The strengthening of public private partnership in human settlements got a measure boost today when the Gauteng Provincial Government signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Old Mutual, formally starting a relationship that will help the province to deliver on the Mega Cities Strategy.
This signing of the MOU in Sandton was part of monthly Roundtable Discussions on Human Settlements which were kicked started by MEC Jacob Mamabolo today. These discussions are aimed at engaging with key private sector players in the housing market and to create a platform of cooperation and collaboration in responding to housing needs of the province. Today’s Roundtable discussion was attended by various strategic stakeholders including senior leadership of Old Mutual, Gauteng Partnership Fund and so on.
The discussions centred on the need to intensify and accelerate the provision of houses to residents across all segments in the market.
“Whilst generally people believe that as government we are about Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) homes, the truth is that we must respond to all housing needs of those who have difficulty accessing the property market. We have a huge so called ‘gap market’ which comprise of people who earn too much to qualify for an RDP house and yet their salary is too little to qualify for bank loan ”, MEC Mamabolo said.
MEC Mamabolo said the key was to subsidise this income bracket of R3501-R15000 through the government’s Finance Linked Individual Subsidy Programme which helps with a contribution towards a loan deposit in order to render the monthly repayments affordable.
MEC further stressed that the future of Gauteng is building high rise apartments in an attempt to densify human settlements in the face of scarce and expensive land and also because of massive urbanisation and rapid in migration into the province. These high rise buildings are already contained in Mega Cities Strategy which is about new post-1994 human settlements cities that are well integrated and will each yield no less than 15000 units per mega project. The projects are spread across all the five economic corridors in Gauteng that were unveiled by Premier David Makhura.
“The lesson we take home today at the Roundtable is that there is big appetite in the private sector to provide affordable housing and to assist government to overcome the huge backlog in housing. We as government we need to rally and coordinate our work much better and include all relevant stakeholders such as Departments of Energy, of Sanitation and Water, of Transport, Health, Education, Monitoring and Evaluation, Eskom, Rand Water, Municipalities, and so on. Our improved collective efforts will serve as a much needed catalyst in the housing sector”, MEC Mamabolo said.
Enquiries:
Motsamai Motlhaolwa
Cell: 079 897 2240
