The City of Cape Town and Provincial Government of the Western Cape have signed an agreement which will cut red tape and speed up the delivery of housing, by empowering the City to manage and administer all housing projects which it has been accredited to perform within its municipal boundaries.
Executive Mayor, Alderman Patricia de Lille and the Western Cape Minister for Human Settlements, Bonginkosi Madikizela signed the Human Settlements Implementation Protocol and Deeds of Delegation at a ceremony on Thursday 14 June 2012.
The signing of the protocol finalised the transfer of Level 1 and 2 accreditation responsibility for housing functions from the Provincial Department of Human Settlements to the City of Cape Town.
The Executive Mayor described it as a “very significant document for the future management of housing delivery in the City of Cape Town”, as it also enables the City to manage the budgetary processes pertaining to the Human Settlement funding for the implementation of National Housing Programmes within the City’s municipal borders.
She added that the protocol will also pave the way for the City to receive the full power and authority to implement national housing programmes, which means it can receive funding for these projects directly from the National Government. The City will be directly accountable for the management of the funds, and the Provincial Government will retain an oversight role.
“The protocol will also help streamline housing delivery processes. Previously, the City of Cape Town had to approach the Province to, among other things, access the Human Settlements Development Grant (HSDG) application and approve new human settlement projects. This will no longer be the case and it will in time help to speed up housing delivery and cut down on red tape.”
The Executive Mayor called on all spheres of government and key role-players to work together to pursue innovative ways of fast-tracking housing delivery, and stopping the housing backlog from becoming unmanageable.
“While it will still take time to build houses for all the more than 380 000 people who are currently on the Housing Demand Database, this development will go a long way to help us implement housing projects faster by shifting the focus to medium and high density housing projects, informal settlement upgrading and the backyarders programme.”
