The municipality of eThekwini has received a government award for housing delivery, even though only half the homes it had targeted had been built last year.

The award by the Department of Human Settlements also came despite an audit earlier this year finding that the department was riddled with maladministration.

The backlog for housing in SA is about 2 million homes and 412 000 in Durban, with millions of people countrywide living in shacks.

eThekwini municipality received the Govan Mbeki Human Settlements Award this month.

The award, which is worth R600 000, is named after former ANC secretary-general Govan Mbeki. It has been awarded every year since 2006 for outstanding housing delivery. It is meant to encourage municipalities to fast-track delivery.

eThekwini spokesman Thabo Mofokeng said the municipality believed it deserved the award based on its record of an average 16 000 houses delivered over 10 years, and that it has only been in the past two years that the department had not met its targets.

An audit by Manase & Associates completed in February showed that the department was the main culprit when it came to maladministration in the municipality.

Problems included cost overruns, poor workmanship, unsigned, undated documents, tender documents not being completed and changes made to documents in unsigned handwritten notes.

The auditor-general found irregular expenditure in the department of R428m in the year to June 30 2010. There was additional irregular expenditure the next year.

“Historically, the municipality has targeted 16000 houses per year, but this fell to 13 000 and 5 000 over the past two years respectively,” the KwaZulu-Natal department of human settlements said in reply to a question in the legislature.

“The municipality achieved its targets for 2006 to 2009, but fell short in 2010 and 2011,” the provincial department said.

Democratic Alliance (DA) eThekwini deputy caucus leader, Zwakele Mncwango, said housing delivery in the rest of SA must be very bad if the award was given to eThekwini.

He said DA site visits had shown that many of the houses that were built lacked basic services such as water and sanitation.

A municipal report tabled before the finance and procurement committee found that only 49% of the 2011-12 housing budget had been spent. That was in the last month of the year, said Mncwango.

Mofokeng said the post for a new head of the housing department was being advertised and other steps were being implemented to tighten administrative and financial controls and to “bring stability” to the department.

The housing delivery target for this year was 8 500 units, Mofokeng said.

“(But) we are working hard and negotiating with the province to get back to our 16 000 houses per annum as fast as possible.”

Source: Business Day