build a new database of material suppliers and emerging contractors;
Overhaul material supply chains; and
Create new payment options to eliminate cash flow problems.

Xasa made the announcement at a provincial housing summit at the Regent Hotel last week, which was attended by both building material suppliers and emerging contractors.

She vowed to win back every cent of the budget forfeited to build quality low-cost houses.

Xasa said 26000 units was a low target, but her commitment was also to repair houses that were badly built and even bulldoze them if necessary.

Xasa also met with suppliers during a morning-long session last Thursday to discuss high prices, the quality of building material and a process to standardise prices.

She urged all building material suppliers to register with the provincial government in terms of the National Home Builders Registration Council (NHBRC) in a bid to pull all stakeholders together to achieve her goal of "getting housing in the Eastern Cape back on track".

This would mean that every part in the supply chain material suppliers, contractors and sub contractors would now be regulated in terms of the NHBRC.

Last year Sisulu tore into the Eastern Cape Housing Department for what she called "a dismal effort" in building houses.

At the time she said housing in the province was in a crisis.

The R500m she took from the department was redirected to the Northern and Western Cape as the two provinces had demonstrated capacity to use their budgets effectively.

Xasa said yesterday national government would make good on the promise she received from Sisulu that her department would be reimbursed when they have built the capacity to spend their budget.

Xasa warned municipalities who were showing little success in housing delivery programmes.

"We will take it back (the money and contracts to build houses at local government level) and reallocate funds.The payment of suppliers and contractors will also be overhauled in consultation with both groups.

New supply chain options for both suppliers and contractors are being finalised at the moment and will be ready for implementation with the new provincial housing building plan by April 1.

The Democratic Alliance in the province congratulated Xasa on her initiative to invite stakeholders to a planning strategy. - Daily Dispatch

Affordable housing maker opens PE office

2008-03-04T14:00:00.003+02:00

A company specialising in inexpensive construction technology for mass housing schemes has just established a new factory in Port Elizabeth.

The inventor, Hennie Botes, said that the decision to open the factory was based on reducing production costs, in order to capture the affordable and low-income housing market. According to Botes this is achieved by consolidating the supply chain involved in the construction of a whole house, and to offer a comprehensive supply entity.

Botes said that the concept came to him in 1986 while building a wall around his first home. The building process took up quite a bit of time and he investigated alternatives to reduce the construction time and still create a good quality wall.

According to Botes, Moladi is a low construction cost technology and has nothing to do with low-cost housing systems. The principle can be applied to any house, whether low-cost housing or for up market developments.

The concept is unique in that it forms all the walls in a building simultaneously. It is can be adapted to various design specifications, whether they are schools, homes, clinics or factories whist maintaining design aesthetics for social acceptability. - Property24.com

For more information contact Hennie Botes on 041 372 2152 or send an email.
Click here to visit the website.

Affordable housing target 'needs miracle'

2008-03-03T22:31:00.003+02:00

It will "require a miracle" if the eThekwini municipality - which embraces Durban and its surrounding areas - is to meet its "far-fetched" target of eradicating Durban's housing backlog by 2010, says the council's housing committee chairman S'bu Gumede.

His comments were reported in the SA Local Government Briefing released by the SA Local Government Research Centre headed by Alderman Clive Keegan. The centre is based in Cape Town.

The centre reported that Gumede told a recent committee meeting that the municipality's housing department would need to build twice as many houses every year if it planned to meet its goal within the next seven years. The council is currently building 16,000 homes a year.

The city's housing department head, Cogie Pather, said it was also under pressure to build bigger houses for the poor. At present, the municipality builds 30m2 houses but might have to increase this to between 36m2 and 40m2 to meet new national guidelines, the centre reported.

Gumede asked Pather to return to the committee with a presentation on the city's building programme. He also asked Pather to assess whether building 32,000 houses a year would be feasible. – I-Net Bridge

Department of Housing aims for practical solutions to meet 2014 deadline for eradication of slums

2008-02-24T22:08:00.005+02:00

The Department of Housing has eight years left to meet its objective of having “a nation free of slums by 2014” and it is a deadline it intends to meet. In his state of the nation address President Thabo Mbeki said government remained committed in intensifying the housing programme.

