25 September 2007

GAUTENG residents will see a fast tracked, massive and accelerated housing delivery in the next two years leading to the next term of the new government.

This was announced by MEC for Housing in Gauteng, Nomvula Mokonyane in a speech at a recent meeting of housing officials and politicians from all municipalities in the province.

The two-day meeting was held in Bela Bela in Limpopo and its objectives were to look at the state of housing delivery in the province and to develop plans for completing housing delivery for the remainder of the government term of office.

In her speech to the meeting Mokonyane said: "We need to integrate work done by Gauteng Provincial Government and municipalities and the latter should cluster their work to fast track service delivery. And that attention needs to be paid to the cost of doing business with government".

She further informed the meeting about the resolutions taken at the recent Gauteng Cabinet Lekgotla about the need for officials in the province to work together including looking at the protests that took place in Gauteng.

An assessment was done of all the projects that are being implemented in the province by all municipalities.

The meeting also dealt with the issue of all projects and programmes that were addressed by the MEC in her 2007/08 Budget Speech such as the flagships projects in Cosmo City, Doornkop and Olievenhoutbosch.

Other sources of funding from the private sector will be raised to fast track housing delivery. The department has already spent 60% of its total budget. It is expected that more projects will be delivered in the next few months until 2009.

The meeting also affirmed that government housing programme will continue to seek more innovative ways to confront problems and challenges that we are facing in the delivery of houses and other essential services to communities.

The emphasis would now be based on establishing partnerships with communities and building capacity for them to take charge of housing development. In moving forward the meeting emphasized that the main focus is to continue making sure that we have a sustainable human settlement process able to achieve housing with secure tenure, within a safe and healthy environment, and the development of integrated communities.

The meeting also discussed in detail issues relating to how to improve the housing delivery process from planning to implementation. The process has now been shortened and improved the turnaround time without compromising on compliance and quality. This new innovative way will remove unnecessary delays being experienced by our beneficiaries and service providers.

On corruption, the meeting reinforced current initiatives to stamp out corruption both internally and externally. These include taking disciplinary actions against officials and laying criminal charges against developers engaged in fraud.

The meeting also discussed in detail the recent protest in Gauteng and concluded that there are underlying circumstances and there's no doubt that some disgruntled political individual and groups are using ordinary citizens for their own political benefit and advancing their own agenda through the use of mass protests.

One of the critical observations made is that there is not enough communication and dialogue between government structures and local people in order to share information on plans to improve and fast track service delivery. Considerable efforts therefore will be dedicated towards improving communication as well as consultation with all stakeholders at local level.

The MEC urges Gauteng residents and stakeholders to work closely with her department and government to help accelerate housing delivery in the province.

"The assurance that we give our people is that if delivery has not happened in your area it will soon happen as it did in other areas where people waited patiently.

"We are also coming to your community. What we humbly ask for from our people is cooperation and understanding as we strive to deliver on our mandate. Above all, it is also the responsibility of the law-abiding citizens to protect and preserve the assets provided by the state," Mokonyane said.

Source: gpg.gov.za