Minister Madikizela Encourages Housing Beneficiaries to Take Care of Their Homes

Minister Madikizela's Speech Excerpts from Nuwe Begin Housing Handover, Blue Downs

These are very beautiful houses. I encourage all the lucky beneficiaries to take good care of their homes so they will grow in value and be an asset. I want to remind everyone that they must live in their houses. If they try and rent out their house or sell it, it shows me that they don't really need the houses, and if that happens, we will use whatever legal means are at our disposal and take the houses back, and give them to people who really do need them.

I want to show the value in partnership. The National Ministry helped us with extra money for services in this project. All spheres of government worked together to deliver these houses. In Human Settlements, we don't play politics. We work together to give houses to those people who really need them, and there no favourites.

One of the important things is that we are integrating our communities. We have people from Blue Downs, Mfuleni and Khayelitsha who will be living side by side in this new community.

I am very happy to be handing over the first houses today to the people who really need them. Included will be three families with disabled beneficiaries, which I am very happy about. We are prioritising the elderly and those with special needs, and so I am happy that today three families with members who have special needs will be getting houses. The houses have been specially modified for wheelchairs, and have access ramps and support bars in the bathrooms.

When complete, this R218 million project will deliver 1 200 units. I am proud that in the Western Cape, we are fulfilling our mandate of the accelerated delivery of houses.

The most challenging thing in delivering these houses are the community dynamics. I want to thank all the contractors for staying put and seeing the project through, even though there have been demonstrations. Without the commitment of the contractors, this project would not be delivering houses today.

The project was initiated in 2007 after some beneficiary communities were affected by flooding. It will deliver a total of 1 200 fully subsidised Breaking New Ground (BNG) houses, with Phase 1 delivering 238 units between 1 June 2012 and 15 June 2012, and the remainder to be delivered by the end of April 2013, with a project cost of R218 million. The units include both single- and double-storey units, and are part of a high-density development. Besides houses, the development will also offer facilities such as a crèche and clinic, and will spread over an area of 30Ha.

Of the 1 200 available BNG houses, a total of 900 houses have been reserved for the Khayelitsha beneficiaries and 300 for the Greater Blue Downs and Mfuleni beneficiaries.

This housing project is a Provincial Government Western Cape: Department of Human Settlements project to create integrated and sustainable human settlements. Beneficiaries will be drawn from the Bongani and Nkqubela areas of Khayelitsha, and Ward 17 and Ward 108 in the Greater Blue Downs and Mfuleni areas. Beneficiaries consist of a large number of flood victims as well as backyard dwellers from these residential areas. The three families which include disabled beneficiaries will be accommodated in specially modified houses.

The houses include full underground electricity supply and internal house reticulation, water management devices (WMD) restricting water demand and vibracrete fencing to combat wind erosion and create defined living spaces. The houses were built with 90% local labour and sub-contractors.