Western Cape MEC slams housing waiting list
The Western Cape's provincial housing waiting list is as good as non-existent.
This is the view of Human Settlements MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela after the department finished assessing the housing data collection and management systems of 12 non-metro municipalities.
The investigation, which is part of the department's municipal housing demand data improvement programme, found that the systems used were so poor that duplication was common; information supplied by housing applicants could not be verified or checked for accuracy and completeness.
The assessment, the results of which have now been compiled in a report, also found that while municipal housing officials appeared to have adequate capacity to manage housing demand data and the related allocation of houses, municipalities used very basic systems and processes for handling housing registration data.
"This results in the integrity of data being dependent on the proper functioning of manual processes and controls," it said in the report.
These processes and controls had not been properly designed and there were few internal controls in place to ensure that, when selection occurred, the data could be relied on.
Key results for the 12 assessed local municipalities included that:
"Considering that registration date is the most common basis for beneficiary selection, this is a concern," it said in the report.
The investigation also found that nearly 10 percent of records captured by the 12 municipalities were duplicates. Four municipalities had five percent or less duplicate records; three had 6-15 percent, four had 16-20 percent and one municipality had 25 percent of records duplicated.
Only six percent of applicants had an unknown application date; 20 percent were registered prior to 1998; 20 percent were registered between 1999 and 2002; while 54 percent have been registered since 2003.
Eighty percent of applicants' ID numbers were valid; two percent had no ID numbers; one percent were not South African residents and the rest had invalid ID numbers.
Madikizela said the findings confirmed the problems he had raised about housing allocation.
"It is fundamentally flawed."
He said loopholes allowed people to get houses when they should not.
Cape Argus
Posted at 12:08PM Jul 29, 2010 by Editor in Residential |