Fly-by-night BEE companies taking us to the cleaners - Sexwale

Housing minister says 40,000 RDP houses will have to come down because of poor workmanship

CAPE TOWN (Sapa) - Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale is working closely with Western Cape Premier Helen Zille to rectify mistakes made in the N2 Gateway Housing (N2GP) Project.

"Helen and I are working very close on this one," Sexwale told Parliament's portfolio committee on human settlements on Thursday.

"We said with the N2 let's bring everyone together. Let's check how the money is spent. Let's make sure no money is sent back.

Let's bring the city close to [the] project."

He and Zille, who he referred to as "my lady Zille" would work together to "sort out" any red-tape issues that arose.

"We believe in being inclusive," he said. "We don't play politics with the poor."

The aim of the N2GP was to provide housing adjacent to the N2 Highway, between Bhunga Avenue near Langa and Boys Town in Crossroads, but the project was plagued by irregularities and court challenges over evictions from the informal settlements it was supposed to replace.

Sexwale said the N2GP was a pilot programme and that he wanted to use the mistakes made in phase one as lessons for future housing projects.

"It is a pilot project. By definition every pilot project has mistakes.

"We are using the mistakes, shortcomings of what happened in phase one to improve other phases."

He said his predecessor in the department Defence Minister Lindiwe Sisulu was "brave" and should not be judged for the project's mistakes.

"It was a pilot project. Don't judge her on what happened. There were mistakes."

"You had to be a visionary to put that thing on the ground when there wasn't sufficient budget in the ministry."

Sexwale said the government had been taken to the cleaners by "fly-by-night" RDP housing contractors in housing projects around the country.

Sexwale said that around 40,000 RDP houses would have to come down because of poor workmanship, and that he would lose roughly ten percent of his budget to rebuilding the houses.

"Imagine what we could have done with it," he said.

"We don't have proper oversight. Contracts are just given. There are very good BEE companies, but there are few. The majority of these companies have taken this government and all of us here to the cleaners."

A pregnant woman was killed by one the poorly-built houses, he said

"She was caught while was having a moment of privacy in the toilet. She died with the baby.

"In KwaZulu-Natal, one boy died and two were seriously when a house collapsed on them."

Sexwale said he was working with Special Investigations Unit chief Willie Hofmeyr to bring corrupt housing officials "to book".

"We have already brought to book several thousands of people at national government level, where beneficiaries of government officials became fraudulent beneficiaries to houses," he said.

- PoliticsWeb