Eastern Cape, Free State, Gauteng Blocked Housing Projects; Asbestos roofs; Mud houses; Informal Settlements; Title deeds; Fund shifting; with Deputy Minister

Meeting report

National Progress on Programme on Blocked and Incomplete Projects
Ms Lucy Bele, Acting CFO of the National Department of Human Settlements (NDHS) presented:

Overall number of blocked projects across all provinces for 2022/23 - 804 blocked projects
Eastern Cape - Of 79 in total, 56 blocked due to poor performing contractors, 8 blocked due to bulk infrastructure, 9 blocked due to land issues
Free State - Of 226 in total, 169 blocked due to poor performing contractors, 5 blocked due to bulk
infrastructure, 36 blocked due to geo/tech challenges or closed down
Gauteng - Of 80 in total, 14 blocked due to poof performing contractors, 12 blocked due to bulk infrastructure, 54 blocked due to title deeds

Blocked projects included in the 2022/23 business plans
• Eastern Cape - 395 total annual number of sites; R3 348 500,00 total annual site budget
257 total annual number of units; R42 557 511.40 total annual unit budget
• Free State - 0 total annual number of sites; 0 total annual site budget
447 total annual number of units; R48 108 684 total annual unit budget
• Gauteng - 1052 total annual number of sites; R 64 363 953.50 total annual site budget
76 total annual number of units; R5 182 782.95 total annual unit budget

Why work is incomplete
• Eastern Cape - Poor performance of contractors; bulk infrastructure, connector and link; illegal land occupations.
Response: OpsCap Provision For Project and Contract Management; increased HSDG and USDG funding for bulk and link; upscale serviced sites provision

• Free State - Tranche payments to Free State Development Corporation (FDC).
Response: Enforcement of DoRA Provisions; Non-approval of roll-overs

• Gauteng - Projects needed to be closed and lack of bulk.
Response: Increased Human Settlements Development Grant) and Urban Settlement Development Grant (USDG) funding for bulk and link

Progress to date
- 149 Blocked projects included in the 2022/23 business plan
- Establishment of the National Steering Committee
- Approval of the establishment of “Restrictive Authority Committees” in all Provinces

(See attached presentation)

Eastern Cape DHS presentation
Ms Bongiwe Gobe, Acting ECDHS Head of Department, presented.

Unblocking of blocked projects 2022/23: 87 stalled/blocked projects with a balance of 23 975 housing units. Required funds to complete scope is R3 269 483 390. Total annual budget 2022/23 is R 114 545 793

Blocked projects affected by bulk infrastructure 2022/23: 27 projects with a total number of 19 142 units. Required funds to complete the scope is R2 423 440 000

Eradication of mud houses: The Department is already addressing mud structures through Rural Housing Subsidy Program. Total number of mud structures affected by disaster and destitution is 5 468. There are 15 projects and 1 237 units. Required funds to complete scope is R190 608 914

Eradication of asbestos roofs: Finalization of asbestos policy guidelines will go a long way in providing guidance towards eradication of asbestos in provinces. Project implementation plan for Quarter 1 was 5 projects and 5 actual projects

Issuing of title deeds: Title Deeds Restoration Project was initiated to deal with the backlog and thus ensuring access to adequate housing and full home-ownership. One of the challenges is the loss of mother titles. Conveyancers are fast-tracking the process for registration of mother titles

Upgrading of Informal Settlements Programme (UISP): There are 568 informal settlements in Eastern Cape Province and 2022/23 it is implementing 115 upgrades implemented by the two metros within province. The total Informal Settlements Upgrading Partnership Grant (ISUPG) breakdown for 2022/23 was R458 151 000

Shifting of funds to other provinces: Eastern Cape Provincial Department has not shifted funds to another province. There is no negative impact to the business plan.

Conditional grant: Total grant budget allocation 2022/23 of R 2 000 173 000. Total grant expenditure [April-Mar] of R391 373 000

Free State DHS presentation
Mr Tshepo Tsueli, Acting Head of FSDHS, assisted by Ms Carol Tlali, presented.

Current status on blocked projects: 232 projects; 9 077 approved beneficiaries; R953 085 000 total estimate required; budget 2022/23 of R30 551 648

Reasons for blocked projects: Contractors - Lack of capacity, cash flow problems, poor performance and quality of workmanship; Beneficiary - identification and qualification problems, missing beneficiaries, illegal occupation; Land - No adequate serviced sites available
Implementation plan for blocked projects: Scale down projects with beneficiary challenges; clean Housing Subsidy System ( HSS) information; terminate contracts of poor performing contractors

Mud housing projects: 978 mud houses across the province; 68 units completed in the previous years; R 42,892,850.00 budget for 2022/23 financial year to deliver 300 units; 0 units delivered in 2022/23 financial year; Mud houses to be eradicated in 3 financial years

Asbestos projects: 36 301 targeted units with asbestos roofs; total budget of R1 926 421 468; planned annual target for 2022/23 financial year for removal of asbestos roof of 70 units with a planned budget of R9 884 910

Title deeds 2022/23
MTEF targets: 800 pre-1994 title deeds registered; 2775 post-1994; 1618 post-2014; 250 new title deeds. Backlogs: 10 298 pre-1994; 14 768 post-1994; 3 627 post-2014

UISP: 161 total number of informal settlements; proposed ISUPG allocation for 2022/23 of R241 563 000 with 55 settlements identified to receive funding; two upgraded settlements to date

Conditional grants performance 1st quarter of 2022/23: 5.86% spent on ISUPG; 5.54% spent on HSDG; 5.60% spent in total. In addition, housing projects that are performing slowly due to unintended stoppages on site by local forums. Plan is to focus and prioritize housing projects to ensure procurement is speedily completed. The Department will ensure close monitoring and quality control of all projects.

(See attached presentation)

Gauteng DHS presentation
Mr Daniel Molokomme, Gauteng DHS DDG: Planning and Property Management, presented.

No funds were transferred to other provinces in the current financial year.

The province requests to be recused from the programme to remove asbestos roofs until the national framework to guide implementation is concluded (12 April 2022 MinMEC resolution).

Eradication of mud houses programme not implemented in the province

Unblocking of blocked projects 2022/23 progress: Phase 2 of 805 units has commenced with construction in 2022/23. 1114 units of 17 projects have been technically assessed and a preliminary report is being reviewed for finalisation by professional teams. In the 2022 adjustment process, additional 5656 units of 23 projects is planned for technical assessment and the outcome will be included in 2023/24 for construction

UISP planning expenditure: Budget of R1 121 367 074; expenditure of R460 994 884; claims submitted of R133 368 891.07

Active Rapid Land Release Programmes (RLRP): Elijah Barayi (Merafong) 495 beneficiary allocations; Westonaria Borwa (Rand West) 334 beneficiary allocations; Palm Ridge (Ekurhuleni) 1213 beneficiary allocations; Beverly Hills (Emfuleni) 216 beneficiary allocations

HSDG Expenditure at 24 August 2022: Total annual unit budget of R2 193 691; 39% total spent

Abandoned/blocked projects: 25% total spent

Reasons for under expenditure in quarter 1: Underspending resulted from delays experienced due to system down time when processing payments mainly due to loadshedding. The department planned the transfers to entities during quarter 1; however all transfers to entities could not be processed timeously for that expenditure to be recorded before 30 June and were only settled on 1 July 2022. Underspending on transfers and subsidies is major contributor to low spending in Q1.

