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- Only 42,773 government-subsidised houses built in 2023/24
- Number of houses built in South Africa peaked in 1998/99
- Government department blames slow progress on Covid, budget
South Africa’s housing programme, the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) is now known as Breaking New Ground (BNG).
It was introduced in 1994 by Nelson Mandela. Since then, more than 3.5-million BNG houses have been built for recipients who met certain criteria.
However, 30 years on and there are almost 3-million people on the national housing needs register. The department of human settlements says not all the people on the register actually qualify for a BNG house.
The department has blamed its slow progress on Covid-19 and budget cuts. But numbers were on the decline long before the pandemic and there is still no significant sign of recovery.
Just 42,773 government-subsidised houses were built in South Africa in the 2023/24 financial year. That’s an 82% decline compared with the 235,635 houses built 26 years ago in 1998/99 when construction peaked.
— 9 July, 2024Subscribe to the weekly newsletter for more charts like this
