1 263 660 Gauteng residents are on the housing waiting list, with some having been on this list since 1996 with hopes that the Gauteng Department of Human Settlement will provide them with dignified houses. The wait will continue as the department can only build 10 000 houses, per financial year.
Gauteng residents who are desperate for dignified housing will continue to be exposed to terrible living conditions because of this department’s failure to timeously deliver houses.
The numbers on the housing waiting list will continue to grow instead of being reduced. Some people on the housing waiting list have died while still waiting for houses, and those that are alive have lost hope that they will be allocated houses.
This information was revealed by the Gauteng MEC for Human Settlements and Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA), Lebogang Maile, in a written reply to the DA’s written questions tabled in the Gauteng Provincial Legislature (GPL)
According to MEC Maile, 1 263 660 potential beneficiaries are registered on the housing waiting list. Some of these beneficiaries have been on the housing waiting list since 1996.
From 1996 to 2000, 256 651 residents were registered for housing, in 2001-2010 there were 310 637 people registered, and from 2011-2022, 696 372 people were registered for housing.
MEC Maile states that migration, availability of habitable land and budget are among the reasons there has been a slowdown in the delivery of housing. These are yet again unnecessary excuses from the MEC because poor planning and mismanagement of funds are the main reasons that the beneficiaries who applied for houses 26 years ago have not yet received their houses.
The small percentage of houses handed out over 5 years indicates the incompetency of the current government to relieve the poor residents of this province from suffering. Of the 53 954 houses completed in 2017, only 10830 were allocated from 2019 to the 2021/22 financial year.
The long wait for housing needs to come to an end. This department has for years registered housing beneficiaries and raised their hopes while it knows that it will not deliver on its promises.
The DA demands that MEC Maile fast-tracks the allocation of houses as he owes it to the people of Gauteng to fix this mess and reduce the housing backlog.