The Portfolio Committee on Human Settlements appreciates a presentation from the Department of Human Settlements today, but remains concerned about the department’s unsatisfactory performance for the 2014/15 financial year so far. Committee Chairperson, Ms Nocawe Mafu, says a decline in the department’s performance has a negative impact on service delivery.
Department of Human Settlements reported non-financial performance as follows:
- First quarter of 2014/15 is seventy nine percent (79%) – out of 143 targets planned; only 113 targets were achieved.
- Second quarter of 2014/15 is seventy four percent (74%) – out of 129 planned; only 96 targets were achieved.
- Third quarter of 2014/15 is sixty six percent (66%) – out of 119 planned; only 79 targets were achieved.
The Chairperson was pleased with the corrective measures that the department had put in place to rectify all the concerns that were raised by the Committee. The department’s senior management assured the Committee that significant improvement would be seen by the end of financial year.
Committee further raised serious concerns about R54 million that was lost to the National Treasury. Ms Mafu indicated that these funds could have been used to fill vacant posts. She further indicated that if the department kept losing millions to Treasury, this would have negative effect on the department’s overall performance.
It was noted by the Committee that Limpopo was at some stage put under Section 100 administration and that an amount of R600 million would be taken from Limpopo and be redirected to the other provinces where service delivery was high and capacity to deliver was also high. The Committee also heard from the department’s report that redirecting these funds was part of the corrective measures that have been put in place to ensure that the department delivered more houses and did not return funding back to Treasury.
The Chairperson emphasised that the Committee’s oversight role over the department was to ensure that when there were challenges there was an intervention to see to it that corrective measures were put in place to improve the situation.
For media enquiries or interviews with the Chairperson, please contact:
Mzingezwi Plum
Tel: 021 403 2201
Cell: 076 9054 693
E-mail: oplum@parliament.gov.za