Discussion
Dr N Khumalo (DA) requested more detail on the NDOH criteria for which provinces got allocated the funds shifted from the big provinces. She acknowledged the Department’s reference to legislation but said people had a right to shelter. When those funds were removed, what was the Department’s plan for what happened to the people in that province? Did they just not get a housing allocation; therefore infringing their right to shelter by government?

She asked if the mandate to eradicate asbestos roofs was on hold in the Eastern Cape. She understood preparation work was happening and that it needed to be done in sections, but it was worrying to learn that a lot of the work related to the project was not prioritised.

She asked when the title deed restoration project was initiated and its impact thus far.

She noted the reasons for the blocked projects were cross-cutting across the provinces. What had been the approach about poor performance as there had to be more consequences? Eastern Cape stated that the Sarah Baartman District Municipality had faced “many years” of unavailability of bulk infrastructure. What had been done over the years to address that problem? Why was there site unavailability? Was it not expected that before projects were planned some level of assessment took place? It did not make sense to talk about such unavailability preventing projects from continuing. What were the financial implications for unblocking these projects, particularly those resulting from contractor poor performance? The Committee had heard of court orders to regain the funds from contractors who had been paid but not worked. Where were each of the provinces in recovering these funds?

Which projects were blocked as a result of land invasions? Having noted the court orders, she asked what the alternatives for the evicted people were because there were laws on this and once one problem was solved, another problem was created. What was happening with the blocked projects that did not have any budget allocated to them?

Were the mud house eradication project in Mthatha, Matatiele and Engcobo envisaged to be completed this year? She wanted to know so that the Committee could do oversight.

The number of title deeds combined from pre-1994 and post-1994 title deeds totalled 8 000. What was the actual number of pre-1994 title deeds? Had the target for the title deeds increased from the target last year? If so, had the Eastern Cape achieved the target for last year?

Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality had the most informal settlements, why were there no targets for those informal settlements. It was the highest in the Eastern Cape yet there were no plans to upgrade those informal settlements.

Of the challenges noted, to what extent had the proposed solutions been impactful over the years?

She asked all the provinces what monitoring and evaluation mechanism was in place and who was responsible for that. There were many abandoned and blocked projects and she wanted to understand the level of responsibility on both the contractor and the department’s part and what consequences had resulted. She found it disappointing that Gauteng sought recusal from the asbestos removal programme. She understood that this was not a complete abandonment of the programme but given the amount of time that the roofs had been around and the health hazard, she felt that it should be dealt with more urgently. This had been an issue for years, so information of whether the structure would hold a new roof should already be available.

For Gauteng, there were 849 units across all the blocked projects yet only 842 were assessed. Was that a typo? She wanted clarity on the specific numbers of the blocked units in total.

Ms N Tafeni (EFF) asked for more information on the challenge with the Free State tranche payments to FDC. How many houses still had asbestos roofs that needed to be replaced in each municipality? What were the current figures for mud house replacement in each province? There were floods in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) where a lot of people suffered and some cases were critical. In Ward 64 in Durban, people were living in halls with no jobs and no food. What was the way forward and how was DHS assisting those people?

On 2 May 2022, she forwarded a letter to the Department about a 102 year old woman staying in a house in critical condition in Centane in Mnquma Local Municipality. She had still not heard back from the Department. She hoped that the Eastern Cape DHS would give attention to the issue. She referenced the Govender family who were resident for more than 22 years building a house, but now someone had come with a fraudulent title deed claiming that land belonged to them. The Department had to pay attention to the person that had been staying there over 22 years.

There was a crisis with the Eastern Cape informal settlements and she requested that ECDHS separate the 568 informal settlement numbers according to their municipalities so that the Committee can know which municipalities were impacted. When DHS built houses to relocate people living in shacks, it needed to help those people disassemble the shack to create space otherwise the shacks would be left standing. The Department needed to pay attention to this.

Mr A Tseki (ANC) said the provinces were not speaking about consequence management for the blocked projects. Free State said something because it was in the media as it was in court every day. He did not hear from the Eastern Cape and Gauteng on this. The Committee needed to check if these court cases were bringing rewards and recovering state resources. Sometimes it may not be able to recover anything but as a principle someone had to be found in the wrong.

One of the provinces said municipalities were not having foresight in addressing illegal invasions causing blocked projects. This led to informal settlements which required the intervention of building houses for them. His view were those people whose informal settlements were being formalised were actually jumping the queue. There were people in backyard rooms that had been waiting for this good government to give them houses yet the money was being diverted to the informal settlements. Those were the dynamics that needed to be balanced as informal settlements were developed. In the process of formalising informal settlements, DHS needed to establish the owner of the land. Was it municipal land, government land or private land? The Department did not mention the cost of formalising these informal settlements.

On the Free State’s 5% total spend on conditional grants, it was going to lose this in September if it did nothing about it. He did not trust Gauteng's claim of 35% spend in the first quarter and asked it to confirm this number in writing. Eastern Cape stated a 19% spend which was not that far off from 25%. So the Free State was in trouble – how would it get out of this trouble? He acknowledged what Dr Khumalo said on mud houses and asbestos but said it needed to be treated carefully. History showed that the Eastern Cape would intervene on mud houses when there were storms. But this could be very costly and may delay the delivery of houses or delivery of serviced stands. There needed to be an approach similar to that of Gauteng’s approach to asbestos.

The Chairperson said Mr Tseki was out of order because it was the Department who took the decision to eradicate those asbestos houses.

Mr Tseki said he was just advising the Department to be very careful but that he would come to order. He asked for confirmation if mud houses were mainly on communal land and not necessarily in municipalities.

His understanding was that title deeds were dwindling. Could the Free State confirm the 800 pre-1994 title deed target for the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) was 2 400 over three years? They should have been done with pre-1994 title deeds by now. Did it have a tangible figure for the pre-1994 title deeds and when it was going to finish them? Likewise the military veteran houses were not an incremental figure , similar to the pre-1994 title deeds.

What did the Department mean by cleaning the housing subsidy system (HSS)? His assumption was that the first step was applying then taking the person through the process of justification and correctness of their information. Linked to the HSS cleaning, when he came into Parliament in 2019, there was no handover from the previous administration. The same thing happened at council level. Councillors would not take over or increase the number from the previous administration, they would register new people. A good example was in Savanna City where the old registered people were not in the houses. New people as young as he was were registered and then moved in.

Mr C Malematja (ANC) welcomed the presentations but the expectation on the ground was different. People wanted houses so they could live under a roof as the Freedom Charter committed. The good things that came from the presentations must be applauded. He noted that eviction orders had been obtained to ensure that the rightful beneficiaries were in the houses which was not far from answering what Mr Tseki was saying. At the same time DHS was still dealing with illegal people or foreigners in the houses instead of the relevant Africans. In that regard Eastern Cape had done very well and he wished this was the case across the board. The Eastern Cape said land invasion was a huge obstacle in the delivery of houses. What strategies had ECDHS applied to ensure that all municipalities were assisted in curbing land invasion? Reporting on land invasion without any means to curb it was as good as simple talk.

