Human Settlements 2018/19 Annual Performance Plan; with Deputy Minister

Meeting report

Opening Remarks

The Chairperson greeted and welcomed all those present including the delegation from the Department of Human Settlements (DHS). Also in attendance was Mr Mohatla Tseki, Chairperson of the Provincial Parliament of Gauteng Committee on Human Settlements.  

Ms T Mampuru (ANC: Limpopo) asked for clarity on the whereabouts of the Minister and her Deputy from DHS noting that the administrative heads of the DHS would not suffice for the engagement as per the agenda.

The Chairperson replied that initially the Minister had been scheduled to attend the meeting with the Committee but communication had come that morning that she was not well and would not be able to honour the engagement as scheduled. The Deputy Minister had also just submitted an apology that she would not be able to attend the meeting.

She reminded the Committee that it had decided apologies from political heads would be accepted for all other Departmental engagements but for Annual Performance Plans (APPs) and Annual Reports (ARs) one of the two Departmental political authorities had to be present. She requested a way forward from the Committee on the non-attendance by political heads of DHS.

Ms L Zwane (ANC: KwaZulu-Natal) wanted to know why the Deputy Minister (DM) of DHS would not be able to attend the meeting.

The Chairperson replied that the reason submitted for the DMs absence had been that she had prior commitments. Notably the DM had been consistently attending briefings with the Committee on all DHS matters but had a prior arrangement to be somewhere else.

Ms Zwane said it sounded that the political heads had not prioritised the Committee although it had on record stated that it desired engagements with political heads of Departments when plans and ARs were being discussed. All the Departments before DHS that the Committee oversaw had ensured that either both the Minister and a DM would be present for an APP or AR briefing with Parliament.  Disheartening as it was with DHS at that point the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) was pressed for time as the Committee was responsible for nine Departments.

The Chairperson said the Committee had to be seen to be consistent because recently it had to reschedule a meeting with the Department of Health (DOH) after it had summarily thrown out the Minister of Health and adjourned that meeting.

Ms Mampuru said it seemed that Executive Authorities (EAs) were taking Parliament for granted as they were never available for presentations of APPS and budgets but would attend budget vote debates.  Indeed, previously the Committee had adjourned the briefing by DoH to allow Minister Aaron Motswaledi to attend the DoH APP briefing. She proposed the Committee approach the leader of government business to deal with EAs because if the Committee accommodated absence once, it would be a progressive and successive train of absenteeism from APP briefings. The political heads had to be punished because they wanted to hold South Africa (SA) at ransom because if the Committee did not engage in the DHS APP nothing would go forward. She also requested that DHS be released as she would simply not be able to engage the administration of DHS.

The Chairperson said the Committee would not be punishing the DHS but required the political head to brief the Committee on the DHS APP, moreover the Committee had not met the new DHS Minister and the Chairperson had also been unable to have a one-on-one discussion with the Minister. Possibly had they had the one-on-one the Chairperson would have been in a better position?

Mr M Khawula (IFP: KwaZulu-Natal) concurred with the Committee sentiment that there had been precedence with DoH and therefore consistency had to prevail. The last time the Committee had engaged the DHS on budgeting, the Committee had committed that it would not approve a budget where DHS returned with the same plan where the metropolitan municipalities grant for secondary cities would have been restructured. He required the Minister to come and respond to that commitment of the Committee.

Ms T Mpambo-Sibhukwana (DA: Western Cape) concurred with the sentiment of the Committee; for consistency and to shape future engagements the DHS had to be treated similarly to how DoH had been treated.

Mr Mbulelo Tshangana, Director-General (DG) said he had had a preparatory session with the Minister of Human Settlements, Ms Nomaindia Mfeketo, although she had been showing signs of illness, his knowledge after that session had been she would attend the APP briefing. Although it was news that she would not be attending, his view was that she had been ill even during the preparations moreover the split in duties had been such that the DM would attend to other DHS business as the Minister would be attending her debut briefing with the Committee.   

Ms Mampuru interjected that the Parliamentary Liaison Officer of DHS had informed her that the DM was within the Parliamentary precinct. She requested that the meeting be adjourned to allow DHS officials to find the DM.

The Chairperson said whatever the Committee decided it had to be cognisant of the time constraints it was operating under as it had a debate in the afternoon. She suggested that the Committee officially check whether the DM would be able to attend the briefing. She allowed the DG to vacate the room to go find the DM.

