Statement of correction on housing claims: Sunday Times

An unfortunate misperception on housing delivery has been created in the Sunday Times article “Tutu: Why I won’t vote” (5 October 2008), which quotes Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu as saying “the houses that were built in the apartheid years were better” than RDP houses.

The fact is that the apartheid government only built rental stock, not free houses as this democratic government is delivering. In fact, South Africa is the only country in the world where government gives free houses.

Today’s Breaking New Ground (BNG) houses are a minimum of 40 square metres and include two bedrooms, a full bathroom and a kitchen. These are the houses government is delivering for free to the poorest of the poor – not the “two windows, hardly any room” referred to.

Shortcomings in RDP housing led government in 2004 to put in place this BNG policy with the aim of creating sustainable, integrated and safe communities. Under BNG a variety of housing options are available from free houses, affordable bonded homes to social housing.

Since 1994, 2,6-million houses have been delivered, one million of which just in the past four years. In the past financial year just over 248 000 homes were delivered across the country. This means that since 1994 at least 13 million South Africans have received government-subsidised homes.

For further information, please call Marianne Merten, MLO, Housing Ministry, 078 801 9069