President Mbeki said government needed to speed up the eradication and upgrading of informal settlements in SA, in line with the Millenium Development Goals of 2015. He added that this fast tracking must integrate communities and build a non racial society.

In September 2006 the Department of Housing recorded having delivered over 2, 2 million houses housing an estimated 8, 4 million people. The department has also managed to have 300,000 new subsidies allocated in the past two years.

This however has not made enough of an impact on the 2,4 million backlog, of which 800 000 people are said to be already on the approved housing subsidy waiting list.

Minister of Housing Lindiwe Sisulu said urbanization in South Africa which is said to have grown to 58 % in the last 10 years and contributes an annual 200 000 more people into the backlog, was one of the challenges the department faced. Increasingly people are following the money, and are migrating to provinces with better job opportunities and add to the burden of accommodation.

The Comprehensive Plan for the Creation of Sustainable Human Settlements introduces a new paradigm in the development of settlements and focuses on the development of integrated delivery of housing opportunities. The progressive realisation of the objectives of the Comprehensive Plan will ensure that SA is a country that lives and works together – sharing benefits of freedom through access to economic and social advantages.

There is a need to double the number of houses built per financial year in order to eradicate informal settlements by 2014. To respond to this challenge the Department of Housing is investigating ways to accelerate delivery through a Housing Development Agency. The agency will develop, manage and co-ordinate the development of housing across the country, including identification and purchase of suitable land for integrated housing development.

The Department is also exploring other sources of funding for accelerated housing delivery and the restructuring of the current funding mechanism for purposes of consolidating all housing related subsidies.

“As we finalise legislation to prevent further squatting and invasions, we are also prioritising metropolitan areas and large cities for interventions (funding and capacitation) that seek to fast-track upgrading of informal settlements and ensure national spatial restructuring. The establishment of a Land Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to acquire and package prime land for housing and human settlements purposes is at an advanced stage,” said Minister.

She said companies such as Anglo Platinum had demonstrated that employers could contribute effectively to the provision of affordable rental and ownership homes for their employees. Through the Social Contract, we will continue to engage more employers in order to work with them to provide decent affordable homes for their employees.

“Whilst we celebrate the current delivery rate, the phenomenon of rapid urbanization is one of the most challenging social developments of our time. This is because none had anticipated the huge consequences that would flow from the process. Its biggest impact was that it resulted in increased poverty (a process called the urbanization of poverty) and the proliferation of slums in the urban areas. Clearly, despite the impressive delivery we have not made a significant dent into homelessness. And the truth of the matter is that the backlog keeps increasing in the meanwhile,” said Minister.

Minister Sisulu said the eradication of informal settlements meant that government and the private sector would have to now, more than ever, make a reality of the Social Contract commitments to aid the removal of slums in SA. The Department of Housing plans to increase the current annual churn of houses from 250,000 per annum to 500,000.

Nearly two years ago the Department of Housing agreed on a “fluid formula” for low cost housing quotas with the South African Property Owners Association (Sapoa) that would see a policy being set by the department ensuring that a percentage of all commercial developments not intended for low cost housing would have a percentage allocated.

“The department is still engaging with stakeholders to have a policy on inclusionary housing drafted, and we plan to have the process complete before the end of this year. It would initially have a percentage of between 10% to 20%. After five years it would become law that all developments have a fixed percentage of inclusionary housing as part of their developments,” said Minister. - Housing.gov.za

Administrative delays put Makana projects in limbo

2008-02-19T12:35:00.002+02:00

HUNDREDS of millions of rands in development and scores of jobs are being put on hold or lost in the Makana municipality because of administrative delays.

Builders and developers say they are facing hold-ups of up to three years to get plans passed.

As a consequence, a number of potential investors have taken their money elsewhere, while one businessman, a multi-millionaire, has threatened to “leave town”.

