Posts

Housing indaba explores pressing issues

Government has spent R2-billion to date, rebuilding or refurbishing houses built as part of its national human settlements programme. This amount, says human settlements minister Lindiwe Sisulu, is all that government is prepared to pay, and the cost of fixing the shoddy work done by crooked contractors will not be borne by taxpayers. Sisulu was Read more >

Negotiating the RDP rules and regulations

“We will take back those houses if you sell them for profit, because we build them for a purpose. Put it away safely.” This was reportedly said earlier this year to a group of residents of the Sol Plaatjie municipality, who had gathered to witness the handing over of title deeds to beneficiaries of over Read more >

Cabinet’s first 100 days sees some progress

The RDP housing database will have a modern, organised structure that will be managed by the State Information Technology Agency, while correctional services personnel will go back to school in an effort to professionalise the sector. It has only been three months, but the Cabinet appointed by President Jacob Zuma in May seems to be Read more >

Papadi Makhetha: housing’s anti-fraud champion

By Janine Erasmus To date Corruption Watch has received around 170 reports of alleged corruption in the housing sector – the majority from Gauteng, Mpumalanga and the Western Cape. Gauteng’s metropolitan municipality of Ekurhuleni has the most complaints, followed by the cities of Johannesburg and Cape Town. Gauteng has the greatest demand for government housing Read more >

Gauteng human settlements dept to improve

By Valencia Talane In the first part of our housing series we outlined some of the corruption-related challenges faced by the national Department of Human Settlements in meeting its mandate – in part two we look at the proposed measures that will help to overcome these challenges. Gauteng's department of co-operative governance and traditional affairs and Read more >

Jumping the queue: an RDP housing exposé

16 April 2012 – Corruption Watch has spent two weeks gathering damning RDP housing-corruption evidence from the field and putting pressure on the authorities to respond – this is what we’ve uncovered … Residents of Pennyville, a mixed housing development near Soweto, were the first to open up. The community of about 10 000 residents live Read more >