North West MEC for Human Settlements, Public Safety and Liaison Nono Maloyi is confident that his department will close the existing housing backlog in the province, and the challenges faced by those in the housing gap market. Maloyi said this during the launch of the Mahikeng 100 Community Residential Units (CRU) at extension 39 in Mahikeng local municipality.
Addressing hundreds of communities attending the official launch of the project, Maloyi said the completion of these units will contribute immensely to service delivery in changing people’s lives for better.
“We are faced with a huge housing backlog in the province and the completion of these units will definitely contribute enormously to fast track the housing delivery in the province. Our people are expecting a lot from us and we must deliver quality services on time,” said Maloyi.
The departmental MEC encouraged the contractor to ensure quality of the units by working with the National Home Builders Registration Council. “As much as we want to speed up our service delivery, we must not just run for quantity, leaving the quality behind. There is no use to build and handover shoddy houses to our people in which at a later stage they will come back to us and complain about the quality of our houses, that will be a draw back on its own,” he said.
The R34 million project is expected to be completed in February 2014. The department has committed to build 400 CRU’s in the areas of Mahikeng, Matlosana and Rustenburg with a total allocation of R110,9 million during this financial year.
Maloyi further said that the department intends to conduct a feasibility studies in the municipalities of Madibeng and Moses Kotane with anticipation of constructing the units in the 2014/15 financial year.
The first phase of 100 CRU’s in the province was built and handed over in the Tlokwe Local Municipality worth R24,9 million in the last financial year.
The CRUs are one of the departmental housing programmes aimed to facilitate the provision of secure, stable rental tenure for lower income earners and provides a coherent framework for dealing with many different forms of existing public sector residential accommodation.
The units target persons and households earning less than R3500 a month and cannot afford formal private rental and social housing market.
Maloyi further expressed his gratitude to committed men and women who selflessly volunteered as data collectors during the departmental socio- economic impact research conducted around extension 39. MEC bestowed them with certificates of recognition for the work well done.
The study revealed amongst others, high rate of unemployment and influx from rural to urban area which is something which need integrated approach to deal with.
Enquiries:
Ben Bole (Acting Departmental Spokesperson)
Tel : (018)3884824
Cell : 071 5661399- 0713321075
Fax : (018) 3910328
E-mail : MSBole@nwpg.gov.za
