Question NW2894 to the Minister of Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation
14 December 2020 - NW2894
Tafeni, Ms N to ask the Minister of Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation
Whether her department has done any investigation to find out what number of South Africans have benefited more than once from the Reconstruction and Development Programme houses; if not, what is the position in this regard; if so, what (a) number of persons have been given houses more than once and (b) steps has she taken to ensure that her department is able to correct this?
Reply:
Honourable member, government is no longer building Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) houses. RDP houses were discontinued as soon as Cabinet adopted the Comprehensive Plan for the Development of Sustainable Human Settlements in 2004 setting new standards for housing typologies for government houses referred to as BNG houses.
(a) The National Department of Human Settlements has developed and instituted systems and measures to verify all subsidised housing subsidy applications against subsidy scheme qualification criteria, which ensures that a successful housing subsidy applicant is not approved to receive more than one subsidised housing opportunity.
The measures and systems in place referred to above include the Housing Subsidy System, which verifies all subsidised housing subsidy applications against a range of data sets, and the National Housing Subsidy Data Base (NHSDB), on which all successful housing subsidy applications are recorded. It is therefore not possible to obtain more than one subsidised housing subsidy opportunity. All subsidised housing applications are verified against the National Population Register, The Deeds Offices’ Title Deeds Register, the Government Unemployment Register, Government Employee Pension Fund, the Public Service PERSAL System and the NHSDB.
(b) Based on the abovementioned measures, there are no measures required.