On the
second of August 2018, at the Gauteng Department of Human Settlements Budget
Lekgotla, the City of Johannesburg (CoJ) under the stewardship of Mayor Herman
Mashaba failed to account for over R 382 854 894 R 134 628 297 that was
transferred to the City. Further engagements with the CoJ initiated by GDHS
took place on the 16 January 2019 and the initial figure of R
382 854 894 was reconciled to R 134 628 297. Furthermore,
the CoJ failed to account for the 2015 housing units that were meant to be delivered.
These units were to be delivered in Fleurhof, South Hills and some in Riverside
View and Lufhureng, due to failure by the CoJ to pay contractors.
As a caring
provincial government and despite all these challenges, the Gauteng Department
of Human Settlements (GDHS) continued to engage the CoJ on their failure to
deliver housing to Joburg residents. For instance, the Riverside View and
non-payment of contractors, the GDHS needed to redeem some of the completed
units and the Department elected to pay for the delivery of outstanding units
directly.  As a result of the failure by
CoJ to pay contractors, the GDHS decided to take over some of the projects in
Riverside View and Fleurhof, so as to ensure that service delivery is
accelerated and that our people’s needs are taken care of. The GDHS cannot
afford a situation where citizens of the City are disadvantaged, hence our
decision to step in and deliver on the HSDG grant. 
The GDHS
reserves its right not to use CoJ as an implementing agent due to non-delivery.  There are outstanding bills on bulk
infrastructure of R400 million to Calgro by the CoJ which are yet to be paid by
Mayor Mashaba’s administration. As a result some projects cannot be completed.
A similar scenario is unfolding in the City of Tshwane (CoT) where there are
over R381 million outstanding redemptions by the CoT on projects that the GDHS
transferred money for. To date, the CoT is unable to provide any evidence of
work completed in line with the allocated funds. The CoT currently owes the
GDHS and residents 2783 housing units.
However,
the CoT did write to GDHS to reallocate the HSDG funding to other housing
projects as they were unable to deliver. The main problem with both CoJ and CoT
is that as much as the CoJ and CoT received the Human Settlements Development
Grants (HSDG) from the Province, by and large, both municipalities are still
besieged with problems of failure to spend, contract and account for work done
or not done. This failure has had a massive impact on the CoT residents as they
are negatively affected by the non-delivery of housing units in their
municipality. For instance, in some areas such as Rama City, Nelmapius,
Olivenhoutbosch, Kekana Gardens and Shoshunguve Ext 19 the CoT is failing to
spend even on bulk infrastructure to build human settlements. 
 Given the
integral nature of both municipalities in delivering human settlements to
Gauteng citizens, the GDHS is unable to bring projects to practical conclusion,
which will then provide citizens with security of tenure in the form of Title
Deeds.
At a local
government level, both the CoJ and CoT must own up to their systematic failures
and incompetence that leads to the short changing of our people, who are
desperately in need of housing.  We also
want to discourage the emotive issue of housing provision for narrow political
point scoring. It is our responsibility as government, across all there spheres
of our respective administrations, to make sure that our people are not turned
into a political football en-route to the 2019 general elections. 
Mayor
Mashaba in his letter to the President of the Republic has exposed the fact
that he does not know how a municipality operates. His ill-advised
administration has led to the City losing money to the fiscus, to the tune of
almost R400 million, particularly for his administration’s failure in spending
the allocation of Urban Settlements Development Grant (USDG). This further
suggests that Mashaba wants to reduce Government to a game of politics and play
with people’s emotions in a selfish way, a desperate attempt to absolve himself
of blame that he should be shouldering. 
In the same
letter Mashaba released addressed to the President of the Republic, which
should have been governed by protocol and Inter Governmental Relations policy
and confidentiality, the Mayor has failed to indicate to the President that the
CoJ is continuously declining in its performance on the delivery of integrated
human settlements. The Mayor needs to speak with honesty, the reality is that
the CoJ’s USDG allocation is likely to be cut even further for non-performance
in an area exclusively controlled by the City. 
Since the
inception of the current administration, GDHS has made numerous attempts to
solicit cooperation from the CoJ and the Mayor hasn’t been forthcoming because
he has avoided to account to the Province for the money that has been
previously given to the Joburg Metro. The CoJ has even failed to appoint
contractors where money is available and they have also failed to pay those
that have been appointed. This is indicative of an administration that has
collapsed, in a very strategic metro that over time has been the benchmark of
good performance. 
In the last
meeting held between the Mayor, Premier and MEC of GDHS, Mayor Mashaba did not
raise the issues contained in his letter to the President of the Republic.
However, he now conveniently brings up such spurious allegations for the
attention of the President, because he knows where the blame lays and he would
not have been as opportunistic as he is when he penned the ill-informed letter
to the President. 
Written by
Gauteng Human Settlements MEC Dikgang “Uhuru” Moiloa in his capacity as the
political head for housing delivery in the Gauteng Province. ​