Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale takes his National Audit Task Team to the Eastern Cape on Monday, 16 November 2009, to witness the demolition of badly-built government houses.
The task team which is investigating a series of "chronic problems" affecting housing delivery will attend the demolition of a house that is part of a rectification programme spearheaded by the Eastern Cape department of human settlements.
The house, in Alphendale outside East London, was built in 2000, but now needs to be demolished because of serious structural defects. Work has already been done on more than 200 other houses in the project, with a total of 339 earmarked for rectification. Not all the houses will be demolished some have already been repaired, and the entire rectification process is due to completed in July 2010. The total cost of the rectification programme in Alphendale is just over R3 million.
Monday's visit – the first site visit since the team was announced earlier this month will give the Minister and his team first-hand evidence of the just some of the problems affecting housing service delivery.
The audit team will be able to witness the tragedy of the demolition of a house, built with taxpayers' money and which needs to be completely rebuilt with additional taxpayers' money. They will also hear from the community about other problems affecting housing service delivery.
The rectification programme that is underway in Alphendale is one of many across the country. Minister Sexwale will, on Monday outline the extent of these rectification initiatives and their total cost to government.
The Minister will also use the opportunity to introduce the audit team to the media.
Details of the event are as follows:
Date: Monday, 16 November 2009
Time: 09h00 to 11h00
Venue: 133 Elephant Road, Alphendale, Buffalo City, Eastern Cape
About the national audit
* The national Housing Audit was instituted to "examine, review and analyse the chronic problems in the delivery of houses".
* The principal aim of the audit is to identify and uncover blockages and impediments to delivery, with a view to improving systems, controls and measures.
* The net effect of this will be to accelerate the creation of sustainable human settlements, and to bring about a quantifiable improvement in the quality of life of the poor.
The rectification of poorly-built houses is just one component of the national audit. The audit team is also investigating the following:
* continuous contracting of the same bad contractors
* projects which have been delayed for inordinate periods
* people who have been in housing queues for years
* people selling government houses
* illegal occupation of government houses
* nepotism
* abuse of the housing waiting list system.
The audit team
The investigation is being led by the Special Investigations Unit. It is supported by:
* the Office of the Auditor-General
* the internal audit team of the Department of Human Settlements
* Provincial government representatives
This initiative also has the full support of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) and the Portfolio Committee on Human Settlements. When he announced the national audit, Minister Sexwale said the following: "We cannot allow this sort of thing to continue. We have a choice: to ignore these problems and continue with business as usual, or to act."
He also stated: "We can assure those who are involved in dodgy deals that there is no place to hide. Heads are going to roll."
Enquiries:
Chris Vick
Cell: 083 556 7644
Issued by: Department of Human Settlement
15 November 2009
