Pretoria - The North West Department of Human Settlements has forked out more than R1.2 billion to reduce the housing backlog in the province, accelerate access to housing and address homelessness.
Reporting to the Provincial Legislature on Tuesday, North West MEC for Human Settlements Desbo Mohono said her department had directed the money towards delivering 16 816 housing units and unblocking 13 housing development projects.
In her presentation of the 2010/11 Annual Report to the Portfolio Committee on Local Government, Traditional Affairs and Human Settlements, Mohono said that 9 599 of the delivered housing units were part of the informal settlements eradication programme, while 3 688 addressed homelessness as part of the rural housing programme.
"We have discontinued multiple allocations to contactors to minimise the risk of non-performance as part of correcting every past wrongdoing while striving to reach new targets we have set to accelerate the housing backlog in our province," she said.
Mohono added that she had completed one-on-one sessions with all municipalities to assess the state of housing delivery, challenges encountered and spell out targets and objectives towards implementation of the housing delivery turnaround plan.
Intervention measures had been implemented to prevent the housing projects from being blocked, she said.
These include proper and adequate planning that takes into consideration elements and prerequisites to complete a project, strengthening project monitoring and inspection capacity.
