Durban — Human Settlements Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi said protecting resources from being stolen derailed service delivery in KwaZulu-Natal for building houses for flood victims.
Kubayi said the issue, initially, was the availability of the material in the province, planning and project management.
She was speaking at the human settlements Indaba, which started on Sunday at the Durban Exhibition Centre and ends on Monday.
The two-day event, which aims at finding solutions to the housing challenges, brings together various people, local government, parliamentarians, civil society, local communities, the private sector, academics and other relevant stakeholders.
Kubayi warned that the scale of delivery required to effect the desired development outcomes would not be achieved with the current project pipeline and funding trajectory. She said the affordable housing sector, including rental and social housing, has been identified as a key opportunity based on the available plans and documentation in place.
“The Affordable Rental and Social Rental Housing programme should serve as a case for good practice implementation. Lessons learnt from these programmes should then be transferred to other priority programmes in the sector and including the human settlements Bulk and Link Infrastructure Programme (BLP), the Informal Settlements Upgrading Programme (ISUP) and the Integrated Residential Development Programme (IRDP),” said Kubayi.
Within government, Kubayi said, the Department of Human Settlements, including the Social Housing Regulatory Agency (SHRA) and the National Housing Finance Corporation (NHFC), has initiated a collaborative relationship with the Infrastructure Fund (IF) to create a framework for large scale financing proposals for catalysing the implementation of the Social Housing Projects (SHP).
Kubayi said this has the potential to increase investment into the sector from R1 billion and 3 000 units per year currently to about R15 billion and up to 45 000 units per year by 2025.
“This would be a positive step in reducing the estimated investment gap of R144 billion and a backlog of 320 000 units in the social housing sector. In its plans, the NHFC has budgeted debt transaction approvals of R1 billion over the three-year period, which is an average of R362 million per annum.
“Given that the Loan to Value in Social Housing is 30%, this debt approval would necessitate Consolidated Capital Grant (CCG) approvals of R2.3 billion in the same period or R760 million CCG approvals per annum. This is in line with the SHRA’s MTSF (Mid Term Strategic Framework) allocation of R4 billion, which is an average of R800 million allocation per annum,” Kubayi said.
Daily News