“This is harming builders, professionals, tradesmen and job creation,” said a local professional, who was afraid of being named.

Municipal spokesman Thandy Matebese was unavailable for comment.

However, the man at the centre of the row, Makana town planner Renier van der Merwe, said last year that he was overwhelmed by work, and that builders in recent years had tried to bypass his office and authority.

To illustrate this, he took this reporter to a poorly constructed building behind the taxi rank in the centre of town, which is turning into a slum.

Van der Merwe, an articulate man who is a magician in his spare time, said he was short-staffed and working late into the night to try to get through the work load, but was losing the battle of the files.

However, builders say its not good enough that good projects are gathering dust at the municipality.

Attorney Brin Brody, of Wheeldon, Rushmere &0x0026; Cole, said the municipality was found to be at fault by Judge Bonisile Sandi, who, on January 23, ruled in favour of land surveyor Peter Sulter, of MEH Sulter and Son.

Brody asked the court to order the council to make a decision on 23 applications for rezoning and sub-divisions, which would result in scores of homes and business premises being built. The Brody applications alone were for projects worth about R270- million.

The Makana council did not oppose the application and lost with costs estimated to be around R60000.

Last week, a special mayoral land housing and infrastructural development committee met, followed by a mayoral executive meeting, resulting in a decision on 11 out of the 23 Sulter projects. Six projects were approved, but it was reliably learnt that “the developers have lost interest” in at least three of the remaining projects.

“I will take my money elsewhere,” a developer is believed to have said.

A meeting with Mayor Pumelelo Kate and acting municipal manager Thabiso Klaas is expected to be held soon which, it was hoped, will speed things up. - The Herald

Life‘s a battle in Govan Mbeki township

2008-02-18T09:39:00.001+02:00

THEY live under the name of ANC stalwart Govan Mbeki, but the lives they lead are far from the promised land of milk and honey he fought for.

Instead they wait, in vain, for someone to come and help them with their problems.

In Govan Mbeki township, barefoot children play in stagnant pools of algae and mosquito-infested water, while elsewhere, streams from broken water pipes erode building foundations and flood shacks.

Cement block “RDP” houses, less than 10 years old, are cracked beyond repair, their roofs, on the verge of collapsing, propped up with a few loose timbers.

Linah Moltina is a 65-year-old retired domestic worker and grandmother who has taken it upon herself to try and change the situation.

In a mixture of limited Afrikaans and isiXhosa, she explains how, to no avail, she has been trying to get the municipality to come and sort out the problems for over two years.

“They come here in their fancy cars. They look at the water and say, ‘Yes we must fix this‘, and then they disappear, never to be seen again,” she says, as we walk, slipping and sliding up the hill alongside a stream of fresh water.

Moltina is unperturbed by the mud. She hops along a makeshift boardwalk of planks and old matting with the ease that comes only with time.

The first stop is her house – the source of the river running down the middle of the aptly named Wellington Street. An underground pipe has apparently burst behind her house, the water running now for nearly a year.

“The municipality came here at the beginning of last year and dug up the ground. They saw the burst pipe and said, ‘Yes, we will have to fix this‘.” Moltina says they never came back. After two weeks, she filled the hole with the help of her neighbours, so that her children and grandchildren wouldn‘t fall in and hurt themselves.

She takes me to the back of the house, the source of the problem, and shows me her home‘s main electricity cable, running straight into what has now become an ankle-deep pond.

Though the wire is insulated, she says her lights keep shorting because of the water.

I can‘t help noticing one of her grandchildren sitting in the same pool of water, washing his clothes, unaware of how a tiny sheath of plastic is all that‘s keeping him from being electrocuted.

A little further up the hill, Moltina stops in the backyard of another house, where a depression in the ground behind a recently installed outside toilet has become a stagnant pool of water.

“If you listen you can hear the pipe roaring ... this used to be a fountain of water until we filled the hole,” she says.

