Financial failures keep Gauteng residents homeless

13 October 2016

Firmer financial controls and adequate planning by accounting officers would have ensured that the Gauteng Department of Human Settlements did not surrender R980 million back to the National Department of Human Settlements (DoHS). 

Due to the department’s failure to effectively roll out housing, the DoHS pulled the plug on R980 million worth of funding, which in the previous financial year could have built 7 567 houses.

With a backlog of nearly 1 million houses in Gauteng, it is unacceptable that poor financial planning and controls have set back the lives of millions of residents in the province. 

Human settlements is the only department in the Gauteng Provincial Government that did not receive an increase in its budget.

Gauteng Premier, David Makhura, along with Finance MEC Barbara Creecy and MEC for Human Settlements, Paul Mashatile must lobby national government with a turnaround strategy to ensure that this grant will be re-allocated.

The department cannot go another year failing to deliver on its mandate – ultimately keeping the province’s most marginalised trapped in the cycle of homelessness and poverty. 

Issued by Mike Moriarty, DA Gauteng Spokesperson on Finance, 13 October 2016