Zuma contradicts housing minister

Cape Town – The Democratic Alliance's housing spokesperson, Butch Steyn, asked on Monday whether President Jacob Zuma is out of touch with what his own Cabinet is saying about the housing backlog.

Zuma said in his budget vote speech last week that the government has met the housing backlog in most provinces.

"In response to the president, we have one simple question," Steyn said.

"How does the president reconcile this claim with the statement by his own minister of human settlements, during his budget vote debate, that '…the housing backlog has grown in leaps and bounds from 1.5 million in 1994 and now stands at approximately 2.1 million.

"This means that 12 million South Africans are still in need of shelter. We have, therefore, hardly moved in just breaking the backlog.

"It is unclear why the President would report to Parliament that the ANC government is meeting the housing backlog, when his own minister made it quite clear that the number of South Africans without housing has in fact increased since 1994, and that the housing backlog is far away from being resolved."

Spiralling backlogs

Steyn added that the ANC government has continually used the promise of the provision of housing for all South Africans as an electioneering tool.

"This promise has not been backed up with actual delivery, as evidenced by the spiralling backlogs," he said.

"Now the president is making similarly lofty statements in prominent public addresses that are entirely devoid of fact."

He said that the failure to adequately tackle the housing delivery backlog is as a result of two significant problems: the widespread corruption across the country in the delivering housing, and the use by the ANC government of a housing model that is neither sustainable nor affordable.

"The focus needs to shift to the provision of site-and-service instead of top-structures," he said.

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