The Chairperson said the Committee had received a letter from the NCOP Chairperson for the Committee to follow-up on the Free State (FS) province before the official follow-up on ‘taking Parliament to the people’ in the FS.  Following that business was a bill the support staff had alerted the Chairperson to which had been referred to the select Committee. In total the Committee had to process five bills as per its programmes, some of which were section 76 bills, which required provincial mandates. The bill was a DoH bill which Parliament had instructed had to be prioritised.

The Chairperson said she had been informed the DM would be coming to brief the Committee. While waiting the Committee discussed business matters.

Committee business
The Committee would be finalising the Border Management Authority (BMA) bill the following week and it was going to add Social Development to that bill seeing that it was behind on that. The week after, the Committee would receive two briefings back to back from the DoH and South African Social Services (SASSA).

The Committee would then debate the Department of Basic education (DBE) budget vote there after although in the same week it was supposed to be going to the FS following-up on ‘taking Parliament to the people’. It was proposed that the Committee go on oversight on the week of 26 June 2018 to the FS.

Mr Khawula asked whether the Chairperson had checked whether the three departments that were supposed to meet over the BMA had actually met so that her intervention could be enacted if they had not met to date.

Mr D Stock (ANC: Northern Cape) said the proposed date for the FS follow-up would be a challenge for him as he served on the Constitutional Review Committee and it would be starting its work that week in the provinces. He was submitting an apology in advance because of that prioritised work.

The Chairperson noted the apology and requested confirmation from the Committee that on 26 June 2018 it would be in the FS for the follow-up.

Ms Mampuru said she served with Mr Stock on the Constitutional Review Committee and was submitting her apology as well.

Mr Khawula asked that it be determined whether the follow-up would be the whole week of the 26 June or just one day.

The Chairperson said the follow-up would not be completed in one day.

Mr Khawula said his question was on the basis that the House would be voting on the Appropriations bill on 28 June and therefore the follow-up could not be the whole week.

The Chairperson said that if the Committee allowed itself to work on the Monday of the 25 June then the follow-up to the FS could be concluded before the 28 June.

The Chairperson welcomed the Deputy Minister of Human Settlements, Ms Zoe Kota- Fredericks, noting that the Committee had held over all its business awaiting the presence of either the Minister or her. She explained that was because the Committee had to be seen to be consistent in how it treated all the nine Departments it oversaw.

Deputy Minister’s remarks

Deputy Minister Ms Zoe Kota-Fredericks, apologised, noting that it would not happen in future that she or her Minister would not be present before the Committee on APP business. An area of concern for DHS was the budget curtailment which would probably limit some projects. Additionally, the performance of certain metropolitan municipalities (metros) like the City of Cape Town (CoCT) City of Johannesburg (CoJ) affected the DHS such that it had taken money from the CoJ and given it to better performing metros. The DHS had also taken R175 million from the CoCT. Provinces underperforming included the North West (NW) which fortunately had been put under administration, Limpopo and Gauteng and at the most recent Ministers and Members of Executive Council (MinMEC) it had been decided that Gauteng would need closer attention. Gauteng underperformance affected the entire DHS as the province received a lion’s share of the funding from DHS for provinces.

Upgrading of informal settlements also concerned DHS such that it had prioritised devising a different strategy.

The Chairperson thanked the DM and notified her that the Chairperson of Gauteng’s DHS Committee was in attendance and hopefully whatever assistance that province needed Parliament together with DHS would assist.

The DHS APP was the last one before the general elections of 2019 and DHS would be engaging with a new Committee and the Chairperson hoped that the Minister would avail herself to that Committee because the Committee appreciated the DMs consistent presence in the Committee throughout the fifth term for DHS briefings.

There were areas the Committee felt that DHS had not performed well including the upgrading of mining towns, which had been declared by the President as a priority had not been finalised in terms of timeframes and targets. Both underspending and overspending by certain provinces for example, the Eastern Cape (EC) and the FS had for some time been overspending without reaching targets. There was also the issue of waiting lists where people had been waiting for houses which seemed to have been overtaken by land invasion issues where land grabbers were currently being prioritised over the waiting list.

