SA Affordable Housing January / February 2018 // Issue: 68 | Page 15

EVENTS
Stars of housing dazzle
at awards
Dressed to the nines and walking the red carpet were property
investors, financiers, developers, local, provincial and national housing
government officials who gathered for the annual housing awards.
By Ntsako Khosa | All images courtesy Department of Human Settlements
Embalenhle extension 8 in Mpumalanga, walked away with two awards from the night, Tsalanang Community Residential Units (CRU)
and Best finance linked individual subsidy project.
T
he 11th Govan Mbeki Awards were held at Gallagher
Convention Centre in Midrand on 9 November to
honour people in the construction sector,
municipalities and provinces that have excelled in the
delivery of houses.
The awards aim to encourage and reinforce a culture of
excellence within the housing sector in the delivery of
integrated human settlements.
Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu said the
department will not fail on its promise to reach a target of
delivering six million houses and subsidies by the end of
the current government’s term of office in 2019.
“As of 30 September 2017, the department has
delivered just over 4.6 million houses and subsidies,
leaving us with a deficit of 1.4 million. With the mega
projects beginning to roll out, I believe it is possible that,
combined with the energy of the Portfolio and Select
Committees, and a little bit more hard work from the
provinces and the metros, we cannot fail,”
Minister Sisulu said.
According to the South African Institute of Race
Relations (SAIRR) report, housing delivery has gone up by
131% since 1996. “We have built 1 029 houses a day [and]
if we multiply that with an average family consisting of five
people, we have provided shelter to 5 145 people a day.
For every shack built since 1994, we have built 10 houses.
These are facts that every South African should know,”
the Minister said.
NATIONAL HOUSING NEEDS REGISTER
This year, the department established a National Housing
Needs Register, a database of all those who need houses
and all forms of housing assistance. Minister Sisulu says
that the department, together with municipalities, is
working to ensure that they have a credible national
centralised database, so they can ensure that there is
credibility in the process of allocating houses.
“The centralised database includes military veterans.
We have been considering the possibility of taking over
the provision of houses to military veterans from the
Department of Military Veterans in total. Once
negotiations are completed, our database will register all
military veterans.”
Minister Sisulu said that the Government Employees
Housing Scheme (GEHS) will be transferred to the
Department of Human Settlements so that, “we are able to
cater for that segment where Finance Linked Individual
Subsidy Programme (FLISP) was not able to succeed.”
AFFORDABLE
SA HOUSING
JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2018
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