Had ECDHS considered expropriation of private land particularly in Nelson Mandela Bay for human settlements purposes? There was huge private land there but developing human settlements there would be a problem. The province should consider these things especially after presenting they were doing a good job, including assisting in other respects. The 300+ SMMEs was an achievement and Eastern Cape must keep up the good work and the manner in which it was dealing with job creation. If the province was indeed at 24% spent on UISP, then the Committee was happy with that. He praised the approach of the Free State DHS particularly in its intro of presenting all the parts it had done wrong. All the provinces had to go the route of bringing perpetrators to book as far back as 2009 and 2010, if need be, and jail them. People wanted homes and the money for that was no longer there because of these perpetrators.

Of the 226 blocked projects in the Free State, 169 were blocked due to poor performing contractors. Free State DHS needed to re-evaluate who it appointed as contractor and not just appoint without doing proper research resulting in non-delivery. There were 36 housing projects blocked due to geo-technical problems. Why was there construction in those areas in the first place? These questions needed to be asked to ensure these problems were avoided going forward.

Free State had targeted 300 asbestos roofs by 2024 and it needed to move at speed but he acknowledged that there was progress. The research by Gauteng DHS that when replacing asbestos with the preferred heavy roof tiles it must be considered that the structure might not be able to carry that weight was helpful. These types of concerns had to be considered and whether corrugated iron was used. Had the Department taken any consequence management action on these blocked projects? Had NDHS ensured an intergovernmental approach in the projects blocked due to bulk infrastructure issues? What was the progress in providing bulk service delivery in the District Development Model (DDM)?

Ms S Mokgotho (EFF) asked if Free State DHS had applied consequence management to the Department officials who were supposed to have done monitoring and evaluation of the unfinished or abandoned projects from the start to end of the project. Was there consequence management for the contractors who abandoned their projects or was Free State still awarding tenders to these contractors? What measures could be put in place to eradicate asbestos roofs and how many asbestos roofs did it intend to eradicate in 2022/23? How long was it going to take to eradicate all asbestos roofs in the province? The removal of asbestos roofs was no longer due, it was supposed to have been completed a long time ago. Free State DHS made promises every time but did not deliver, meanwhile poor people were suffering from TB and other diseases. She asked the Eastern Cape DHS how many asbestos roofs it intended to eradicate in 2022/23? How long was it going to take to eradicate these asbestos roofs? Was it going to sing this song until Jesus Christ came?

Ms Mokgotho asked Gauteng DHS why it was cleaning the housing waiting list after it had allocated houses to beneficiaries. How did it deal with the people who are on the list, whose houses had been approved but were not allocated houses? Did it have a mechanism in place to assist the beneficiaries who had been approved but their houses had been occupied by the wrong people? She gave the example of the inappropriate and corrupt allocations of the flats in Clayville, Extension 45, Ward 1 in Ekurhuleni. Had it applied consequence management to the Department officials involved in these corrupt allocations?

She moved to the three unfinished mega projects. The Borwa Mega Project in Ward 26 Rand West Municipality was an unfinished abandoned project. Some of the houses had been hijacked. How was Gauteng DHS dealing with that? Did it have measures in place to address hijacked houses? The Palm Ridge Mega Project was another unfinished abandoned project with some hijacked houses as well as the hijacked houses in Montrose Mega Project? How was it addressing this problem? On these mega projects, what measures had the National Department put in place to curb the wasteful expenditure recurring in future due to awarding tenders to the contractors who did not have capacity to do quality work? Had the Department applied consequence management to the officials who failed to do effective monitoring and evaluation of these mega projects? Had it also applied consequence management of the contractors who abandoned these mega projects? Was the Department still using the services of these contractors in Gauteng and would it award them tenders in future to continue building houses in Gauteng?

Ms E Powell (DA) said NDHS noted roll-overs in the past financial year Urban Settlement Development Grant (USDG) and the Informal Settlements Upgrading Partnership Grant (ISUPG). In the 2021/22 Quarter 4 report, there were also Human Settlements Development Grant (HSDG) roll-overs noted: R270 million Eastern Cape, R22 million Free State and R60 million Gauteng. Could the Committee get clarity on what steps were taken to ensure that these roll-overs did not happen again in the current financial year?

The Eastern Cape DHS has a large backlog in post-1994 title deeds with 404 outstanding and this was replicated every year. What remedial action is being taken to ensure this was addressed? As Dr Khumalo noted, every year officials came to the Committee to address the title deeds backlog but there did not seem to be any notable progress.

The Eastern Cape DHS presentation showed the OR Tambo, Alfred Nzo, Chris Hani and Amathole regions had the most contracts terminated due to poor contractor performance or in some cases the projects were impacted by difficult terrain. She and her colleague had travelled to his constituency in the Alfred Nzo region. They visited Mount Frere and Mount Ayliff where there were a number of housing projects that had been initiated between 2010 and 2013 and where contracts had been awarded on terrain where there were large boulders but contractors could not excavate them. No action had been taken by the Provincial Department about the abandoned housing projects for over eight years. When she submitted questions to the Minister on the number of contractors blacklisted for abandoning projects and contract non-performance, the Minister responded that 0 contractors across all nine provinces had been blacklisted by either national DHS or provincial DHS. What consequence management did NDHS and the Eastern Cape DHS take against contractors such as these abandoned projects in Mount Ayliff and Mount Frere?

Had any criminal or civil remedial action been instituted? Often the abandonment of projects happened as a result of corruption in the supply chain management. Of the 87 blocked projects in the Eastern Cape, it noted that R3.2 billion was required to address the backlog but only R114 million was allocated. How many years would it take and what action was taken by ECDHS to unblock projects prior to the initiative by the Minister last year to finally eradicate blocked projects across the country? The Nelson Mandela Bay Metro project had been affected by the unavailability of serviced sites, undeveloped sites and invaded land. From a sustainable perspective, what was the Ministry doing to finally address illegal land invasions? In the Eastern Cape, over 19 000 units were blocked because of lack of bulk infrastructure. How was it possible that municipalities and provincial departments awarded contracts for human settlements development before ensuring that bulk infrastructure was in place?

Every year the Committee heard that the province continued to engage with municipalities to ensure support and prioritisation of the title deeds programme to unblock bottlenecks such as outstanding township registers. She understood that provincial officials may be hamstrung by a lack of town planning in municipalities. She asked the Department to provide examples of remedial action implemented between national, provincial and local municipalities to ensure that remedial town planning was done at municipal level to enable addressing the title deed backlog.

There had been many media reports on the funding agreement finalised on 12 July 2021 to upgrade 115 informal settlements in Buffalo City Municipality in conjunction with the Housing Development Agency (HDA) using the ISUPG. But the media reported huge funding challenges, that the HDA did not have any money, that there were irregularities and corruption in that programme. Could the Department comment on this? Could the Eastern Cape DHS confirm that last year it returned R270 million of the ISUPG grant that was rolled over and why such a substantial amount was not spent?