Prioritisation of elderly people and child headed households with provision of housing was also still sorely lacking and there was also the issue of backyard dwellers being overtaken by land invaders as well.      

There were also challenges with disbursement of title deeds and the Minister had previously indicated that DHS was building capacity to assist provinces with title deeds. In Matsolo, Mpumalanga there had been illegal occupations of houses because of the title deeds where the rightful owners of those houses would not have been deregistered on DHS database so that then blocked the rightful owners from accessing other housing. 

The Urban Settlements Development Grant (USDG) restructuring had been a recurring issue since the start of the fifth Parliament   

Annual Performance Plan Presentation – 2018/19 29 May 2018

Mr Tshangana said he would not go into the executive summary and DHS could during discussion focus on about 10 specific areas which the Committee had raised after the presentation. That included what DHS were doing regarding the USDG together with National Treasury (NT) and the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) including title deeds and how provinces were performing regarding the issuing of said deeds. In some areas DHS had not accessed township registers which made it difficult to issue a title for example, in Gauteng there were 133 properties locked in registration processes which meant title deeds could not be issued until those registration processes were concluded. DHS would prefer to come back with NT and COGTA to present on the proposed approach to intermediate cities as NT and COGTA had been doing work on those mixed cities but had to still present it to the local government council. DHS still had to submit its comments on the draft document which had been produced by the two Departments.

The draft policy on backyard dwellers as well as work undertaken by metros had been to at least use the USDG to assist in servicing back yard dwellers as the biggest problem faced by most in such environments were hygiene standards and access to sanitation.
DHS policy legally allowed for the prioritisation of elderly persons to be provided with shelter and MECs were empowered to assist such persons to jump the queues on the waiting list. DHS had requested the Department of Social Development (DSD) to assist it with that as there were not too many elderly, people with disabilities and child headed households awaiting housing and the programme was being driven from the DMs office. 

Policy, Legislative and Regulatory Overview

He then read through the presentation with the Committee. DHS targeted the passing of the Properties Practitioners Bill which would repeal the old Estate Affairs Agency Board Act as the Act had been passed in 1976. DHS believed that only three Acts could be concluded in 2018.

Summary of Strategic and Annual Performance Targets per Programme

Mr Neville Chainee, Deputy DG (DDG), Strategy & Planning, DHS, said the four programmers of DHS in the presentation represented what each unit did within the Department. Programme 3 was the heart and engine of the DHS and programme 4 spoke to funding of DHS, including grant funding as managed by the Chief Financial Officer (CFO).

Strategic Plan Priorities –Objectives and Targets Programme 3

In terms of the Project Readiness Matrix what DHS often found after having approved the HSDG and USDG annually were municipalities and provinces respectively putting into their business plans projects that were not ready for implementation which led to under and irregular expenditure and even fiscal dumping.  The Project Readiness Matrix had been developed to enable DHS to before approving funding; see municipalities and provinces providing DHS with a project’s shovel range; which would avoid planning for projects in 2018 which were targeted for 2018 as well. 

To date 2% of the HSDG allocation could be used to provide bulk service in non-metropolitan areas.

Departmental Budget 2018/19

Ms Funani Mahlatsi, DDG-CFO, DHS, said despite the budget cuts the DHS had ensured that all the grants it administered were provided and supported. NT had also informed DHS that no additional funding would be provided to DHS in the following three-year cycle.

There had been an enforced budget cut of R2 billion in one year and R9 billion over the three-year term especially on the HSDG and R2.1 billion which had been cut on the USDG over the same cycle. There had also been a cut on the Restructuring Capital Grant (RCG) managed by the Social Housing Regulator Authority (SHRA) which formed the consolidated between the HSDG and the SHRA. The DHS operational budget had experienced a R29.7 million reduction from 2018-21.

The DG said in three provinces DHS had delayed approval of the business plans because of compliance, project readiness matrix issues that included the NW, Gauteng, Limpopo and the EC. The challenge with the EC had been the rectification budget process where DHS had requested provinces to seek ministerial approval before approving budgets for rectification as there had been a lot of abuse of budgets for rectification. In Gauteng there had been six compliance related issues including Community Residential Units (CRUs) norms and standards for the upgrading of hostels. In one province it would cost R400 000 to build one unit but in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) costing about R250 000 per unit in terms of upgrading hostels and DHS had also asked provinces to seek ministerial approval for that so that standardization could occur. The security fees for securing the projects in Gauteng had also been very high and DHS had requested Gauteng to pay security fess from its equitable share and not the CRU grant.

