Four provinces in South Africa have failed to meet their low-cost housing delivery targets or to spend the housing budgets allocated to them and the Department of Human Settlements will no longer continue providing funds to these provinces.
The four provinces are the Eastern Cape, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape.
According to Thabane Zulu, Human Settlements director-general the provinces had fallen behind in housing delivery and as a result the allocation from the national budget would be cut.
The department spends about R14-billion a year on housing projects.
Zulu says the funds earmarked for the four provinces will probably be diverted to other provinces and may have to forfeit a portion of the grants that had originally been earmarked for those provinces.
Western Cape Housing MEC, Bonginkosi Madikizela claims that while the province had fallen behind its targets in the second quarter of the current financial year, it had since increased its activities and was on schedule with housing expenditure and delivery.
Madikizela claims the province has spent 64% of its annual budget so far and will spend the balance of R705-million before the end of the current financial year.
Free State housing spokesman Ishmail Mokone claimed that spending in the province was back on track but conceded that by the end of the second quarter of the financial year the province had only managed to spend about 18% of its budget.
Mokone blamed adverse weather and a shortage of building materials for the provinces failure to spend the money allocated to it for housing projects.
Eastern Cape’s housing spokesman Lwandile Sicwetsha claimed that the province will complete the 22 000 houses it had undertaken to build in the current financial year.
So far just 8 000 of the 22 000 houses have been handed over to people in the province.
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