Africa-Press – South-Africa. Human Settlements Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi has established a war room to fast-track housing delivery in the country.
Kubayi announced this during a media briefing on Friday morning following oversight visits to all nine provinces to assess housing delivery.
“We’ve heard the cries of potential beneficiaries who are still waiting for houses, the cries of children whose circumstances have dictated that they should be the heads of their families, and the cries of the elderly who have nowhere else to turn but to rely on their government,” she said.
Kubayi added they have decided to prioritise several areas in the coming financial year, among them the unblocking of blocked projects, eliminating asbestos roofs across provinces which is a critical health issue, increasing the pace of provision of title deeds to rightful property owners, and eliminating mud houses, especially in the rural areas.
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In addition to the priorities areas, she also announced a war room would be established.
“We also concluded that to fast track service delivery across the country and respond to the challenges observed in the sector during the ministerial visits, we needed to develop a structure in a human settlements war room.”
Kubayi said the adjustment of the qualification for social housing had been revised.
“Bands for households earning from R1 850 to R22 000 gross monthly income to qualify as opposed to the previous qualification criteria for household income from R1 500 to R15 000,” she said.
The minister also spoke about areas around South Africa being affected by natural disasters, such as floods, thunderstorms, and fires.
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“In most cases, those who are affected require alternative shelter immediately, and others want to repair the damage to their homes as soon as possible.
“In analysing our response time and the adequacy of the response to affected areas, we found that our systems had many shortcomings, which include inflexible funds allocation, which then leads to a shortage of funds to cover the disaster victims in totality and long response time, which worsens the status of the victims.”
Kubayi said several new directives applicable to provincial departments and municipalities to change the manner of intervention in disaster areas had been introduced.
“These directives include a 24-hour turnaround period for the assessments of the disaster and fast-tracking of repairs through a voucher system.
“Regarding financing, provinces and metros are now allowed to utilise available funds from the human settlement development grant, urban settlement development grant and informal settlements upgrading partnership grant to intervene in dealing with the damages,” she added.
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