In NW the issue was project readiness where in the previous three years the province had started a project called ‘village-township’ where the provincial DHS had been appointing small contractors however; because of that in the last two years the NW had been struggling to spend its allocated DHS provincial budget. The NW DHS had underspent by almost R700 million in the 2016/17 financial year and DHS had then decided to take R300 million from NW and had given it to other performing provinces.

Discussion

Ms L Zwane said she would be fine with her questions being answered in writing and asked what opportunities had the DHS availed to South African youth? What was the rational in pricing differences in the CRUs; were they priced per square metre or the differences in topography in KZN and Gauteng?

What was the situation regarding title deeds for human settlements in rural areas under traditional authorities? Were title deeds issued for individuals in such situations?

What happened to the monies that were underspent by particular provinces, especially the HSDG?

What were the reasons for increases for catering and consultancy fees in programme 2?

Regarding people with disability, if in an area there was no housing development being implemented it became difficult. In KZN there was operation ‘Sukuma Sakhe’ which even if one accessed that there was little joy in getting housing as the argument was ‘there was no housing development taking place in the area’ where one wanted settlement.

Ms Mampuru wanted to know why the Limpopo DHS had underperformed in the year under review. She also wanted to know why there had been such a large price difference in CRUs across the different provinces.

Mr Khawula said it was not justified for the DHS to complain about budget cuts when the DHS was underspending. NT was correct to limit the DHS budget.

He reiterated that he wanted a clear answer about what plans there were regarding the USDG in aspirant metropolitan municipalities?

How did DHS define labour sending areas and how were its labour sending areas settlements work because the entire country sent labour to the Gauteng province?

Did DHS still need to support youth through education vis-a-vie the free education announced by government?

How were the Municipal and Provincial Emergency Housing Grants going to work?

Current DHS policy said elderly and disabled person would be assisted but in rural areas a municipality would have a budget for ward 1 for the elderly and disabled and it would take 10 years for another budget for other wards in the same municipality where some elderly and disabled would have to sometime wait indefinitely for houses. How did DHS deal with such instances as programming in rural areas was different from how urban municipalities budgeted? 

Mr Tseki (ANC: Gauteng-provincial Committee Chairperson) said the Gauteng province had lost about three litigation cases over land invasions. Recently the CoJ had informed him that it had won a victory to evict 200 land invaders because of the developer having not handed over the settlement project. In CoT additionally, there were also about 1000 housing units that stood empty because of not being electrified. The other issue there had been bulk infrastructure and in Sedibeng District municipality specifically, there would not be much development in the absence of the upgrade to that infrastructure. In 2016/17 Sedibeng had said it needed R137 million for bulk refurbishments.

In Midvaal the DHS had also allocated about 400 housing units that were not electrified and unfortunately two elderly lives had been lost in the upheaval to settle those people.

CRU stood empty in Gauteng because people could not afford them for example, a person who had formerly been paying R150 would be required to pay more than R3000 per month: the province had failed the CRU programme. The CRU budget had to be relooked as to what the intention was including a feasibility study.

There were renovations in the Dube Hostel with the Focused Intervention Study (FIS) where the renovation of one CRU there had been costed at R200 000. The units had been completed but had become vandalised and more than 100 had befallen vandalism whilst the community watched; additionally, the security company had been complaining about non-payment of services at Dube Hostel. 

In Gauteng there remained service stands that were recorded as such in reports but then became a Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) house in the next report which spoke to double dipping. Service stands were for people that wanted to build houses for themselves and therefore could not become an RDP with a top structure.

The Gauteng DHS had informed the legislature that its business plan could change depending on national DHS intervention but Mr Tseki noted that there was a zero in SHRA for the MTEF to 2021; he needed clarity on what that meant?

In Gauteng there had been contestation about high rise buildings as people had different beliefs and cultures although others welcomed it. A resident from Hammanskraal had asked why high rises were not being built on the outskirts of cities such that new cities would be developed on the peripheries of metros. 