Moltina‘s youngest granddaughter, Zanele Majweda, walks with us.

“There are at least eight houses with broken pipes in this area,” she says.

Zanele takes us to Mtimkhulu Street, past RDP houses that are literally falling apart.

Moltina stops and points to some of the houses.

“These toilets are all blocked. If someone needs the toilet,” she points up the hill, “they have to go up there and ask if they can use theirs,” she says.

Past more running streams of water, eroded roads and mud, we find Nelikhaya Nxele, although he prefers to be called China.

The plumbing providing water to his family‘s outside toilet broke three months ago, causing water to flood into a back yard shack.

“No one can use this room anymore, because of the water,” he says as he unlocks the door and shows the waterlogged bedding lying on the floor. The bottom of the shack‘s corrugated walls are rusted through, raising questions about how long it will remain standing.

Our walk back to the car takes us past yet another broken RDP house. The family who lived here have given up the fight – the roof is gone and all that remains are a few bricks marking the outer walls.

“Those who have money have been able to build better houses for themselves, but we who have nothing, get nothing,” says Moltina, when I comment on some of the sounder structures in the area.

Moltina said that before she received her RDP house there had been similar problems in the area.

“We‘ve had problems here since before 1994, but we were always told things are going to get better. I‘m not afraid anymore. People like me are seen as trouble-stirrers and they will want to kill me for talking about our problems. That‘s how they deal with these problems,” she said. - The Herald

R2bn housing scandal

2008-02-16T21:16:00.002+02:00

FRAUD and corruption by developers in collusion with housing department officials are among the key factors for the collapse of hundreds of low-cost housing projects throughout the country.

As a result, the government is now spending more than R2 billion to refinance the completion of the low-cost houses that were abandoned by unscrupulous developers across the country since the dawn of democracy.

The problem has its roots in massive fraud scams by developers who colluded with some of the country’s housing department officials to siphon off millions of rands for work not done. City Press

IOL: State aims to give housing to poor by 2014

2008-02-16T21:12:00.001+02:00

IOL: State aims to give housing to poor by 2014

Government aims to speed up delivery of housing for the poor and have all persons accommodated in formally planned settlements by 2014, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said on Wednesday.

BuaNews Online homepage

2008-02-16T21:06:00.001+02:00

BuaNews Online homepage

The province has 13 municipalities with municipal managers employed in acting capacities and nine do not have Chief Financial Officers and this is seen as an obstacle to effective service delivery.

Eastern Cape housing sidesteps auditor

2008-02-15T23:05:00.000+02:00

THE Eastern Cape housing, local government and traditional affairs department has failed to act on issues raised repeatedly by the auditor-general since the 2003-04 financial year, according to a Public Service Accountability Monitor study.

The governance monitoring body’s study revealed that the department’s 2006-09 annual performance plan failed to address audit queries and did not state what measures would be taken to improve poor financial management.

Eastern Cape is one of the poorest provinces in the country and about 800000 people are in need of reconstruction and development programme houses.

Although the department had improved its control over the conditional grant — resulting in it getting a qualified audit opinion instead of a disclaimer for three consecutive years — there had been no improvement in its debt and asset management.

The department took over the administration of rental housing from the provincial housing board in 2001. However, by the end of the 2006-07 financial year, the department had still not determined the exact number of houses and their value, the study said.

“The auditor-general also noted that there is housing debt amounting to R18,5m, but that the ‘recoverability of this amount is doubtful as it contains significant arrears’.”

It said that in 2005-06, the auditor-general highlighted the same concern with regard to the housing stock transferred to the department in 2001.

“In addition, he noted that related to these rental houses was debt of R21,1m. Again, the auditor-general stated the recoverability of this amount was ‘doubtful’,” the study noted.

The same issues were mentioned by the auditor-general in 2003-04 and 2004-05.

The study found the repetition of the auditor-general’s findings and a further wide range of issues raised the concern that the department had failed to adequately plan and improve its performance in respect of housing debt, and asset and conditional grant management.

