ACCOUNTING OFFICER’S OVERVIEW 

The Department of Human Settlements aims to meet government’s constitutional responsibility of ensuring that every South African has access to permanent housing that provides secure tenure, privacy, protection from the elements, and access to basic services. 

The Minister of Human Settlements presented a comprehensive plan for the development of sustainable human settlements to Cabinet in September 2004 following an intensive review of housing policy and a consultation process The plan is commonly known as “Breaking New Ground” or “BNG”

“BNG” builds on the housing policy outlined in the 1994 White Paper on Housing, and adds the imperative of ensuring that settlements are sustainable and habitable to the basic original goal of delivering affordable housing. The priorities of the plan are to: 

§             accelerate delivery of housing within the context of sustainable human settlements;

§             provision of housing within human settlements

§             provide quality housing to turn homes into assets;

§             create a single, efficient formal housing market; and

§             abolish apartheid spatial planning thereby restructuring and integrating human settlements. 

The housing backlog continues to grow despite the delivery of 1,831 million subsidised houses between 1994 and March 2005, as well as the servicing of 57 065 new sites and the building of 52 548 houses between April and September 2005

The department has started simplifying the administration of housing subsidies to accelerate housing delivery. The income qualification categories have been collapsed to allow all qualifying households to receive the same subsidy.

This has extended the reach of the housing programme by allowing households earning up to R7 000 per month (up from R3 500 per month) to qualify for housing subsidies and by upgrading informal settlements.

The “BNG” is being implemented through pilot projects in each of the nine provinces. The pilot projects will improve the living conditions of 103 000 households in informal settlements. The “BNG’s” prime objective is the eradication or upgrading of all informal settlements in the country by 2014/15.

To achieve the” BNG’s” medium-term objectives, the following interventions are proposed as the department’s strategic agenda for the medium term:

Improving the national housing subsidy scheme  

The Department has introduced a credit-linked subsidy to promote access to mortgage finance, thereby accelerating housing delivery and promoting the development of a single functioning housing market. The subsidy was designed as part of the Memorandum of Understanding signed by Minister Sisulu and the financial institutions. 

The Department has finalised a Social Housing Policy in recognition of the potential of achieving urban efficiency and renewal by constructing subsidised rental housing. This policy will be implemented by department and regulated by an authority (to be established). The policy introduces grants for developing, holding and managing the envisaged housing stock. 

Improve partnerships with the private sector and other housing stakeholders 

In addition to introducing a subsidy to encourage private lending in the affordable housing sector, the Department has encouraged the financial services sector to support the development of new housing finance products (including affordable fixed rate mortgages). This has been demonstrated by the launch of a number of human settlement projects by the main stream banks with the support of the department and Minister Sisulu,  

To ensure that private developers and contractors are simultaneously able to run profitable businesses, build affordable housing, and get paid on time, the Department is revising the project-linked housing subsidy scheme to introduce more flexibility in the phasing of projects and streamline the progress payment system. 

The number of active NGOs in the housing sector has declined dramatically in recent years. The Urban Sector Network was dissolved in 2005 and many of its former affiliates have since disbanded. This has eroded institutional capacity in the housing sector and weakens housing delivery by reducing capacity for advocacy and community consultation.In the short to medium term, the department has identified a number of NGOs in various provinces and is working closely with these NGOs to support their efforts in building a cohesive NGO Housing sector in South Africa. These NGOs include Development Action Group (DAG), Federation of Urban Poor (FEDUP), Built Environment Support Group (BESG), Kuyasa Fund, Utshani Fund and Rooftops among others. In the medium to long term, the Department is redefining how it would support and fund projects to strengthen its non-governmental housing partners to maximise and expedite housing delivery within the BNG. 

Improving the capacity to deliver and administer and regulate housing delivery 

Thubelisha Homes is been repositioned as a government Agency (under the Department of Human Settlements) to unblock delivery bottlenecks, project manage BNG projects and in certain instances to construct BNG homes within human settlements.

The Department will also prioritise implementation of capacity building initiatives in the provinces to administer national housing programmes. Additional funding has been allocated to support the accreditation of selected metropolitan municipalities in the medium term, in consultation with the relevant provinces 

The Department is reviewing the Management Information Systems of provincial human settlements departments and delivery agents with the goal of coordinating, streamlining and aligning complementary budgets and the development financial planning processes across the local, provincial and national housing departments. 

The mandates of the all the public entities reporting to the Minister of Human Settlements, are being reviewed with a view towards ensuring that all public resources are efficiently employed to deliver BNG.