21 May 2004

The government will draw from past experiences to accelerate its housing provision programme, President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday.

Speaking at the opening of Parliament in Cape Town, Mbeki said a comprehensive programme "dealing with human settlement and social infrastructure, including rental-housing stock for the poor", would be presented to Cabinet within three months.

"In the next three years we will spend R14.2-billion to help our people have access to basic shelter", he said.

During this financial year, he added, government would also address the slow-down in housing delivery in some provinces.

Since 1994, government has delivered more than 1.6 million houses to over 7.35 million beneficiaries. In the process, 400 000 former municipal houses worth R32-billion have been transferred to the people who had been renting them.

This accomplishment did not go unnoticed, with the United Nations presenting former housing minister Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele with the UN Habitat award last year.

Mthembi-Mahanyele was honoured for improving the housing conditions of six million poverty-stricken South Africans while she was housing minister from 1995 to early 2003.

The former minister delivered 1.45 million houses worth R20-billion to six million people within this period.

Source: BuaNews

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