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"If we were to do effective rectification, we would require R58 billion - that is not for building, just for rectification," Human Settlements director-general Thabane Zulu told Parliament's human settlements portfolio committee yesterday.

Zulu told Sowetan after the meeting that the figure was an estimate that still required verification.

But after Housing Minister Tokyo Sexwale said just six weeks ago that he had set aside R1,3 billion to fix sub-standard houses this year, the new estimate of R58 billion came as a shock to MPs, who gasped loudly.

The department's annual budget is only R16,3 billion. If the government spends R1,3 billion a year on the rectification programme, it will take more than 40 years just to fix sub-standard houses.

It also emerged that the department still had not found a way to prevent companies who built the poorly constructed houses from getting more contracts with the government.

"Some have become rectifiers of rectification. You build a project yourself, knowing that you are going to come back and rectify it. There has to be a process where people who have not built quality must be blacklisted," Zulu said.

He also revealed that when companies do work for the department, government officials are sent out to verify their invoices and check that the work has been done. This new practice came about as a result of special investigations unit investigations into corruption in the department.

The committee also commended Zulu and Sexwale for their recent decision to withdraw R463 million in government funds from Free State and KwaZulu-Natal, who had underspent their housing budgets.

Zulu said if they had not withdrawn the R463 million the provinces would have felt forced to spend it quickly.

"They would end up inflating the costs of projects," Zulu said.

Meanwhile, the department was rapped over the knuckles by MPs for failing to give out vouchers as part of their rural housing subsidy voucher scheme.

The scheme was launched in 2009 and offers rural people vouchers to build their own houses.

But nobody has yet benefited from the scheme because the first pilot project will only be launched in Eastern Cape at the end of this year.

Comments

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Wed May 22 00:16:49 SAST 2013 ::

Feb 10, 2011

MYMYMY

IT WILL STILL HAPPEN FOR AS LONG AS YOU ARE GIVING YOUR FRIENDS TENDERS TO BUILD HOUSES AND NOT CAPABLE CONSTRUCTION COMPANIES. DEAL WITH IT TOKYO,RE KENA KAE RONA MOO? NXHA!
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Feb 10, 2011

SK250

We ain't paying taxes to watch other people waste the money. Someone must be arrested and held responsible for this SH@T.
MYMYMY, tell them sis.
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Feb 10, 2011

Mosito

There is no system for implementing the policies of different departments in the government, so that is why there are chaos in the housing department as well as treasury department......with the ANC's cadreship deployment system, it makes matters worse because these comrades have no knowledge of governance at all..... we will see this kind of wastage for a long time to come as long as the cadres are deployed in the departments where they cannot perform.....
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Feb 10, 2011

sthenjwa4582

Those officials who approved the houses as a "well built" without even holding the retention on contract payment and paid the full amount to the contractor should be dealt with.

These costs should be recovered from their pension money.....so the others can learn.
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Feb 10, 2011

Chillis

Money down the drain = corruption and giving tenders to friends and relatives who are not credible!!!

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Feb 10, 2011

FactorAnalyst

Y not retrieve the money from tenderpreneurs? In Tshepong, next to Residensia in Sebokeng, rain turn RDP houses into swimming pools, toilets malfunction and God-know-what more!!!
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Feb 10, 2011

Infidel

This goes to all those who say we are jealous when we criticise tenderpreneurs, why should we condone corruption just because it is done by fellow blacks? As long as we still give the ANC the blank cheque to do as they want, this will still happen, nothing was done to Juju for building sub standard bridges, this leaves the impresion ANC individuals are untouchable.
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Feb 10, 2011

Sagacious

Heheheheeee, this is intriguing ek se, one can issue a tender and vie for the same tender ( be paid mils), construct a substandard RDP houses, then vie again to rectify the same houses he has built and be a rectifier( be paid mils) ek se this is moja.

Istru sbob I so wish I could have a lift on this gravy train.

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Feb 10, 2011

Winky

Nothing NEW...JUST THE USSUAL
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Feb 10, 2011

Sike84boy

jajaja! that much? and who is responsible for that? oh! why are fooling ourselves with such questions? i think we should stop beating around the bush and accept that we are falling ourselves as a black society and as the country!
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