Human Settlements war room to remove housing delivery blockages

• Published date: 11 May 2022
• Publication title: South African Official News

Human Settlements Minister, Mmamoloko Kubayi, says a national war room has been established to improve the speed and quality of housing delivery.

Kubayi said this when she participated in the department's budget vote at a mini-plenary of the National Assembly on Tuesday.

'To deal with the blockages and the slow pace of delivery, we have established a national Human Settlements War Room, with Mr Dan Gorbachev Mashitisho, the former Director General of the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, as the convener.

'In this work, he will be supported by a team of highly specialised individuals who will bring a broad range of much needed skills to the sector,' she said.

Among the tasks that the War Room team will be ceased with, includes:

Coordinating efforts, monitoring and fast-tracking the implementation of diverse projects across provinces;

Coordinating support of various entities and consolidating reporting to the War Room;

Providing project tracking tools on all projects to monitor and to report to the War Room;

Identifying strategic partners that could assist to unblock challenges in project implementation; and

Creating an enabling environment for cooperative governance in line with Intergovernmental Relations Act.

Policy changes to fast-track delivery

Kubayi said, meanwhile, that in addition to the technical capacity that will be brought in, the department has made some policy changes that are aimed at expanding the speed and quantity of delivery.

This includes:

The revised bands for the Finance Linked Individual Subsidy Programme now called Help-Me-Buy-A-Home will come into effect in the current financial year;

The applicable subsidy quantums also being revised by 20.9 percent to ensure that they remain consistent with the ability of the department, through its implementing agents, to continue and improve delivery; and

The revision of the income bands from households earning an income...