INLSA
Thuli Madonsela
Sipokazi Fokazi
Political Bureau
SHOCKING levels of shoddy work in the construction of low-cost houses have been revealed by Public Protector Thuli Madonsela, who cited cases of homes built without foundations, others without proper plans and some built with a mud-like material.
She urged the government to intensify efforts to recover money from building contractors who did poor work and to hold them accountable after a flood of complaints to her office.
Addressing Parliament’s oversight committee on human settlements yesterday, Madonsela said that complaints about to maladministration in the provision of low-cost housing had increased substantially, jumping from 2 000 cases last year to more than 5 000 to date.
Not only was the government losing billions in the building of these homes through overbilling by construction companies, but the quality of some was so compromised that rectifying the defects would be impossible.
They needed to be demolished and built from scratch, Madonsela warned.
Materials used to build marquees were in some cases used to build standard houses.
“The incidence of homes falling apart is getting higher, with the ones without foundations and improper roofing and other abnormalities. We did find homes that don’t have foundations, and homes that were built with something like mud… when you poke through, it falls apart,” Madonsela said.
Earlier in the day, the Human Rights Commission had raised concerns about sanitation in RDP homes. The head of the commission, Lawrence Mushwana, claimed that recommendations it had made to the department had been ignored. One was the eradication of bucket-system toilets. Mushwana said the system was still prevalent in the Eastern, Northern and Western Cape.
Some of the complaints that formed part of Madonsela’s probe were tenders issued to corrupt politicians at municipal and provincial levels, planning irregularities, tardiness of contractors and municipalities, allocation irregularities and poor sanitation.
Madonsela told the committee about a 75-year-old woman, “Gogo Nkosi” from Gauteng, who had complained of being on a waiting list since 1996.
After her office intervened, the woman eventually got her house, but it did not have ablution facilities and she had to rely on a neighbour’s house for a toilet. Sanitation was finally installed, but it leaked. The contractor said it was the woman’s responsibility to fix it.
One project Madonsela was investigating involved a R3 billion People’s Housing Process scheme, which was involved in tender irregularity. Despite the shoddiness of the work, Madonsela said, beneficiaries had been given only six months to report defects.
Allocation of RDP houses had also caused problems, primarily for those who applied earlier, often resulting in conflicts among communities and the destruction of homes by angry community members.
Despite the government’s requirements for RDP houses to be inspected by the National Home Builder Registration Council, in some municipalities it was left to beneficiaries to check for defects.
Madonsela asked the committee to call on the Department of Human Settlements and other role-players to brief Parliament on progress made in addressing those concerns.
There was also a need for Parliament to have a uniform approach to accountability of wrongdoers,where money had been paid and work had been poorly executed.
“The money should be collected from people who messed up,” said Madonsela.
