DA has "incredible" title deed roll-out

"In just one term in office we reduced that by nearly 10 percentage points to 27 percent."

The DA has an "incredible" record of title deed roll-out where it governs, Gauteng premier candidate Mmusi Maimane said on Monday.

"Under the ANC, the backlog of title deeds for families had steadily risen in the Western Cape to 36 percent," he said in a speech prepared for delivery at a rally for title deeds and quality housing in Jabavu, Soweto.

"In just one term in office we reduced that by nearly 10 percentage points to 27 percent."

He said in Gauteng, residents often complained about the lack of communication around housing.

"They don't know who will get houses, who got the tender, and when they will get their title deed. That is what life is like under Jacob Zuma's ANC in Gauteng."

He said the Democratic Alliance was launching a housing policy which would:

• accelerate the roll-out of title deeds to state-subsidised housing beneficiaries;
• make housing demand databases public to reduce corruption in the allocation of homes, and;
• get rid of corrupt housing contractors who built poor quality houses by opening tender committees so that the public could see who was awarded housing tenders.

"People must own the land they live on. That is the passport to participation in the economy that hundreds of thousands of families in Gauteng are waiting for."

He said over 220,000 families in Gauteng who had received state-subsidised housing did not have title deeds.

"Even the basic right to electricity is being denied to these families. We must do things differently to help these families," Maimane said.