Ms Mpambo-Sibhukwana said at a previous oversight on the upgrading of mining towns the uMkhonto we Sizwe Veterans Association (MKVA) had been given one-roomed houses which had no privacy for those with big families. Those beneficiaries had been promised extensions to their structures but nothing had been forthcoming in that regard.

Poor workmanship had been a challenge in Gauteng and what was DHS doing about builders that had been given tenders to build and had built shoddy houses? Were there any plans towards gap housing?

She wanted to know per province what the title deeds backlog was.

The Committee had seen across the country people selling government provided houses within the 8 years stipulated that no sale of the house could be effected: what was DHS doing about that?

When would DHS embark on giving people service stands? 

The Chairperson said the disadvantage of receiving an APP before the previous year’s AR was that the questions as asked could probably have been answered through the AR. Her plea was that most of the answers be received in written form except for those needing urgent responses.

She said the under expenditure by certain provinces reflected on DHS Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E). She was glad DHS was intervening in terms of planning within provinces because generally provinces requested money without having planned properly.

The Committee had not backtracked on its resolution regarding the USDG and the intermediate cities. The Committee would have to have a session where provincial DHS would have to be invited to account to Parliament before the term of the fifth Parliament ended; because municipalities had raised an issue where provinces would have not proclaimed land for township establishment and secondly would not have allocated for services even though municipalities would have planned to build houses. Thereafter provinces would be given township establishment money which they would be unable to spend because of failure to plan. Seeing that the DG had reported in the past metros being unable to spend on township establishment the Committee had resolved that those monies were needed by the intermediate cities as they had the pressures of urban migration more than the metros.

She asked how many bills DHS was planning to send to the Committee for processing.

In Mpumalanga two service providers had been appointed to build house in two big projects where one had been required to build 10 000 house and the other 2 000 houses respectively; the challenge was that the city was not ready for the projects as the sites proclaimed in the State of the Province Address (SoPA) were not ready and had no bulk supply infrastructure although service providers had already been appointed. Probably the situation was such in other provinces and not only in Mpumalanga.

It was appreciated that metros had been picked up by DHS as not prioritising informal settlements planning the Committee required DHS to intervene therein.

Amongst the issue MKVA had raised in the Northern Cape (NC) had been allocation of housing in urban areas where they were required to pay property rates when they were unemployed.   

Forms had been given to the Members of Parliament (MPs) for a bursary that the DHS was funding in Nelson Mandela University (NMU) which the Committee had also requested for students in their constituencies for potential funding; those forms had been promised but never delivered to the Committee. Although the Committee would not have wanted to raise the issue it was problematic that DHS seemed to prioritise the portfolio Committee over the select Committee on DHS. It expected those forms for the next round of applications for 2019.

The Committee expected that DHS would provide written responses before its debate on DHS to avoid the same question coming up at the debate on DHS
 
DM Kota-Frederick’s replied that it was clear from the questions that the elderly and disabled who were in vulnerable places including rural areas had challenges in getting assistance from DHS but the general practice was that when DHS found people in such situations when doing door-to-door visits it would identify projects nearby such as informal settlements. In the event when there were no such projects the cases would then be brought into the DHS nationally to see how it could assist.

Once DHS noticed in a particular financial year that a particular province would be unable to spend its allocation DHS diverted the money from that province to another performing and spending province even though that would not take away from under expenditure from the delinquent province. That spoke to DHS having not returned monies to NT and that was only possible through its M&E unit. DHS warned provinces when they would fail to spend before diverting funds.

Mr Tshangana confirmed that all the responses would be sent to the Committee before the debate.

The Chairperson emphasised that the DHS had to monitor its women targeted empowerment programme because the Committee had observed that seemingly connected people benefited, which was completely against the spirit of what the Committee wished.

Adoption of minutes

The Committee considered its minutes for the 26 April 2018.

Mr Khawula noted a substantive amendment relating to National Treasury (NT) and a joint Departmental meeting of three Departments which he requested to be reflected in the minutes.

The Chairperson reaffirmed that the minute referred to the Border Management Authority Bill, where the Committee had resolved that three Departments including NT that were involved in border management had to meet to iron out their differences before returning to the Committee and that the Chairperson had been requested to assist in getting the Departments to meet if they continued to fail to meet. 

The minutes were adopted with amendments.

Committee minutes of 15, 17, 22 May 2018 were all adopted without any amendments.

The meeting was then adjourned.