To read more chlick here.
The HDA's revised strategy
What it means for the future of the HDA
IN THIS ISSUES
Follow Us:
Follow Us:
To read more chlick here.
IN THIS ISSUES
“Moving forward, we need to look at green fencing of funding, which we need to ne-gotiate so that we have a clear business case for each province by looking at their business plans and agreeing with them which developments we can implement. This would give us access to a portion of the Housing Services Development Grant and enable end to end development proj- ects,” Sejane explains.
“Part of the strategy is to ensure that we strengthen our intergovernmental rela-tionships through agreements we sign with municipalities and provinces to en- sure that they cannot withdraw easily from agreements and that we are also held accountable for delivery.”
In summary, the mandate of the HDA is to develop integrated and sustainable human settlements from end to end.
"This requires the HDA to serve as a ful-ly-fledged property development agency performing all the functions of a devel-oper. Those services range from Project Conceptualisation, Planning and Design, Land Acquisition, Project Packaging and Capital Raising on one end of the value chain, to Property Management on the other."
"The National Department of Human Settlements says it will eradicate the toilet bucket system in the Free State by March 2022."
The National Department of Human Set-tlements, Water and Sanitation (NDHS) says it will eradicate the Free State’s toilet bucket system as early as next year. For-mer Minister of the NDHS Lindiwe Sisulu said in July that the bucket system will be eradicated in the Free State by early 2022. According to Statistics South Africa, the Free State, which holds less than 5% of the country’s population - has half of all the bucket toilets in the country. Speaking in Parliament, Sisulu said the backlog in the Free State was because of the procure-ment of material.
“I was informed that the delay in eradicat-ing the backlog can be attributed to the procurement of materials on national ten-der and works quotations below R500 000. In addition, cash flow and delivery (trans-port) challenges experienced by successful bidders delayed delivery of material to sites prior and during the lockdown period.”
Sisulu said that she has appointed the Housing Development Agency (HDA) to help the province because of the backlogs.
She said the department, the HDA, and the Department of Water and Sanitation had signed an Implementation Protocol to fa-cilitate the implementation of the Bucket Eradication Programme within identified areas across the province.
The HDA took a significant step toward the realisation of its vision to provide decent and affordable accommodation in April this year when it received an Eskom build-ing from the Department of Human Set-tlements, Water and Sanitation (DHS) that will be used for the development of social housing.
Eskom sold the building to the Department of Human Settlements, Water and Sanita-tion as part of its efforts to raise funds from the disposal of non-core property.
According to the power utility, the sale of the building will help to relieve some of the accommodation pressures faced by resi-dents of the city.
The Minister of Human Settlements, Mma-moloko Kubayi, has underlined the need for an urgent turn-around strategy that will improve performance and enable the timeous execution of housing delivery tar-gets in the province of Limpopo. She said this during a ministerial visit to the prov-ince that was intended to assess ongoing human settlements delivery.
In response to the issues observed, the Provincial and National Department of Human Settlements has now established an intervention team to respond to the province’s challenges. The intervention team, comprised of senior officials from the two spheres of government, has been given the urgent task to complete a recov-ery plan for Limpopo.
Over 800 temporary housing units have been erected to relieve homeless victims after a fire gutted Masiphumele informal settlement near Fish Hoek in Cape Town in December 2020
It was only a few days before Christmas last year when a vicious fire raged through Masiphumelele informal settlement in the Western Cape, destroying 1 000 shacks and displacing approximately 6 000 residents. The incident was later declared a national disaster.
South Africa has about 3605 informal settlements; 161 of these are in the Free State Province and 47 in Mangaung Metro. The Department of Human Set-tlements has set aside R10 billion over the next three years for the incremen-tal upgrading of informal settlements.
In an ongoing effort to rapidly respond to service delivery needs, Minister of Hu-man Settlements, Mmamoloko Kubayi, has called for the urgent identification and quantification of all unfinished and blocked projects across the country.
In a speech addressing the issue, the Min-ister said, “We need to quantify all unfin-ished housing projects and reprioritise them. The recent visits to provinces have so far made it clear to me that we need to act with much urgency to address the housing needs in our communities.”
“We are rolling up our sleeves and get-ting our hands dirty to make sure that all spheres of government work together to speed up service delivery using the lim-ited resources available at our disposal. We have no choice but to do and achieve more with less; every cent counts,” said Minister Kubayi.
Lilly previously lived with her mother and siblings in a flat in Flora Park before her mother was approved for a new home.
The development is aimed at complementing its surround-ing area, being sustainable and, most im- portantly, creating social cohesion. Now in its sixth year since launch in 2015, it is currently at an advanced stage of devel-opment. To date, the HDA has facilitated the installation of services and the ap- pointment of contractors to undertake construction on the site.
Duncan Village Informal Settlement in the Eastern Cape is on the fast track to redevelopment with the new addition of previously unavailable amenities such as outdoor toilet structures, street lighting and paved roads.
Reconstruction of the historic township in the Buffalo City Metropolitan area began af-ter a memorandum of understanding was signed in February by Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation Deputy Minister Pam Tshwete, MEC for Human Settlements Nonkqubela Pieters and Buffalo City Met-ro executive mayor Xola Pakati. Since then, about 20 000 families have been relocated to temporary housing. As the Programme Manager, the HDA is responsible for the oversight of the project, aiming to build 5500 units at a cost of R220 million within the project’s first phase. The Agency’s role includes overseeing the implementation of the entire project and ensuring that all bottlenecks that might impede service delivery are unblocked.
