Most provinces have been massively underspending their housing budgets and, as the financial year reached its halfway mark last month, only 35 percent of R8,2-billion was spent on building houses, Parliament's housing portfolio committee heard on Tuesday.
The Western Cape and Mpumalanga were the only provinces that had overspent their budgets, while the Eastern Cape has spent only 26 percent of it's R1,52-billion housing allocation, the committee was told in a briefing by Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu and her senior officials...
The committee was told that reasons for the underspending included problems with payment systems and delays by municipalities in providing serviced sites. Poor performance by emerging contractors was also named as a reason for the underspending.
To tackle the problem, the department would shift funds to provinces that could spend the money, deputy director-general Mzi Dlabantu said.
This means a R443-million cut from the Eastern Cape being divided between KwaZulu-Natal and Western Cape, with R100-million each, and Northern Cape and Gauteng getting R123-million and R220-million respectively.
Sisulu said the Eastern Cape's huge underspending was related to a severe lack of capacity. A department, separate from local government and housing, would be formed to ensure this province spent its housing budget, she said.
"Some measures are not nice, but they have to be taken because they affect our people who need housing," she said.
DA MP Butch Steyn raised concerns about another reason for underspending, which according to the department, was untraced housing beneficiaries.
"If one looks at it logically, it's almost as if one has more houses than beneficiaries. Yet we know it is exactly the opposite. Surely if an identified beneficiary can't be found when a house is available, and if we have 2,2 million people without houses, there should be a way we can identify the next beneficiary," Steyn said.
Sisulu said: "We were worried a month ago that our expenditure patterns were really shocking, but after our Minmec (Minister and MECs) meeting we've agreed we need to find ways to resolve them (the problems).
"Budget relocation is a short- term plan. The long-term plan is that we need to ensure that in all spheres of government we have the necessary alignment with our process of Mig (Municipal Infrastructure Grant) funding in terms of allocations for housing," she said.
"We're entering a period in our calender year which is characterised by rain and flooding and fires. We hope we can deal with areas where people are living in shacks right now in areas not suitable for these conditions, and give them some kind of stability. They need to co-operate with us while we're trying to provide some temporary relief." - Cape Times
The Western Cape and Mpumalanga were the only provinces that had overspent their budgets, while the Eastern Cape has spent only 26 percent of it's R1,52-billion housing allocation, the committee was told in a briefing by Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu and her senior officials...
The committee was told that reasons for the underspending included problems with payment systems and delays by municipalities in providing serviced sites. Poor performance by emerging contractors was also named as a reason for the underspending.
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This means a R443-million cut from the Eastern Cape being divided between KwaZulu-Natal and Western Cape, with R100-million each, and Northern Cape and Gauteng getting R123-million and R220-million respectively.
Sisulu said the Eastern Cape's huge underspending was related to a severe lack of capacity. A department, separate from local government and housing, would be formed to ensure this province spent its housing budget, she said.
"Some measures are not nice, but they have to be taken because they affect our people who need housing," she said.
DA MP Butch Steyn raised concerns about another reason for underspending, which according to the department, was untraced housing beneficiaries.
"If one looks at it logically, it's almost as if one has more houses than beneficiaries. Yet we know it is exactly the opposite. Surely if an identified beneficiary can't be found when a house is available, and if we have 2,2 million people without houses, there should be a way we can identify the next beneficiary," Steyn said.
Sisulu said: "We were worried a month ago that our expenditure patterns were really shocking, but after our Minmec (Minister and MECs) meeting we've agreed we need to find ways to resolve them (the problems).
"Budget relocation is a short- term plan. The long-term plan is that we need to ensure that in all spheres of government we have the necessary alignment with our process of Mig (Municipal Infrastructure Grant) funding in terms of allocations for housing," she said.
Sisulu said the Western Cape's R100-million was specifically to move and house people who could be affected by natural disasters.
"We're entering a period in our calender year which is characterised by rain and flooding and fires. We hope we can deal with areas where people are living in shacks right now in areas not suitable for these conditions, and give them some kind of stability. They need to co-operate with us while we're trying to provide some temporary relief." - Cape Times
1 comment:
It'a all about getting the money spent - not getting the houses built. Imagine an entire department dedicated making sure that money is spent!!!!! An ENTIRE DEPARTMENT... for disbursing cheques? I cannot think of a better way to waste money
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