Thousands of houses will be provided for military veterans in the North West Province within the next financial year, said MEC for local government and human settlements, Galaletsang Gaolaolwe, when tabling the department’s budget speech for 2017/2018.

She said her department plans to deliver housing for 17,800 people, comprising 29,000 title deeds and 205 housing units.

Gaolaolwe said this project aims to restore the dignity of South African military veterans, and added that her department will pursue such projects until citizens “lead a better life”.

To date, the department has created houses to shelter 15,118 people which have included service sites. “Furthermore, we have transferred 7,347 title deeds to the rightful beneficiaries,” she said.

The department previously experienced difficulty regarding the military veterans housing programme, as meeting the criteria to qualify as a beneficiary was challenging. However, Gaolaolwe said this was resolved with the military veterans department.

Challenges

She pointed out challenges relating to town planning which included township establishment and the provision of infrastructure. Other challenges included the slow performance of contractors which resulted in a 9% under-expenditure of the human settlement grant.

Gaolaolwe also announced the department’s new human settlements delivery, called the bietjie-bietjie maak meer approach.

“We will give 50 housing units to small contractors of levels one to four,” she said. “Bigger contractors will also be tied to a contract to support this initiative. The approach will further increase the pool of participants in the construction of low cost houses and further break the monopoly of big companies in the construction industry.”

Gaolaolwe also said her department would deal harshly with contractors and officials, should they be involved in fraudulent activities.