Sisulu drops PE homes bombshell

Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu is sticking to her guns, saying the government will no longer rectify any badly built houses provided over the past 16 years. She said she had noticed that there appeared to be confusion around the new rectification policy in Nelson Mandela Bay.

“To remove the confusion, we have indicated [to the city] that the policy of rectification is over,” Sisulu said in an interview yesterday.

This is a massive blow to the city which has been inundated with complaints about shoddily built houses.

Badly built homes have also been the cause of a large number of protests in recent years.

In 2014, the municipality reported that it had a rectification backlog of about 39 000 units.

Sisulu said any house built after 2000 would not be fixed, and that the onus was now on the body that had been established to monitor building standards – the National Home Builders’ Registration Council (NHBRC) – to track down contractors and ensure they fixed the mess.

Such remedial action was not the government’s responsibility but belonged to the private sector.

“There are houses which are our responsibility and we have been checking with the municipality if these in fact belong to us. The HDA then rectifies those houses,” Sisulu said.

She said houses that were built after 2000 must be fixed by the responsible contractor.

“Where we are able to track down the builder, we will use them as an example. They should not take government and our people for granted.”

That was not the case at the higher end of the market and contractors would not be able to get away with it with government housing.

“What this means is that if anything goes wrong with the house, that builder comes to rectify the house,” Sisulu said.

She believed all the contractors could be tracked down as they had to be registered with the NHBRC and all of those involved were on an official database.

An exception could be companies that had folded, but even then there was warranty coverage, contributed to by contractors, and this would be used by the NHBRC to cover costs.

Earlier in the day, Sisulu and mayor Danny Jordaan handed over 2 000 title deeds to RDP house beneficiaries in Uitenhage.

She emphasised that the title deeds were not being handed over because it was election time but that the government wanted residents to own a piece of land.

“We are giving you these title deeds to say to you we may not be able to give you back all the land taken from you in the past, but you now own a piece of land for your children to inherit,” Sisulu said at the Uitenhage Indoor Sports Centre.

Although the deeds handover was supposed to be a municipal event, ANC volunteers were distributing party T-shirts inside the venue and holding up “Danny Jordaan for mayor. Vote ANC” election posters.