MINISTRY FOR HUMAN SETTLEMENTS
REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
QUESTION FOR WRITTEN REPLY
QUESTION NO.: 446
DATE OF PUBLICATION: 27 FEBRUARY 2015
Mr S M Gana (DA) to ask the Minister of Human Settlements:
(1) How many units were built as part of the hostel upgrade programme in
each province in the (a) 2006-07, (b) 2007-08, (c) 2008-09, (d) 2009-
10, (e) 2010-11 and (f) 2011-12 financial years;
(2) how many of the units in each province (a) have been allocated and
(b) are currently legally occupied;
(3) whether there are any units that are still unallocated in each
province; if so, (a) how many and (b) what is the cause of the delay
in the allocation of the units;
(4) (a) how many of the unallocated units have been invaded in each
province and (b) are there any plans to evict those who are occupying
the units illegally;
(5) how many units built as part of the hostel upgrade programme are
currently incomplete in each province?
NW523E
REPLY:
(1) The National Hostels Redevelopment Programme became dysfunctional
when it was replaced by the Community Residential Units (CRU)
Programme in December 2006. This programme encompasses eight
development options to deal with public owned buildings and although
it covers the redevelopment of hostels, it is not limited to such.
All hostel redevelopment projects that were in the implementation
phase during the approval of the CRU policy had to be halted due to
the termination of the hostel redevelopment subsidy and these projects
transitioned to the Community Residential Units programme and were
completed using the CRU subsidy.
Statistics for completed units is only available from the 2009-2010
financial years onwards as projects were in the planning and
implementation phases during the 2007-2008 financial years. Statistics
for hostels upgrades prior to the approval of the CRU policy are not
accurate as most hostels have since been refurbished or re-upgraded
using CRU funding and hence fall within the statistics of the CRU
programme.
Although all Provincial Human Settlement Departments are currently
implementing the CRU programme, not all have embarked on redeveloping
hostels. As per the question, information on provinces that have
upgraded hostels is provided below.
The Department has embarked on a total of forty five (45) hostel
upgrading projects in six provinces since 1 January 2009 and the total
number of units is as follows:
|Province |Total number of Units |
|Mpumalanga |656 |
|Limpopo |189 |
|Free State |869 |
|Gauteng |3390 |
|KwaZulu-Natal |853 |
|Western Cape |7518 |
|Northern Cape |no hostel upgrade projects |
|North West |no hostel upgrade, only CRU projects |
|Eastern Cape |no hostel upgrade projects |
(2) The following units per province have been allocated and are
legally occupied:
|Province |Units allocated |
|Mpumalanga |487 |
|Limpopo |189 |
|Free State |313 |
|Gauteng |1875 |
|KwaZulu-Natal |853 |
|Western Cape |7518 |
(3) The following units are un-allocated and reasons for such are
provided per province:
|Province |No. |Reasons for un-allocation |
|Mpumalanga |169 |The municipality and management agent are |
| | |currently busy with beneficiary administration.|
|Free State |556 |The process of allocating units as per the |
| | |departments waiting list is currently underway |
|Gauteng |1263 |The Johannesburg Housing Company is currently |
| | |busy with beneficiary screening. |
(4) (a) Gauteng is the only province that has 252 units which are
illegally occupied.
(b) Court processes are currently underway to evict the illegal
occupiers.
(5) Due to the large size of CRU developments, most projects are
completed per phases over a period of three to four financial years or
more. There are projects that the completion date is as far as 2019-
2020 financial year, hence there are no incomplete projects because
the completion date is not passed yet.
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