“These are all important areas that affect the department’s ability to deliver houses effectively and efficiently,” the study read.

It said the MEC and other responsible officials should take action against officials responsible for the continued state of affairs.

The department had also failed to act on repeated recommendations made by portfolio committees on skills shortages and vacancy rates.

In May and November 2006, the committees repeatedly told the department to urgently fill vacant posts, primarily related to the housing programme to ensure housing delivery, and asked the department to submit a recruitment plan and quarterly update reports

The study said the department’s response was that it was filling vacant posts and it included a timetable for a number of posts. - Business Day - News Worth knowing

iafrica.com | news | sa news R126m for low-cost housing squandered

2008-02-10T12:28:00.000+02:00

iafrica.com news sa news R126m for low-cost housing squandered

About R126-million in state funds meant for construction of low-cost housing has been squandered by corrupt officials and developers since 1997, Housing Minister Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele said on Wednesday.
She said in Pretoria a task team she appointed earlier this year identified about 100 cases in several provinces involving corruption.
Out of these, 26 were dealt with urgently as they involved millions of rands of public funds spent fraudulently.
"Seven of these cases have been finalised and a report shows that there is prima facie evidence of fraud and corruption," the minister told reporters.
Mthembi-Mahanyele said eight people, among them contractors, developers and departmental officials from Limpopo and Gauteng have been apprehended so far and more arrests were imminent.
"These arrests go to show that we will not tolerate the abuse by officials of their positions for personal gain," she said.
"Anyone found demanding or accepting bribes of other favours, including sexual favours, as we have heard, will go to jail."
Mthembi-Mahanyele gave the task team's evidence, which was in two sealed boxes, to National Director of Public Prosecution Bulelani Ngcuka for further investigation and prosecution.
Ngcuka said: "Having received the forensic report, my authority will now prioritise the investigation of these offences.
"We are determined that these crimes against the poor will not go unpunished."

Please do tell? How many have been prosecuted to date?

Cuban experts to assist building sector

2008-02-08T10:35:00.000+02:00

A group of 51 construction experts have
arrived in South Africa from Cuba to assist
the country's skills shortage in the building
sector.
The arrival of the experts follows the signing
of a Memorandum of Agreement between
South African Minister of Public Works,
Thoko Didiza and Cuban Minister of
Construction, Fidel Segeroa de la Paz, in July
2007.
The agreement entailed South Africa
employing Cuban technical advisors in the
fields of architecture, engineering, project
management and other fields in the building
and property industries, a move necessitated
by a shortage of skills in the country.
Welcoming the experts on Friday, the
minister said South Africa has always been
aware that it can bank on a mutually
beneficial relationship with the Cubans. "The
Cubans understand the responsibility they
carry in the country and do not see it as a
bargain but responsibility for building
humanely in the world," said Minister Didiza.
She said recruiting these experts is one way
of dealing with the crisis of lack of skilled
artisans to carry out all the massive
infrastructure projects.

"At the launch of Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition
(JIPSA), Deputy President, Phumzile-Mlambo-Ngcuka
formally declared a skills crisis with particular reference to the
type of skills required by built (building) environment
professions," said Ms Didiza.
She said the 10 percent per annum
growth rate in the building sector is
unfortunately being hobbled badly by
skills and capacity problems in terms of
skilled personnel in the sector.
"The challenge is to get as quickly as
possible the largest numbers of skilled
artisans and professionals into the sector and that is why we
believe that the arrival of these Cuban technical advisors will
help us to achieve quick wins in the short term and create a
base of skilled professionals for the long term," the minister
said.
The Cuban technical advisors will be working on a three-year
contract. They will be located throughout the country where
they will impart technical skills and interact with provincial
MEC's.
Some advisors will remain in the head offices to impart skills
and mentor interns.
Source: BauNews (Tshwane) - 27/1/2008

Why import foreigners who know nothing about South African conditions and infrastructure. It will take them 3 years to learn what to do in SA and by then they wll be sent back - what a waste of time and money when the expertize exist here in SA - just look at moladi

