The Democratic Alliance (DA) calls on Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi and the MEC for Human Settlements, Tasneem Motara, to urgently expedite the delivery of housing. The residents of Gauteng are frustrated and tired of empty promises to address the housing waiting list. What they need are houses, delivered without further delay and excuses.
In Tembisa, a 77-year-old Koko Ncikiza still resides in a tiny backroom that offers little comfort, dignity, and security, despite having applied for housing in 1996 and being eligible to receive one.
See video and photo of Koko Ncikiza here and here.
During the State of the Province Address, Premier Lesufi boasted that his administration had delivered 7,000 housing units in the current financial year. He further claimed that priority is being given to elderly residents and those who have spent years on the waiting list, with a target of building 8,644 houses in the new financial year.
This announcement by Premier Lesufi is a drop in the ocean compared to the housing needs in Gauteng, where the housing waiting list exceeds 1.2 million. Furthermore, the claim that they are prioritising senior citizens and people stuck on the waiting list does not match reality.
Gauteng residents have, for nearly three decades, endured inhumane living conditions sustained by a single, repeated promise: ‘your house is coming’. Meanwhile, the housing waiting continues to balloon with no clear plan or decisive intervention from the Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi-led government to address the backlog.
Many of these residents have aged while waiting for housing. Children have grown up in shacks, knowing no other reality. Senior citizens have been living in overcrowded backyards, and some have died without receiving the houses they applied for as early as 1996.
While deserving residents continue to wait, many abandoned housing projects and incomplete developments stand empty, yet billions are lost to corruption and mismanagement. Money meant to put roofs over the heads of desperate people has enriched the connected few.
See photos of one of the abandoned housing projects here, and here.
A DA-led Gauteng Provincial Government would fast-track the 1996 housing waiting list, prioritise long-waiting and vulnerable beneficiaries, complete abandoned projects, and act decisively against corruption and queue-jumping that deny deserving residents their homes. This can be done!