Pretoria, 24 March 2010: After two successive years of intervention in the Eastern Cape, the joint intervention task team established to improve housing delivery in the province will come to an end on March 2010.

Cabinet cited the decline in the ability of the Eastern Cape Department of Human Settlements to deliver on its mandate as the basis for the establishment of this intervention. The province had had a declining performance in housing delivery and expenditure over a period of three financial years in a row.

Thus a task team comprised of officials from the National Department of Human Settlements, their provincial counterparts and professionals from the private sector spanning different fields such as engineering, project management, town planning, land surveying and financial experts amongst others were then deployed to the Eastern Cape Department of Human Settlements.

This intervention team was divided into four operational streams, namely: Project Management stream, Organisational development and HR stream, Financial Management stream and the Administrative support stream.

Since the intervention started there has been some progress made in developing the capacity of the Eastern Cape Department of Human Settlement to deliver on housing. As of the end of December 2009, the province had spent R1, 063 billion as compared to R396 million spent the year before the intervention and in November of the 2008/09 financial year, the department had already completed 9742 houses with many others at varying stages towards completion, and 19 000 housing units are to be completed by the end of this financial year.

There are still some challenges that need to be addressed. The province still has challenges in the areas of strategic management, inadequate systems, multi-year implementable projects and policy implementation. There is however a commitment by the Provincial Department of Human Settlements to attend to these challenges supported by the National Department of Human Settlements through the intervention.

Issued by the National Department of Human Settlements on 24 March 2010.

For queries contact: Thandiwe Maimane on 083 645 7837