ABSA to provide 100,000 low cost homes by 2010 - South Africa - The Good News

2008-02-07T21:06:00.000+02:00

ABSA to provide 100,000 low cost homes by 2010 - South Africa - The Good News

ABSA to provide 100,000 low cost homes by 2010 - South Africa - The Good News: "Steve Booysen"
Monday, 02 April 2007
ABSA has committed R2.6 billion to provide 100,000 low cost homes in South Africa by 2010. Speaking at the handing over of more than 200 government subsidised houses, ABSA Chief Executive Officer Steve Booysen said the R2.6 billion was the bank's contribution towards sustainable human settlements for the nation. "By 2010, ABSA will be involved in 100,000 homes in collaboration and consultation with the national housing ministry, provincial governments and local governments. "We will have at least one project for every province and two to three projects for every metro," he said. The bank is doing this to ensure every family in South Africa has security of place where they can establish their roots and from which create a better life, said Booysen. "We know that a South Africa where every family has a real home, savings in the bank for a rainy day and a reliable income in their old age is a South Africa where pride has meaning." South Africa's major banks in 2005 entered into a memorandum of understanding with government that would result in R42 billion being spent on low cost housing. ABSA has also set aside R400 million to develop the Olievenhoutbosch housing project, in the informal area south of Pretoria. The project, to be completed by 2008 would result in 5,400 homes built, with 1,200 being bonded, 3,000 subsidised and 1,200 rental homes on 180 hectares of land. These investments, said Booysen, were also part of the bank's investments in the infrastructure investments. "We regard urban renewal through residential development as wise infrastructure development, because wise infrastructure investment helps to make development sustainable." An example is Brickfields apartments complex in Newtown, Johannesburg, where ABSA has funded 35 percent of the R100 million residential project. Brickfields, he said, was a typical example of a public private partnership that works for the benefit of individual families. The project is to benefit 727 families providing a return on the bank's investment and at the same time improving the quality of life. A memorandum of understanding has been signed by the bank and the Gauteng provincial government to deliver 7,500 units in Droogeheuwel and Midddelvlei in the Randfontein Local Municipality. About 2,600 hectares of land have also been acquired by the bank to be used for affordable housing in Soshanguve, north of Pretoria. "This project will allow in excess of 65,000 residential homes in mixed mode developments to be developed in phases over about five years," said Booysen. The development, he said, will make a big contribution towards eradicating shacks and other informal dwellings by 2014. Housing minister Lindiwe Sisulu said the bank's dedication to the provision of housing would go a long way in providing a roof over the head of many South Africans. Source: BuaNews

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ABSA to provide 100,000 low cost homes by 2010 - South Africa - The Good News

2008-02-07T21:05:00.000+02:00

Bill Gates Issues Call For Kinder Capitalism - WSJ.com

2008-02-03T17:45:00.000+02:00

Bill Gates Issues Call For Kinder Capitalism - WSJ.com:

Free enterprise has been good to Bill Gates. But today, the Microsoft Corp. chairman will call for a revision of capitalism.In a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the software tycoon plans to call for a "creative capitalism" that uses market forces to address poor-country needs that he feels are being ignored.
In particular, he said, he's troubled that advances in technology, health care and education tend to help the rich and bypass the poor. "The rate of improvement for the third that is better off is pretty rapid," he said. "The part that's unsatisfactory is for the bottom third -- two billion of six billion."

