Incompetent MEC Maile fails to spend human settlements budget

10 March 2020

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Gauteng is dismayed that the Gauteng Department of Human Settlements has once again failed to spend its allocated budget.

This has resulted in the national Department of Human Settlements stopping the transfer of R250 million for the Gauteng Human Settlements Development Grant.

This was revealed in the recent Government Gazette Volume 656, number 43050 published on 28 February 2020.

The Government Gazette can be accessed here:

http://www.gpwonline.co.za/Gazettes/Gazettes/43050_28-2_NationalGovernment.pdf

According to Section 19 of the Division of Revenue Act, 2019, the Human Settlements Development Grant can be stopped where there is substantial underspending on the allocated budget and when there is failure to comply with the Municipal Finance Management Act.

This department has a reputation of failing to spend its human settlements grant.

This is also evident in the department’s third quarter report for the 2019/20 financial year.

According to the report, the department underspent by R7,007 million on Programme Two: Housing Needs, Research and Planning. The department only spent R4,157 million which is 37 percent of the R11, 234 million of the allocated budget for the third quarter. This means that the department underspent by 63 percent on this programme.

The spending to date in this programme is 29 percent of the R40 million annual budget.

This is unacceptable and can no longer be tolerated considering that this department is headed by MEC Maile who portrays himself as competent when in fact this is not the case.

Instead MEC Maile is destabilising a municipality that is delivering services while neglecting his mandate of ensuring that our people have access to adequate housing.

This clearly indicates that he is incompetent and not fit to head this department.

Its high time that MEC Maile must concentrate on executing his department’s mandate to deliver houses instead of spending time in Tshwane.

The DA calls on the Gauteng Premier, David Makhura to act against MEC Maile as he has committed a crime against the people of Gauteng by under spending on the allocated budget.

Issued by Mervyn Cirota, DA Gauteng Shadow MEC for Human Settlements and Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA), 10 March 2020