The Portfolio Committee on Human Settlements concluded its week-long oversight visit to the selected housing projects that included blocked and new projects yesterday in the Eastern Cape in the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality. The committee engaged the national and provincial officials of the Department of Human Settlements on each of the projects on challenges that riddle and render them unfinished and beneficiaries allocating themselves illegally with houses without happy letters.

The Chairperson of the committee, Ms Rosina Semenya, repeated and emphasised part of the purpose of the oversight visit of the committee to the projects that it is to assess progress on the blocked projects as this year is the second year of their three-year completion period according to the Minister of Human Settlements. She urged the officials to accelerate the completion of the projects which some were launched as far back as in 2015.

After noting two elderly people with disabilities among the beneficiaries who are waiting for the completion of the West Bank Restitution Housing project near unit 1 in Mdantsane to get houses and who told the committee which was accompanied by the Mayor of the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality, that they have been waiting for houses for some time, Ms Semenya, instructed the officials to deliver the houses to those beneficiaries within 21 days.

Yesterday’s visit to Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality’s Ikwezi project, Reston 840, West Bank restitution projects followed visits that took place the previous day to King Sabatha Dalindyebo Local Municipality’s Reeston Phase 3 stage 2 project, Ingquza Local Municipality’s Mpoza 500 (238) units project, Mbashe Local Municipality’s Willowvale 97 project, and Kei Municipality’s Komga Zone 10:570 units project.

At all the projects, the committee expressed its unhappiness with the slow speed with which these projects are moving notwithstanding the limited time left before the end of the three-year period to complete them according to the call of the Minister of Human Settlements. Where houses should be demolished because of poor quality, the committee has called for harsher consequences that include blacklisting to service providers and heavy penalties to officials for no or poor monitoring.

Ms Semenya reiterated the importance of audit and validation of beneficiary lists and involvement of beneficiaries in the projects for them. She also emphasised the importance of the issuance of happy letters to beneficiaries once a house is given to its legitimate owner and she said the letter must contain, among other things, the fact that the house belongs to the government for the first eight years after it was handed over. She said within that eight-year period the government will be responsible for certain problems the house may experience.