On Monday, 3 February 2014 ETHICORE Political Consulting client – the Banking Association South Africa held bilateral consultations with the South African Minister of Human Settlements – Ms Connie September, on housing delivery and finance. Below are the statements released by Government following these consultations.
Statement by the Government Communications and Information System, 4 February 2014
Source: Issued by South African Government News Agency
Johannesburg – Human Settlements Minister Connie September says she has formed a task team to look at ways in which her department can work with banks to deliver one million homes over the next five years.
Briefing journalists after a meeting with representatives from all South African banks in Sandton late on Monday, September said she vested the task team with the responsibility to forge a formal partnership to speed up the delivery of houses in the country.
This comes as the department, which has provided low-cost housing to millions of South Africans in the past 20 years, recently moved to help the working class who fall within a “gap market” that cannot afford a housing bond from any bank.
September said there was a need to define the department’s relationship with all banks.
“In order for us to do that, we have agreed that one of the things we should do to assist us moving forward in making sure that we can have a million housing opportunities in this country, is how do we structure a continuous relationship with the banking industry that can assist us to achieve that objective.
“We have therefore agreed that we put together a group of people that will make sure that there is practical implementation of those areas that we have agreed amongst ourselves to implement that task,” she said.
While the task team gets to work, September said there will be continuous interactions between her department and the banks to find ways to get in more people into the affordable housing market to reduce the high number of people who have been left out of the housing market.
“We will look into the things that we can do in the interim, whether they are legislative, or are just looking at the different packages that are there and in the long term, the National Development Plan calls upon us to do a range of things … It gives us an opportunity to look at what do we [need to] do differently, and how do we make sure that we can have a very positive outcome of realising our goal.” – SAnews.gov.za