This is according to the Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Human Settlements. The committee has in a report expressed dissatisfaction with the mushrooming of informal settlements in the province and raised concerns that there seem to be no mechanisms in place to alleviate the problem. Coupled with this, the committee raised concerns over the number of unfinished housing projects in the province and said it is worrisome that it seems there have not been many improvements with the performance of the province. This needs to be attended to before the end of this fiscal year.

The observations by the committee come just weeks after hundreds of residents from thirteen informal settlements in Oukasie in Brits marched to the Madibeng Municipality demanding that all informal settlements be formalised and provided with services.

In the memorandum of demands handed over to the municipality and a delegate from Premier Job Mokgoro’s office, the protesters highlighted that they wanted houses, access to water and electricity, and that their demands be attended to urgently.

The protestors have vowed to stage further protests, shut down services in Brits and refrain from voting in the May 8 elections if their demands are not attended to.

The committee has thus demanded answers from the department as to what is being done to prevent further unrest amongst communities, and why it is happening in the first place.

The department has in a report, however, stated that they are attending to housing issues in the province and that “at the end of February 2019, the province had spent R1 752 101 000, which is 90% of its annual budget allocation of R 1 926 644 000”.

It further stated that “the Province has delivered 5 544 housing units of the annual target of 10 994, 4 631 sites of the annual target of 4 453, and 3 822 pre and post title deeds were transferred from the expected annual target of 19 245”.

The Department’s Director of Planning and Technical Services, Muzi Mashabane, added that they do realise they have not been making sufficient progress in terms of issuing title deeds and that they are now embarking on a process of reviewing incomplete projects that date back from 2014.

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