W Cape improves housing demand

2010-07-29 12:33

Cape Town - The Western Cape government is working on an improved system to ensure that the right people benefit from municipal housing, the province's human settlements department said on Thursday.

The department had completed an assessment of the first 12 non-metro municipalities' housing demand data collection and management systems and practices, it said.

While municipal housing officials were able to manage housing demand data and the allocation of houses, the biggest concern was the use of systems and processes for handling housing registration data.

This resulted in the "integrity" of the data being dependent on the proper functioning of manual processes and controls, it said.

Processes and controls

The assessment was part of the department's Municipal Housing Demand Data Improvement Programme.

"Currently, these processes and controls have not been properly designed, agreed and implemented.

"There are few internal controls in place in order to ensure that, when selection occurs, the data can be relied on."

It said that information collected from potential beneficiaries was not being checked for validity, accuracy and completeness.

This meant that there was insufficient information with which to select those who should benefit from municipal housing.

Out of the 12 municipalities assessed, five had a council approved housing beneficiary selection process, five were working according to a draft policy and two had no policies.

In terms of selecting beneficiaries nine municipalities were using registration date order, two were using a weighted point scale and one was using community profiling, it said.

Only name, surname and ID number of applicants were consistently captured across all municipalities, while an address was captured against at least 80% of applicants in 11 out of 12 municipalities.

A date was captured more than 80% of the time in nine out of 12 municipalities, 50 to 80% in one, and less than 50% in two, the department said.

Registration date

"Considering that registration date is the most common basis for beneficiary selection, this is a concern, it said.

"The same applied to other important fields, which may influence whether the applicant qualifies, such as number and details of dependants, marital status, spouse details and income."

A survey of only half of the non-metro municipalities showed that the department needed to develop a support strategy to improve the housing demand data management by municipalities, it said.

In addition, it would develop a standard job description for housing officials to assist municipalities to indicate roles and responsibilities.

Workshops would also be conducted to discuss and agree on the requirements for a standard municipal housing policy.

The department said an assessment of the remaining 12 municipalities outside the City of Cape Town would be completed by the end of next month.

- SAPA