FFC Presentation on new paradigm for SA housing policy

Despite the government delivering more than 3 million fully subsidised housing units to poor households over the past 17 years, South Africa still has a backlog of over 2 million houses, which is rising annually. The actual delivery of subsidised housing units has consistently fallen short of the government’s annual target of 300,000 houses per year, with for example only 161,854 housing units and 64,362 serviced sites delivered in 2009/10. Within the current subsidy framework, this backlog, at R140,000 per unit and assuming no further growth in demand, would cost over R300 billion.

The Financial and Fiscal Commission (FFC) in 2011 initiated a series of activities and studies with the intention of understanding the underlying challenges in the financing and delivery of human settlements in South Africa. In its quest for doing this, the FFC considered firming up the problem statement and consulting widely across a spectrum of stakeholders through the housing public hearings that was held in October 2011. Stakeholder inputs together with the FFC understanding of challenges within the human settlements sector have since been consolidated into a report available at the FFC website.  This document is the FFC’s presentation to the FinMark Forum held on 25 April 2012.  The presentation fostered a lively discussion afterwards.

To access the full report, visit the FFC’s website for the Housing Public Hearings: http://www.ffc.co.za/index.php/media-a-events-interactive/public-hearings/housing-finance.html