In the 2021/22 NDHS Quarter 4 report, it noted that in 2021/22 zero title deeds were awarded in Buffalo City and Nelson Mandela Bay. Could ECDHS comment on this? She did not have questions for Gauteng DHS.

Free State DHS had 234 blocked projects and 9 234 units were at various milestones across the province. Free State stated its remedial action was that it needed to clean its HSS system. This was an data integrity issue and it was an issue that municipalities across the country had to grapple with. The Free State presentation needed work as the information contained in it was not substantive enough for the Committee to understand what the problems were and what actions were being taken. Could Free State DHS tell the Committee if it had contracted a consultant to do a data integrity clean up of the HSS system? To state that it needed to clean the system was one thing but could it tell the Committee what it was doing about cleaning? The remedial action also noted that the Free State DHS needed to terminate contractors for not performing. Had it blacklisted any contractors? How many had been referred to the Special Investigating Unit (SIU)?
In how many cases was it pursuing civil recovery? I Free State noted that 978 mud houses were blocked and it noted a number of remedial actions, long verification processes and how the applications were declined due to various reasons. As a remedial action, it stated “deploy more officials”. Was there a staffing problem? Were staff members not performing? How did deploying more officials fix the problem? What was Free State's progress against title deed targets in 2021/22? In the NDHS Quarter 4 report, Free State had requested R10.3 million against the provincial emergency housing grant. By the end of 2021/22, zero expenditure was incurred. Applications are made against the emergency housing grant if there are disasters so why was the R10.3 million not spent? She noted only five title deeds were awarded in Mangaung in quarter 4 of 2021/22.

Ms Powell noted that in the Free State there was a huge issue of municipalities handing out unserviced stands. She assumed that this was part of the Minister’s Rapid Land Release Programme where provinces had to largely develop their own norms and standards on whether serviced sites would be awarded with plans in place such as pre-approved building plans. She was told that there was no bulk infrastructure in cases where the Free State municipalities were handing over these stands which was creating a huge problem by increasing the number of bucket toilets in the province. Was the provincial administration aware of this? Was it in the process of formulating any plans? The Western Cape had the Better Living Model where the Provincial Department had developed different types of building typologies that were given to beneficiaries with stands that had bulk infrastructure in place. Was the Free State DHS working on something like this? What punitive action was being taken by NDHS against senior managers in provinces like the Free State and the Eastern Cape who continue to under-perform, not meet their targets and not take action against the awarding of dodgy contracts?

Mr T Malatji (ANC) spoke about the housing beneficiary lists and allocation of title deeds in Free State. The Committee had always said that the province is still dealing with this crisis all these years later. If it was still dealing with a crisis of duplication of beneficiary lists, who was it building the houses for? This was why there were land invasions because houses were built and left unattended. What was the solution to resolve the problem? On upfront payments, the Zondo Commission was clear that the Free State government was advised not to make the upfront payments to service providers but it still continued to do so. How far was Free State DHS in dealing with this and resolving it? What was the progress in resolving the problem of companies that had been paid upfront to do work?

He asked about consequence management for the Eastern Cape incomplete projects. Were those service provider companies still working in the Eastern Cape? People were waiting for the delivery of houses because the province had a high level of incomplete housing and mud houses. What was the plan to resolve those problems?

On Gauteng’s 39% spend on the quarterly budget, he asked which were the underperforming HSDG grants so as to ensure that there was spending on those areas.

Dr Khumalo asked the three provincial departments if they were confident that they would spend the amounts allocated to them in 2022/23.

Mr Tseki asked a question to Eastern Cape DHS that was inaudible.

The Chairperson thanked the provincial departments for the presentations. She noted the Committee had visited Ekurhuleni which had been previously given R300 million by Parliament to deal with the Banaero Park challenge. Upon arrival, nothing had been done. She asked NDHS if it followed the money when the funds were deployed. During the Committee oversight visit in Gauteng, they got an interesting "explanation" which NDHS had to look at because of the housing delivery imperative. The Committee was told that when houses were built, money was claimed after the building of the foundation slab. The slab stage had a lot of money attached to it and contractors then ran away after building the slab. These people had not stolen the Department’s money, they had built the slab then decided to leave the project. Other contractors then had to come in for the following building stages, the amounts for which were little and therefore contractors had no interest.

This had to be addressed without disadvantaging poor contractors. After the foundation slab, payments were made to accommodate those poor contractors to allow them to continue building the houses. However, others were using this approach for malicious purposes and leaving the project after getting the money, making it difficult for DHS to get other service providers to finalise those projects. The money for Geo/Tech including the slabs was huge. The majority of contractors could buy Mercedes-Benzes after abandoning the project. DHS needed to look at how it could capacitate contractors as it trained them. She suggested that there be a contractual obligation that the money is held back if the slab is built without a wall plate. The majority of the blocked projects were blocked because of how the Department structured payments.

On beneficiary lists, was it in the law that councillors must deal with beneficiary lists? The process was costing the Department a lot because a councillor would allocate houses towards the end of the financial year and then a new councillor, who wanted to be seen as doing something too would start the process afresh. This would result in those on the list disappearing off the list. It was important for the Department to speed up and finalise the digitization process. But it had to remove the role of councillors in identifying beneficiaries. There had to be offices in municipalities where everybody who wanted to register for a house could register. This would allow a new councillor to go to this office and get a progress or legacy report which would include the work done in previous years so in order to follow up. The work of politicians was to provide oversight, not to allocate or get mangled in such a process.

When the Department dealt with informal settlements, it established steering committees. Why was it not establishing steering committees for the building of houses for the community to participate and monitor? The previous financial year Members said it would be important to establish these steering committees because when Treasury allocated a budget, it did incremental budgeting for inflation management which could then open the budget to manipulation and corrupt activities for those implementing. Eastern Cape DHS said it had contracted the HDA but they were not performing. Why did it not follow up? Why did it not have contract management that allowed for the termination of the contract if there was no performance by HDA? If HDA was not performing, the Provincial Department must terminate the contract and get another contractor to do the job.

Could Gauteng DHS update the Committee on the case of the person by the name of Bomba selling houses? When the Committee was visiting Savanna City, it was told that there was someone called Bomba who was selling houses and the community thought he was from the Department and Gauteng DHS was given the task to get him arrested. The Committee was informed that Bomba was found and the case reported to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA). She asked to be updated on this because if Bomba was prosecuted, it would be a lesson to everybody.

Ministry / Department response
Deputy Minister of Human Settlements, Pam Tshwete, responded that the Chairperson was right in saying ward councils were responsible for the beneficiary list because they dealt with it on the ground. Then when another councillor takes over, they change the list. The Department had identified this issue and was instructed by the Minister to intervene where processes were not going well. NDHS was keeping an eye on the accusations of the mischievous changing of beneficiary lists. The Ministry took the decision to prioritise the elderly, persons with disabilities and child-headed households on the beneficiary lists and she was working with the provinces on this. In some cases people had been waiting for a house for quite a number of years. She asked Ms Tafeni to give her the details of the housing case for NDHS to follow up on that.

The Committee invitation letter asked the DHS to prepare a briefing on asbestos, unblocking housing projects and eradication of mud houses but not on disasters. The disasters were of concern and she asked for time to come and report to the Committee on this. The report could even be provided in writing because there was a report talking to the provinces affected by disasters like KZN, North West and Eastern Cape.

