Shacks built under Eskom pylons in order to jump the housing queue, houses painted in people's names a day before allocation and business forums stopping projects to benefit.
These are some of the problems that were laid bare by Colin Pitso, chief director of beneficiary management in the Gauteng department of human settlements in a seminar held in Pretoria on Tuesday.
The seminar, hosted by the portfolio committee on human settlements in the Gauteng legislature, is investigating causes of the huge housing backlog and the management of the waiting list.
Pitso said there were over 2.1-million people in the National Housing Needs Register, commonly known as the waiting list. Of this figure, over 982,000 belongs to Gauteng. This despite Gauteng being the smallest province in land mass but has a population which rises by 300,000 a year, Pitso said.
He said the increase in the number of people every year pushes demand in the province and people are willing to do anything to jump the queue in the beneficiary list.
Another challenge is that each of the province's three metros has its own priority areas which have been adopted by council. This means the city decides based on its circumstances which areas will be prioritised for housing development.
“What this does is that it promotes queue-jumping as people know [from council resolution] which areas will be prioritised. Those who have been registered [in the waiting list] a long time ago will have to wait as there are people who will benefit because the municipality [has to move them] as it wants to build a bridge,” Pitso said.
He added that some of the people in the waiting list also go and build shacks under Eskom distribution lines as communities in such areas are prioritised by government. Housing projects are also stalled by communities who want to benefit.
“Particularly in Tshwane, we have so many business forums who want to force the hand of the developers by saying you shall give us a stake in the work. What this does, it delays the projects. There are also communities who claim to be marginalised that protest and that also causes further delays,” he said.
He told the committee that even when a house has been allocated to its rightful owner, disgruntled community members simply write their names on the doors of the new home a day before the new owner comes to try and intimidate them from moving in.
The seminar investigating problems in housing has invited different cities and organisations in order to address problems in reducing the backlog and also completing projects on time.
Pitso said the policy of provincial government is to prioritise people over the age of 60, those with disabilities, military veterans, approved beneficiaries who are yet to get their homes and people who registered between 1996 and 1999.
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