NATIONAL COUNCIL OF PROVINCES
FOR WRITTEN REPLY
QUESTION No. 82
Question
Mr H B Groenewald (DA-NW) to ask the Minister of Human Settlements:
1) With reference to the uncompleted houses in the Reagile and
Borolelo communities in the Kgetlengrivier Municipality in
the North West, in respect of each project, what is the (a)
name of the contractor, (b) reason why the project has not
been completed, (c) number of uncompleted houses, (d) name/s
of the person in this department responsible for overseeing
the projects and (e)(i) amount paid to the contractors thus
far and (ii) amount that still needs to be paid;
2) Whether this department has taken any steps in this regard;
if not, why not; if so, what are the relevant details?
3) Whether any action has been taken to accommodate the
beneficiaries of these houses; if not, why not; if so, what
are the relevant details?
Reply
(1)(a) Yes, the Municipality appointed M3D as the Developer for the
two projects.
(b) The projects were initially not enrolled with the National
Home Builders Registration Council (NHBRC) and as a result
they were blocked due to non-compliance issues. In order to
enroll the houses with the NHBRC, the NHBRC conducted a
Forensic Audit on the 23rd September 2007 on the structures
that were already in place. The NHBRC then enrolled the
houses and the project on condition that all identified
structural defects had to be addressed by the developer. The
Auditing and enrolment process took longer than anticipated
thus delaying the project further. The price escalation of
building material also led to misalignment of funding that
was allocated to the project and as a result the contractor
subsequently applied for top up funding from the
Municipality, who in turn submitted their application to the
Provincial Human Settlement Department (PHSD).
In view of the above, the Provincial Human Settlement
Department conducted its own physical audit of the project
which confirmed the NHBRC findings and the top-up subsidy
funding was approved with an addendum to the contract making
provision for the completion and rectification of the
defected units. The amended contract has since been prepared
and is ready for signature by both the PHSD and the
Municipality. It is anticipated that the Developer will
commence with construction on the 1st November 2009.
(c) There are a total number of 59 units uncompleted in Reagile
and 35 units in Borolelo.
(d) The project is being managed by Mr Gontse Mothusi who is the
PHSD Project
Manager for the Bojanala District.
(e) (i) + (ii)The financial breakdown of the two Projects is as
follows:
(i) Reagile:
Budget approved: R 11,333,940.00
Amount paid to date: R 9,671,950.00
Balance remaining: R1, 661,990.00
(ii) Borolelo:
Budget approved: R 17,585,000.00
Amount paid: R 13,651,204.20
Balance remaining: R 3,933,795.80
2) The PHSD facilitated the audit of the project by the NHBRC and has
been involved in the process of resuscitating the project, ensuring
that all identified defects are addressed by the contractor.
Monitoring mechanisms are also in place to ensure that quality
products are delivered. The Department also instituted its own
audit before approving the top-up funding for the project.
Presently the Department has the structure and capacity to monitor
the quality of products produced by the contractor on site.
3) Affected beneficiaries were, unfortunately, not given any
alternative accommodation in the ensuing period. This is an area
that the PHSD will need to look at although it is not expected that
such incidences will recur in future.