There were people selling their houses then joining the housing queue again and saying they do not have a house. When the Minister came into office, the first thing she did was to ask all provinces to submit all blocked projects so NDHS could unblock them and it was in that process. The Minister had also spoken about the digital plan to track all those that were selling or renting their houses and going back to join the housing queue.

She acknowledged the Department was not doing very well on title deeds but that she had seen a change and the status was not the same as the last financial year. The provincial departments had quite a number of title deeds that needed to be issued and these would be reported once the title deeds were with the owners. Free State DHS was working on a date for the issuing of the title deeds. The Minister and herself had visited the Eastern Cape last week to look at blocked projects, talk to the new MEC about the houses that were not built and they were hopeful about the answers they received.

Ms Lucy Bele, NDHS Acting CFO, replied that for the shifting of funds to other provinces NDHS looked at what the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) said. Section 18 provided that Treasury could withhold funds at its discretion. If a province was anticipating major underspending on its allocation, NDHS would look at its performance throughout the quarters and colour-code high risk provinces as red. Normally, NDHS wanted provinces to have spent at least 60% of the allocation halfway through the financial year, depending on what had been happening that year as they would be left with five month excluding December holidays. A province that had spent under 50% was classified as high risk. It would then request its recovery plan to determine if it would be able to spend its entire allocation. One reason put forward for underspending was procurement challenges.

Provinces that had already spent 50% in the first six months could start requesting additional funding. It would look if the province had the capacity and the projects to absorb the additional funds. The provinces must have demonstrated the ability to absorb additional funding otherwise they would not be given money. On the question of what happened to the province's beneficiaries if the funds were stopped and shifted, if NDHS did not stop the funds, the unspent funds would revert to the Revenue Fund. If not utilised, they were not approved for a roll-over unless they were committed. For example in 2021/22, of the R612 million HSDG unspent by provinces, only R352 million was approved by Treasury for roll-over, meaning R260 million went back to the Revenue Fund. Section 23 of the Division of Revenue Act kicked for unspent funds where Treasury looked at the commitments. If funds were not committed to identifiable projects, the money was not rolled over. Either way, beneficiaries were going to be affected. NDHS did not want to lose money to the Revenue Fund so six months down the line, it started the process of stopping allocations, looking at the capabilities of all projects and if they had procured because procurement was the biggest culprit. It then shifted the funds to provinces that were able to spend them.

In the last financial year, no HSDG funds were shifted. Only USDG and ISUPG funds had been shifted for the metros and provinces. R20 million of the ISUPG was each shifted from Free State, Gauteng and Limpopo and that money was reallocated. When NDHS presented its 2021/22 Quarter 2 report, it would show the approved roll-overs and how much reverted to the Revenue Fund for both grants as the mid-term budget adjustment would have been approved by then.

Deputy Minister Tshwete said the land invasions were quite difficult. She had a meeting with the Minister and the City of Cape Town with PRASA. The people living on the railway line were refusing to be reallocated land elsewhere despite lawyers going to court. It was an issue of human rights. The people somehow got information that the Department was going to develop the land and targeted and invaded that land. It was difficult because there was a process that required government to provide these people with a place to stay if they were removed from the land and the challenge was finding alternative land. The Department was trying all means to resolve this because the people were deliberately stopping development and house delivery. The Departments of Human Settlements, Police and Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD) needed to work together on land invasions.

Eastern Cape response
ECDHS explained that a mother title was a holding title that came out with the general plan. It was difficult to register a site to a beneficiary and obtain a township register where there was no mother title or where it was lost. In cases of a lost title, a Regulation 68 application in terms Deeds Registries Act Regulations needed to be used. Conveyancers had been appointed in the province to ensure this was happening to fast track the registration of titles. The annual budget for the title deeds programme was R13.3 million which included: R2.2.million for the opening of township registers, R1.5 million for transfer of pre-1994 title deeds, R4.5 million for transfer of post-1994 title deeds, R3.2 million for transfer of post-2014 title deeds, R1.6 million for transfer of new title deeds. The province’s expenditure to date was R200 189 full risk. The annual target for pre-1994 title deeds was 750. In the first quarter, the province was able to deliver 60 of those. The annual target for post-1994 title deeds was 3 500 and the province was able to transfer 713. The post-2014 title deed transfer was 2 500 and nothing was transferred. The target for new title deeds tranferred was 1 250 and it was still nil for the quarter. The targeted output in Quarter 1 was 773. He had a detailed title deed performance report per project with him that could be provided. It contained information per region, names of municipalities and projects as well and the numbers.

The Eastern Cape had R58 million HSDG unspent but its roll-over application had been approved. Most of the asbestos cases were houses that were in the rectification process and had challenges of structural integrity accompanied by asbestos roofs. In terms of the rectification policy, it needed to ensure that it reported on the rectification, the asbestos roofs and that the asbestos disposal was done according to legislation. On poor performing contractors, the province had terminated their services. It had not blacklisted any contractors but had restricted them. In a meeting last week the province was given a clear direction that all those non-performing contractors must be blacklisted and the province was going to initiate that.

It did not pay contractors who abandoned sites due to poor performance if that stage had not been completed but paid for value created. It had learnt lessons from contractors asking for a high percentage for the slabs. It was ensuring that when contracting, the money for the various stages was distributed accordingly. In most cases it wanted 40% to be pushed to the end so that contractors would have an interest in finishing the project. He acknowledged contractors running away once the money for the slab had been paid. To curb this, money was distributed accord to the agreed contract. Engcobo and Mthatha were multi-year projects and the province was not going to be able to finish them in 2022/23.

On the absence of targets for the informal settlements in Buffalo City and Nelson Mandela Bay metros, that money was transferred directly from national to the metros for informal settlement upgrading (ISU). He confirmed that in 2021/22 R238 million was transferred to Buffalo City and 98% had been spent. Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality received R250 million and spent 64% with under expenditure of R66 million.

Mud structures were a feature of the Eastern Cape which was a very rural province. The mud houses that the province sought to prioritise were those mostly affected by disasters which left people destitute hence the number of units was 5 438. With the April disaster, 4 399 households were affected in the Eastern Cape, 2 959 people were left homeless and 1 840 people had partially damaged houses. The most affected areas were Port St Johns, Nyandeni, Alfred Nzo and Matatiele. The province spent 39% there and were providing families left homeless with temporary residential units (TRU) as well as those with partially damaged houses so they could fix their houses. Eastern Cape DHS was aware of the 102 year old lady in Centane. The previous MEC received the lady, officials brought groceries to her and she had been prioritised for the Mnquma project of 205 units. This project was now enrolled by National Home Builders Registration Council (NHBRC) and they had been asked to prioritise the lady.

In slide 47, the 568 informal settlements were broken down per district municipality. The local municipalities were left out but this information could be supplemented.

