Question NW1982 to the Minister of Human Settlements
20 July 2017 - NW1982
Malatsi, Mr MS to ask the Minister of Human Settlements
What is the average number of years that persons (a) under the age of 40 years and (b) over the age of 40 years have to be on the waiting list for Government-subsidised houses?
Reply:
Our policy does not prescribe a minimum waiting period as per the honourable member’s question because the allocation of a house to a qualifying beneficiary depends primarily on the completion of a housing project. However, our National Housing Needs Register indicates that the waiting period in the past fluctuated between 6 to 11 years on average. I am confident that as provinces and municipalities continue to improve the planning and packaging of projects, the waiting period will be minimised.
Further, this is one of the reasons that, during my budget vote speech on 18 May 2017, I indicated that the one-track system of building is no longer sustainable. We need to adopt a multi-pronged approach together with provinces and municipalities because time is not on our side. We are now concentrating on servicing sites and partitioning them so that people can build their own houses through a monitored PHP programme.