Video link - http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid452319854?bctid=1380790692

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is often depicted as a pyramid consisting of five levels: the four lower levels are grouped together as being associated with physiological needs, while the top level is termed growth needs associated with psychological needs. Deficiency needs must be met first. Once these are met, seeking to satisfy growth needs drives personal growth. “Physiological needs - These are the basic animal needs for such things as food, warmth, shelter, sex, water, and other body needs The higher needs in this hierarchy only come into focus when the lower needs in the pyramid are satisfied. Once an individual has moved upwards to the next level, needs in the lower level will no longer be prioritized.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow

The objective of moladi (http://www.moladi.com/) is to address this fundamental need SHELTER. How? Lack of resources, insufficient funds, skills shortage, time constraints, work flow control and waste are key challenges embodied in affordable housing shortages. Our technology addresses these issues and this is why individuals and organisations recognise and implement moladi as the solution to housing needs throughout the world. Esteem needsAll humans have a need to be respected, to have self-esteem, self-respect, and to respect others. People need to engage themselves to gain recognition and have an activity or activities that give the person a sense of contribution, to feel accepted and self-valued, be it in a profession or hobby. Imbalances at this level can result in low self-esteem, inferiority complexes. People with low self-esteem need respect from others. They may seek fame or glory, which again depends on others. However confidence, competence and achievement only need one person and everyone else is inconsequential to one's own success. It may be noted, however, that many people with low self-esteem will not be able to improve their view of themselves simply by receiving fame, respect, and glory externally, but must first accept themselves internally.

The objective of moladi (http://www.moladi.com/) is to address this fundamental need ESTEEM. How? We supply technology and support transfer of know-how to empower individuals to achieve worth, by meaningful action to raise those at the “bottom of the pyramid” to a higher level.

The Herald Online News

2008-01-22T07:12:00.000+02:00

The Herald Online **News**

Zanemvula in disarray with 600 new houses defective
Max Matavire METRO EDITOR
ONE of Nelson Mandela Bay‘s biggest housing developments yet, the controversial R1-billion Zanemvula settlement, is in disarray amid revelations that 600 of the homes are defective and claims that the project managers are trying to cut corners by building smaller houses.
The problems threaten to push the development into the same sort of bureaucratic quagmire as Cape Town‘s troubled N2 Gateway project – which now has the same contractor. Like the Gateway project, Zanemvula was launched on the instructions of the national government.
A technical audit conducted on the durability of houses already built by the municipality before the project was taken over by state-owned developer Thubelisha has revealed that the 600 defective houses have to be either corrected or completely destroyed before the developer builds further houses.
The project has been hit by various problems, ranging from allegations of lack of capacity by Thubelisha to tackle such a project, to allegations of political interference and the involvement of many role players in one project.
The aim is to resettle people currently living in the floodplains in and near Soweto-on-Sea, Veeplaas and Chatty.
Houses were supposed to be completed by December last year, but no foundations have yet been dug as contractors are only now being appointed.
Thubelisha, the newly appointed project managers, are being accused of now wanting to change the project specifications and the scope of the work by reducing the size of the units to speed up construction, but still getting the agreed amount.
The project involves the construction of about 1 700 units.
Thubelisha provincial manager Nicholas Tsewu yesterday declined to comment.
The municipality yesterday denied allegations by certain contractors that the project had stalled, but admitted that there were problems.
Municipal housing and land executive director Seth Maqetuka, yesterday said work and planning on the project was going on.
“Thubelisha are appointing contractors. There are issues which must be sorted out first before they can start,” he said.
Maqetuka revealed that, following a technical audit by the National Housing Building Research Centre, it was found out that some houses built by the municipality were faulty.
Maqetuka said: “The municipality is the developer, and Thubelisha the project managers. A technical audit conducted by the NHBRC on houses built by the municipality in Chatty Extensions 3 and 4 before the project was handed over to Thubelisha, found out that about 600 units are defective.
“Some are still under construction. These are additional problems which Thubelisha is inheriting. There are structural defects, and the foundations have problems. The NHBRC has recommended that some of the units be rectified and some completely demolished,” Maqetuka said.
He also expressed concern that there would be financial implications. This new problem had to be addressed before Thubelisha started building. The houses were built by six different emerging contractors appointed by the municipality.
Maqetuka said an urgent meeting between the municipality, the provincial government, Thubelisha and the NHBRC was being arranged.
The project was initiated by President Thabo Mbeki in 2003. Mbeki asked Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu to arrange for the removal of the people from such conditions.