On bulk infrastructure challenges and the District Development Model (DDM), the Provincial Department was piloting ways in OR Tambo to implement the DDM in relation to human settlements. Bulk infrastructure issues were not only about the internal reticulation, it was the source of the bulk that had become the problem. Eastern Cape DHS needed to engage with the Department of Water and Sanitation and CoGTA to ensure that it had a comprehensive plan to deal with bulk infrastructure, especially on the eastern side of the province like rural Transkei where there has been no bulk infrastructure such as dams and water treatment plants. On the western side, it was more about the need for infrastructure upgrading which affected the upgrading of informal settlements. Government's integrated plan to work with other departments would assist with this.

The 115 informal settlements in Eastern Cape were outside the two metros and in other regions of Alfred Nzo, OR Tambo, Chris Hani, Joe Gqabi, Sarah Baartman and Amathole. The Buffalo City Municipality was dealing with the upgrading of informal settlements in the metro. With the HDA agreement, the province had in fact contracted not to give HAD any money in the first quarter to ensure it delivers. HDA’s performance was concerning but it had provided a recovery plan.

On Eastern Cape still appointing contractors it had terminated, part of the procurement process was to looking at past performance of the contractors. Contractors had to submit performance reports and in most cases the province did not appoint those that had not performed. It was working with other provinces to share the performance reports in deciding whether to appoint contractors. Land invasions, especially in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro was an issue and it was resulting in the mushrooming of informal settlements. Municipalities had to ensure they were implementing their by-laws so people did not invade land.

On beneficiary lists and the change in councillors, the Eastern Cape established Beneficiary Allocation Committees within the municipalities where each beneficiary list was accompanied by a council resolution so that even if a new councillor came in, they would not be able to take that beneficiary list back. It had to go to council if there were going to be any changes.

Eastern Cape DHS did not accept a beneficiary list unless it had a council resolution attached signed by the municipal manager and council. This was a good way to mitigate the past issue of the changing of a beneficiary list.

All its projects had project steering committees but the issue was perhaps their functioning. From the upgrading of informal settlements, the province was learning that without the social compact agreements, the Provincial Department could not move anyhow in relation to the projects and going forward it was tightening its agreements.

There had always been a programme in the Eastern Cape to deal with the unblocking of blocked projects before the pronouncement by the Minister. One of the serious problems faced by the province was the procurement process took long. But it had now established databases for contractors and professionals to fast track the work because turnaround time was critical. Once a contract was terminated, it had set a period of 35 days upon termination of contract within which it should appoint a new contractor.

Free State response
Free State had a project level monitoring team to ensure projects were monitored. On why it was not moving speedily on the asbestos programme, the presentation mentioned that it was budgeted for. It had R7 million from the HSDG on top of which R20 million was earmarked funding for demolition of structures that were unsound.

For contractors that had not completed projects but were advanced money, it did have a [inaudible] that reviewed that division and was in the process of issuing summons for contractors in excess of 105 which included material suppliers. The challenge was that some of the contractors had been liquidated. The province decided that where the contractor was liquidated, it instructed the state attorney to pierce the corporate veil, follow the money and determine how it was used so that it could pursue the directors.

A number of tranche payments were made to the FDC in excess of R200 million. However, a reconciliation showed R37 million was not used for the intended purpose by FDC. The state attorney was instructed to recover this from the FDC. The presentation gave a breakdown per district on the number of houses that had been audited for asbestos. However it could provide a written breakdown per municipality.

On officials making advance payments, a former HOD had pleaded guilty for material advance cases where he was given a 15 year suspended sentence. This was an achievement in terms of consequence management. Free State DHS hoped that more arrests would be made before the end of the financial year.

The number of outstanding pre-1994 title deeds should go down. However the challenge was that some municipalities did not municipal files and these files must be recreated. There were also a lot of family disputes. As a remedial action, FSDHS had a team of conveyancers, municipality and department officials for dispute resolution amongst the family members. All the parties involved would be called and they would attempt to solve the dispute. If unresolved, they would refer the matter to litigation.

Some houses had been constructed in areas not suitable for human habitation. These were old projects and FSDHS ensured this did not continue and that the necessary Geo/Tech was done.

There were houses that did not have beneficiaries assigned before construction but moving forward, Free State did not construct houses where there were not approved beneficiaries. Once a house was finished, a beneficiary had to move into the house. To enhance security of tenure, once the project was approved, the Provincial Department saw to it that immediately before the construction, a title deed was registered for the beneficiary because the title deed was for the erf and not the house.

The Free State Provincial Department had applied consequence management and five senior managers were dismissed. Additional employees were disciplined and given final warnings and some were also dismissed. There was consequence management for contractors of uncompleted projects including terminations and being sued to recover the money for houses that were not constructed. It had given itself a period of three financial years to complete the unfinished projects.

On the blacklisting contractors, it had terminated their services. This stemmed from very clear instructions received from the Minister that they must announce the blacklisting of these contractors so that they did not do business anywhere with the government.

On how many cases had been referred to the SIU, it was not a competency of the Department to refer matters there. The President made a proclamation on a specific aspect and then from that proclamation, the matter would be referred to the SIU. The matter of asbestos was referred to the SIU and the Provincial Department cooperated fully with it hence there were results. There was also the matter involving cases of material advances where a proclamation was issued by the President. However no feedback had been received on that yet. Normally the feedback would be given to the President after the SIU investigation had been completed. On the question of municipalities giving out unserviced sites, Free State DHS did not have any knowledge on this and requested more information to pursue the matter.

Gauteng response
Mr Molokomme replied about the Bomba case saying that it had an anti-fraud unit which worked closely with law enforcement including SAPS and the Hawks. The anti-fraud unit reported directly to the HOD and its work was to register all fraud cases. Once it had referred a matter such as the case of Bomba, which was now with the Hawks, it was the responsibility of the police to conclude the investigation and prosecute. The anti-fraud unit did follow up but so far the prosecution had not taken place. Gauteng DHS was working in line with its legal obligations and responsibilities and it could only go as far as opening a case. Law enforcement based on the investigation would then hand over the matter to the NPA. If the NPA was satisfied with what they had, they would prosecute.

The Chairperson clarified that NDHS would respond to this question later.

Mr Molokomme asked Dr Khumalo with respect to listen as he was having to repeat himself. The province requested recusal from the asbestos programme until the national framework to guide implementation was concluded as per the MinMEC of 10 April 2022. The Director General together with the Ministry and Gauteng DHS were developing a framework in the province to deal with asbestos hence no budget was allocated this year. When that process was concluded and based on the conclusions, provinces would have to remove the asbestos. As they develop the framework issues such as alternative accommodation for occupants during repairs and suitable roof types for the existing wall structures would be discussed. Some Members mentioned corrugated iron but it was not as easy as that. The roof needed to be designed by engineers and approved so that they had insurance liability. The cost structure programme was a general policy matter. The province would do a cost analysis in line with the guideline and framework to determine the amount of money required from the fiscus to fund that programme. It did not want to jump into this when NDHS was coming up with a guideline.

It was known that the Free State had challenges with the same programme so Gauteng did not want to be in that situation. Not to say that Gauteng was totally safe but it would wait for the framework to guide implementation. Once that was done, the DG would approve the business plan. If asbestos was not budgeted for in the business plan, the DG and the Ministry had the prerogative to decline the business plan. But until such time as the framework was in place and Gauteng dealt with the nitty-gritty of implementation, it was not advisable to allocate a budget for asbestos just for the sake of it.

