Eastern Cape Housing MEC Mrs Nombulelo Mabandla will prioritise rural people and vulnerable groups such as disabled, elderly people, orphans and military veterans in the provision of houses in the province. This however will not prejudice other people qualifying for housing provision in the province.
This is in response to the rural development of communities in the province where many rural households are poorer than urban households earning an average of R1 000 a month and others depending on pension and welfare grants. “Rural households remain poor, are dependent on social grants and as such qualify for the housing subsidy. Service delivery approaches that lean more on cost recovery basis will for sometime remain inappropriate in rural areas,” she told parliament today.
“A province wide verification study on the nature and extent of housing demand and supply within rural areas has been conducted and completed with the support of a consortium comprised of the Fort Hare Institute of Socio Economic Research, ALCARI and Khanya Africa Institute for Community Based Development,” MEC Nombulelo Mabandla said during the presentation of the departmental policy speech at the Eastern Cape Legislature today.
The Provincial Rural Housing Policy and Implementation Strategy is being finalised, and is aimed at exploring a number of mechanisms that will ensure that the diverse rural housing demand is systematically and sustainably responded to achieve broader rural development goals of government. “The department has engaged the National Institute for Rural Development in the Government of India to learn from this country’s world wide recognised best practices on integrated and sustainable rural housing programmes. To this end, the department will be hosting three high ranking delegates from NIRD from 6 to 11 July 2009.”
She said rural housing development will contribute to provincial priorities such as poverty alleviation, infrastructure development, job creation and the emerging broader Rural Development Strategy of the Province. “Inadequacy of rural housing, in the view of people, seems not to be about the physical performance of traditional dwellings, but more about the absence of basic services in rural households to make life complete.”
She committed her department to facilitate and oversee a strong partnership between traditional leadership structures and municipalities in land use management, needs determination, beneficiary management and project planning and implementation.
“The process of the review of the department’s service delivery model to reposition itself for accelerated service delivery will consequently lead to the revisiting of the organisational structure at provincial and district level in order to poise the department better for the speedy roll out of the Rural Housing Strategy (RHS) in conjunction with municipalities,” she added.
Contact:
Mr Lwandile Sicwetsha
Cell: 071 671 1770
E-mail: lwandileS@echousing.gov.za
Issued by: Department of Human Settlements, Eastern Cape Provincial Government
18 June 2009
