How to build quality houses for R55 000

Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale has trudged the width and breadth of the country, demolishing poorly built RDP houses. In the process, he has gained praise as a minister who is now going to give the poor well-deserved decent houses. The Sunday Independent spoke to housing experts who say Sexwale's promise of quality is likely to run into problems. Among the challenges in his path will be:

Inflation
Whether he has to purchase land or not
Profit-taking by contractors

Inconsistency in provinces.Tito Khalo, a housing expert and professor in the public management faculty of humanities at the Tshwane University of Technology, said the government needed to find more money for quality low-cost housing and ensure consistency in respect of build quality throughout the country to avoid the costly problems of the past.

Khalo said he was not sure if the R55 000 allocated for the building of each house by the government would be enough, taking into account inflation."In 1994 the government allocated R25 000 for house and land, and if the strategy now is to build bigger houses, the amount is less than when the house construction began. Certainly, the strategy needs to change so that houses in every province match national housing standards," he said. Khalo said the government had sacrificed quality in the rush to meet the ANC's 1994 election pledge of building a million homes and, as a result, it had ended up building what Bantu Holomisa once described as "Unos" - one door and one window homes reminiscent of the tiny Fiat vehicle. Property analyst at Absa, Jacques du Toit said R55 000 was not "a lot of money to build a house" and shoddy workmanship should not be tolerated again. "Proper structures must be built, ones in which people can live. Given recent history, and past standards, along with rising building costs, it is possible to have properties built costing R45 000 but it is far more difficult," he said.Architect and promotions and communications executive at the South African Institute of Architects, Zola Kgaka, said the institute, which is involved in low-cost housing projects, had given the ministry reasons why architects should be involved in the planning. In the past they were not part of the process. While Kgaka said providing a view on low-cost houses would be subjective, building a suitable dwelling at a cost of R55 000 was dependent on several factors. These included whether the entire amount was for the structure, or if the land costs were excluded. "Since low-cost homes are built in bulk, due to the economies of scale unit costs come down," she said.Kecia Rust, the housing finance theme co-ordinator at non-profit independent Finmark Trust, which aims to make financial markets work for the poor, said: "If the minister is knocking down houses and building new ones, you can build something with R55 000. You can't make the money bigger because we have a backlog of 2.2 million units in the country. "In 2004, the cabinet approved a new policy, known as Breaking New Ground. The emphasis of that policy was that we must build homes, not merely houses. The houses demolished by the minister were most likely RDP houses, built before 2004". Special advisor to Sexwale, Chris Vick, said a national audit task team appointed by the minister was both a punitive and a corrective measure. It would identify people in the public and private sectors who were involved in wrongdoing, and ensure they were brought to book. It would also identify loopholes in processes, and make recommendations on how to eliminate them. "This applies particularly to questions of quality. The task team is expected to come up with recommendations for ensuring that we avoid quality problems in the future, by outlining preventative measures that can and should be taken throughout the home construction phase."Vick said it was envisaged that the task team would make recommendations on ensuring that only qualified construction companies were awarded contracts, and would outline steps to enforce all the quality control measures involved in home construction.In addition, the Department of Human Settlements is increasing its capacity to monitor and evaluate the quality of home building by making more frequent visits to housing projects and working more closely with provincial and local government, where delivery takes place. He added that the National Home Builders' Registration Council was in the process of appointing building inspectors who would focus more directly on issues of quality, and monitor the roll-out of government home-building projects.
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