The Chairperson asked Mr Molokomme why he did not propose a framework to national for adoption. If somebody died from asbestos, government was going to be sued and he could not just say he would wait for national when he was actually part of the MinMEC technical team.

Mr Molokomme replied that the draft framework was already in process hence MinMEC said it must be concluded. He was part of the technical MinMEC team but the framework had not yet been concluded and the DDG would further amplify on that.

The target number of blocked projects implemented in 2022/23 was 805. When assessments were done during the executive management meeting, the MEC pronounced that the budget adjustments were being done starting in April and more than 5 000 units would need to be added for assessment so that in the next financial year there would be a higher target. Before putting a target, there had to be a technical assessment report with the cost estimate to help in proper budgeting. Gauteng DHS had just started this programme and believed that in 2023 it would be at a higher level because many units would have been assessed. If the units were counted as they were constructed, there might be the problem of costing and how to pay. So the assessment and the costing helped with budgeting.

On why pre-1994 title deeds were not decreasing, the Deputy Minister had made the example of Khayelitsha where some people did not want to go and collect their title deeds because the moment they did that there would be a family file. The problem was that some families did not want any other family member to have that title deed because they wanted the house to be a family house. Gauteng DHS wrote to DALRRD as it was responsible for the Deeds Registries Act and proposed the concept of a family title. DALRRD sort-of declined and said that there was no provision for such family title in any legislation. The only thing that could cover the family was a trust where everybody was put down as a beneficiary. However, the costs of maintaining a trust were high due to the need to manage it and provide yearly tax returns to SARS and for poor people that would be very challenging. So the result of those family disputes was that they delayed the conclusion of the pre-1994 title deeds. On the allocation of beneficiaries, the Gauteng DHS had prioritised the [inaudible] and it also had something called [inaudible] at some time. There was an allocation policy that prioritised beneficiaries registered in 1996. In the allocation committee, the ward councillor was part and parcel of the committee. There was a chief director in Gauteng DHS responsible for the beneficiaries. It was the first time it had somebody at that level because it discovered that there was a need for somebody to be dedicated to the primary beneficiaries of property including military veterans and other beneficiaries.

Gauteng DHS then came up with a policy where, with the participation of municipalities, beneficiaries were allocated in line with the house allocation policy. He admitted that sometimes problems were experienced at municipal level. So the Provincial Department was working on this to educate people. The policy followed the guidelines of the National Department but included all stakeholders including the ward councillors so that there were no fights over allocations. There were also community liaison officials that participated in the projects and were usually appointed by the community when the projects were implemented and worked as a direct line between the Provincial Department and the communities. Although there were challenges here and there, there were efforts to solve these problems. There was what the province called the IGR chaired by the HOD technically and by the MEC politically as a forum to raise concerns between the province and the municipalities.

On the mega projects raised by Ms Mokgotho, he asked for a seven-day deadline to provide a detailed and fair response because more time was spent on addressing and presenting on blocked projects, asbestos roof and mud houses. In response to Mr Tseki, the budget expenditure was not part of the presentation but could be responded to in writing. Gauteng DHS had sat down and looked at all the performing and non-performing projects at the moment because it was anticipating that during the budget adjustment, money could be moved around. Having done that assessment, the province took money and channelled it to projects where production was higher. Importantly, the targets were not affected because it simply meant that money was shifted to a higher performing contract and the amount reduced for those that were not performing.

Before terminating a contract, a letter of demand would be issued along with a letter of non-performance in what was a protracted process. While this process was underway, the contractor had to be able to construct on site. When contractors received these letters of demand, they went to their lawyers and challenged the Department which could be in the form of an interdict. As the Eastern Cape had noted, it was common in all provinces that higher payments were made at the foundation slab level after which money was spread throughout the milestones. The Provincial Department would continue assessing if it had to dish more money at the foundation stage and one of the reasons was because previously disadvantaged contractors did not have working capital to drive the construction. Hence there was reason in saying that once they had delivered the foundation, they would have the cash to continue with the other milestones.

Unfortunately, coming up with a policy with good intentions and it having unintended consequences meant that there was no choice but to spread the money to other milestones than to have better money at the foundation level. This did have negative implications on smaller contractors and favoured those with capacity. However, the Provincial Department had no choice but to do this to avoid abandoned projects.

There were many cases of the hijacking of projects such as Bomba. A lot of projects were being hijacked by criminals as classified in law. Those criminals mobilised and got into the houses illegally and cases would have to be opened. The Provincial Department with the MEC had already approved the terms of reference to appoint security surveillance and the provision of intelligence about illegal occupation and land invasion. They were working closely with the municipalities. He once worked in the City of Johannesburg doing urban management. Land invasion was actually a core mandate of the municipality in enforcing by-laws. People were not supposed to occupy property belonging to another person. The Provincial Department identified the need to provide support to municipalities to address the invasion of houses. It had court orders for some projects and it included the sheriff so it was doing something.

As a trained town planner, he did not remember being taught to put handcuffs on somebody so he could only report land invasion and illegal occupation to SAPS who could maintain law and order. In one case in Soshanguve, one contractor withdrew because one of his staff was stabbed. These were some of the aspects experienced when doing this work and he called on provincial departments to work in line with the DDM model, where all organs of state should form part of the solution to the problem being experienced. The best example in Gauteng was the Alexandra Renewal Project probe. When the Provincial Government went to the SA Human Rights Commission to answer, more than one department was called including Gauteng DHS and the police to come and account. The police said they also experienced capacity problems in dealing with the illegal occupation of houses. In areas like Alexandra, criminals chased people out of properties then occupied them. In that case it was now a police matter. He asked that when these matters were being dealt with, they also be discussed at other levels such as at a justice committee level if there is that kind of forum so that there could be collaboration in dealing with these issues that posed a threat to the housing projects and people’s lives. In some areas housing officials working in Gauteng were killed. The crime of paying criminals for houses was an epidemic that needed collaboration with law enforcement to deal with it properly. This matter was beyond questions and answers in the Committee, it needed serious intervention.

National Department response
Mr Neville Chainee, NDHS DDG: Human Settlements, Planning and Strategy, clarified that there was a national asbestos removal framework that was presented in 2020. It outlined all the processes and all the provinces were aware of it and had to comply with it. As far as the support mechanism that NDHS had taken, the Minister had now appointed the HDA to oversee the framework and provide support as the Department had to eradicate this backlog speedily because of not only the health consequences but also the legal consequences. From the framework the Department would then be able to report on a quarterly basis on the progress made, assess the number of houses, what needed to be done and the removal process. It had already presented on how the removal process must be done and the provinces were aware of that.

On the mud houses, there were a number of reasons it was put as a priority by the Minister in consultation with MinMEC and Parliament. Due to climate change and all sorts of factors, NDHS needed to be able to identify, assess and log every mud house in the country together with the provinces. That process had already started and in the next three months it would have a log in a database of every mud house in the country including where it was, who the owner was and it would ask NHBRC to address them. Notwithstanding there was the emergency housing programme. Where there were destitute households, unsafe households or houses in an unsafe area, a directive had been issued by the Minister that those houses be prioritised. Quite a few of the provinces were already undertaking this directive including Eastern Cape, Limpopo and KZN.

