Premier Helen Zille and national housing department officials are blaming each other for blocking housing delivery after the transfer of 1 000 hectares of land, owned by the province, to the newly-formed Housing Development Agency (HDA).
Worth R500 million but transferred free, it includes sections of the Porter Estate in Constantia, Oude Molen, Plumstead, Ravensmead, Philippi and George. Zille says some of it could be used to temporarily house flood victims.
At a press conference on Friday, Zille said the provincial government was seeking legal opinion after the transfer of the land by then premier Lynne Brown's administration a day before the election that unseated the ANC from governing the province.
But Department of Human Settlements director-general Itumeleng Kotsoane said the land had been transferred only after then housing minister Lindiwe Sisulu had written to Brown asking for its release.
Kotsoane said the reason for this had been because the Democratic Alliance-led Cape Town City Council had "taken away" land which had been earmarked for the N2 Gateway in 2005 when it took over from the ANC in March, 2006.
He said the transferred land would be used to "expand" the reach of the N2 Gateway project, which a recent report tabled by the auditor-general in Parliament stated had not been properly managed.
Prince Xhanti Sigcawu, general manager for the government's soon-to-be-wound-up housing parastatal Thubelisha Homes, said Zille's argument was based on the granting of housing accreditation to the Cape Town City Council.
"In February, 2006, everyone (the City of Cape Town, provincial government and national government) took a decision that Thubelisha Homes would lead housing delivery in the city.
"We have not failed in delivering houses - this is just a political game being played (by Zille)," Sigcawu said.
He said charges by the provincial government that the transfer could have been illegal were open to interpretation.
Sigcawu said: "There's no way that government would implement this knowing that the transaction was illegal.
"The decision to give land to the HDA is because there's no other land that can be given to the N2 Gateway project."
He added that the project was envisaged to deliver 15 000 housing units by the end of the year and would ultimately seek to deliver between 22 000 and 30 000 housing units with the additional acquired land.
Zille's spokesman Robert MacDonald said the previous provincial government had held on to the land for years, contrary to the Housing Act, and should instead have transferred it to the council for development.
"The city has proven itself to have the capacity to deliver houses faster than any other sphere of government in the Cape Town region (doubling the rate of delivery over what the ANC provided in its three years in office).
"This is also clear considering that the City of Cape Town gets and invests 70 percent of all the housing money allocated to this province each year," MacDonald said.
Brown said earlier there had been no secrecy around the deal as it had been raised in Parliament and in the media.
Former Housing MEC Whitey Jacobs said "Zille's bluster" masked a fundamental issue that the DA did not want low-cost housing developed in such a way that it broke down racially-exclusive suburbs.
- Cape Times
Worth R500 million but transferred free, it includes sections of the Porter Estate in Constantia, Oude Molen, Plumstead, Ravensmead, Philippi and George. Zille says some of it could be used to temporarily house flood victims.
At a press conference on Friday, Zille said the provincial government was seeking legal opinion after the transfer of the land by then premier Lynne Brown's administration a day before the election that unseated the ANC from governing the province.
But Department of Human Settlements director-general Itumeleng Kotsoane said the land had been transferred only after then housing minister Lindiwe Sisulu had written to Brown asking for its release.
Kotsoane said the reason for this had been because the Democratic Alliance-led Cape Town City Council had "taken away" land which had been earmarked for the N2 Gateway in 2005 when it took over from the ANC in March, 2006.
He said the transferred land would be used to "expand" the reach of the N2 Gateway project, which a recent report tabled by the auditor-general in Parliament stated had not been properly managed.
Prince Xhanti Sigcawu, general manager for the government's soon-to-be-wound-up housing parastatal Thubelisha Homes, said Zille's argument was based on the granting of housing accreditation to the Cape Town City Council.
"In February, 2006, everyone (the City of Cape Town, provincial government and national government) took a decision that Thubelisha Homes would lead housing delivery in the city.
"We have not failed in delivering houses - this is just a political game being played (by Zille)," Sigcawu said.
He said charges by the provincial government that the transfer could have been illegal were open to interpretation.
Sigcawu said: "There's no way that government would implement this knowing that the transaction was illegal.
"The decision to give land to the HDA is because there's no other land that can be given to the N2 Gateway project."
He added that the project was envisaged to deliver 15 000 housing units by the end of the year and would ultimately seek to deliver between 22 000 and 30 000 housing units with the additional acquired land.
Zille's spokesman Robert MacDonald said the previous provincial government had held on to the land for years, contrary to the Housing Act, and should instead have transferred it to the council for development.
"The city has proven itself to have the capacity to deliver houses faster than any other sphere of government in the Cape Town region (doubling the rate of delivery over what the ANC provided in its three years in office).
"This is also clear considering that the City of Cape Town gets and invests 70 percent of all the housing money allocated to this province each year," MacDonald said.
Brown said earlier there had been no secrecy around the deal as it had been raised in Parliament and in the media.
Former Housing MEC Whitey Jacobs said "Zille's bluster" masked a fundamental issue that the DA did not want low-cost housing developed in such a way that it broke down racially-exclusive suburbs.
- Cape Times
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