There were a number of issues that were resulting in blocked projects. One of them was that on the Housing Subsidy System ( HSS), a substantial number of projects were duplicated because of administrative errors. There were also a lot of people and households that had been duplicated on registration. It was important to note that behind every project was a household, a family and the focus with the provinces was to measure and monitor the number of households approved and linked to a blocked project. The provinces had to ensure that they addressed all households linked to a blocked project which were not allocated a house.

Mr Chainee noted that there were 498 townships across the country in the provinces that needed to be established and if those townships were approved, it would immediately unlock projects and allow approximately 300 000 title deeds to be registered. NDHS was taking that responsibility together with the provinces to identify these including their specific areas.

On house allocations, the housing code provided a framework for technical steering committees. Embedded and underpinning this was a social compact between government in all spheres together with community representatives such as ward councillors. He made it clear that a ward councillor or any elected representative was not supposed to get involved in any form of allocation because the allocation process was an administrative process overseen by officials as dedicated by the respective executive authorities. NDHS had drafted a standard operating procedure (SOP) which would be done in the next three months.

On consequence management, NDHS through the Office of the Acting Director General had drafted what it called a Restrictive Authority Committee. Each of the provinces had to set up this committee because in terms of National Treasury guidelines, if a person was blacklisted, there was a legal process to go through. This Restrictive Authority Committee would allow provinces to blacklist or take those contractors off the allocation list.

On the R300 million allocation to Ekurhuleni for Banaero Park, work had commenced. The earthworks had been completed and he would check if there had been a sign off and send that information to the Committee. The panel in charge of the Bomba case referred the docket to the NPA for its decision to prosecute. The NPA was of the view that it was a civil and not a criminal case because the persons that bought the houses from Bomba did so knowingly and created that market. NDHS would request the NPA for the reasons as it was in everyone’s interest to ensure that those families were helped.

Dr Zoleka Sokopo, NDHS DDG: ISU and Emergency Housing, replied that it would be best for NDHS to do a presentation together with KZN on emergency housing to provide details on what was being done at the mass care centres, particularly in eThekwini which still had the largest number of mass care centres. There were several strategies to ensure that by 30 September the Department expedited the movement of those people and it would do a presentation on that.

NDHS together with HDA did have data on where the informal settlements were and had mapped them out throughout the country. It was now mapping the upgrading progress. This meant that all the informal settlements – a thousand of which were at various stages of upgrading in 2021/22 – would also be mapped out, adding to those upgraded this year. The ISUPG started in 2021/22 and as indicated by Ms Bele there was reallocation of funding as some provinces had struggled with ISU management and spending. Importantly, the ISUPG grant itself did pay for bulk infrastructure which was an issue in every province. When talking about water and reservoirs, the money was not enough and this had to be dealt with together with other departments to ensure that the ISU implementation was not impeded due to the lack of bulk which unlocked the actual upgrading of informal settlements. Perhaps when it had a special meeting on the ISU it could talk more about what had been done in that programme.

In conclusion, Ms Sindisiwe Ngxongo, NDHS Acting Director General, the Department appreciated the comments by the Committee because it was clear that the performance of the sector affected everyone here irrespective of government level. On how best the Department could manage the beneficiary system, the digitisation of beneficiary management was a priority and would help in managing the risk that currently existed. With the Chairperson’s permission, the Department could come back to unpack how far it was in terms of the beneficiary management system as it was currently causing a problem in terms of the switching of beneficiaries. She acknowledged that the Department was not performing well on title deeds and it was trying to find other avenues on how best to respond to the title deeds restoration programme performance as it came to the end of the current financial year.

Follow up questions
Ms Mokgotho noted she had asked Gauteng DHS if it was still utilising contractors that had abandoned their projects and continuing to award them tenders. She was not satisfied with the answer. If she heard correctly, those contractors were "still being investigated". How long did it take to investigate the reason for not completing the project? If it found that contractors did not complete projects because they did not have the ability to do the work, what did Gauteng DHS do next? Was it going to give them projects again or not? And at the moment were they employed or not? Those were the answers she was seeking.

She referenced beneficiaries who had been approved and were supposed to have been allocated houses but had not been given a house to date when the house allocation was made to other beneficiaries. She had been told that when Gauteng had a project to build, say, 2 000 houses, it would increase the number to maybe 3 000 beneficiaries and approve their subsidies. But it did this with the knowledge that it was going to build 2 000 not 3 000. What was to happen to those 1 000 beneficiaries who were not allocated houses? Was it still continuing with that method? How did it intend on solving that problem? That method was not assisting needy people.

The Chairperson interrupted Ms Mokgotho and said Gauteng DHS was not going to respond because the meeting time was up. She could ask further questions and it would respond in writing.

Ms Mokgotho asked about wasteful expenditure. Gauteng DHS was supposed to effectively monitor and assess project progress and completion. Did they not foresee that these contractors were not going to complete the projects or eventually abandon them? When did they realise that there were problems and what did they do? What was the consequence management for these officials? If nothing had happened to them, it said a lot. In future contractors would continue abandoning their work; there would always be wasteful expenditure and nothing would happen.

The Chairperson called Ms Mokgotho to order and gave the floor to Dr Khumalo.

Dr Khumalo said she understood Mr Molokomme said Gauteng DHS had asked for recusal on asbestos and it was not completely washing its hands of the issue. If Mr Molokomme had listened carefully himself, her concern was more around the health hazard of having asbestos roofs. Was the Department planning on compensating these people while waiting for the framework? Interestingly Mr Chainee had responded that there was a national framework. She expected everyone to listen to each other in the Committee meetings. The meetings were a platform to ask questions and receive answers attentively. She thanked the departments for their responses.

Closing remarks
Human Settlements Deputy Minister Pam Tshwete thanked the Committee for inviting the departments and they had noted all the concerns raised. Gauteng would send written responses immediately as promised. She thanked her provincial colleagues for availing themselves.

The Chairperson noted that there was an asbestos policy framework and asked that Gauteng therefore go and work on and submit its plans. The Committee did not need an answer to Dr Khumalo's question as this had been clarified. There was a policy on both mud houses and asbestos so there were no excuses. Gauteng DHS had to develop a plan and report back on the matter. The beneficiary list challenges raised by Ms Mokgotho affected the entire sector not only Gauteng hence the councillors were raised. Even if the roles of ward councillors and local municipalities were collated, there had to be council resolutions while the sector was awaiting digitisation by the Department. The beneficiary lists as approved by council resolution could be accessible. The Eastern Cape model on managing their beneficiaries was good and other provinces must be allowed to copy it to avoid crises.

The Committee accepted the apologies from the MECs because today was Wednesday, a cabinet day, and the Committee did not normally meet on Wednesday. She was aware that accepting the apology might set a trend for other provinces sending delegation teams to the Committee. Also once could not appoint a temporary HOD on the way to the Committee meeting. The Constitution had to be followed. Accounting officers could not be temporary. As long as the HOD was doing other work, they could not legally appoint another HOD. The Committee was soft on the provinces because today was cabinet day but next week there were no excuses for the MECs not to come.

Meeting adjourned.