Infrastructure-housing-3
About 10% of government-subsidised houses in South Africa were recorded as having weak walls and roofs, according to Statistics SA’s 2023 General Household Survey.
Mpumalanga and the Western Cape had the highest number of problematic houses.
Johanna Msiza, a domestic worker from Pretoria, bought a 17-year-old BNG house that she has been living in for four years. She says the house ‘does leak a little bit and it’s built on a wet place where the water table is high. I don’t think they check the areas before they build the houses.’
Just 42,773 government-subsidised houses were built in South Africa in the 2023/24 financial year.
Houses built from 1 April 2023 were supposed to be fitted with solar panels and burglar proofing, according to the department of human settlements. When asked by The Outlier whether these plans had been implemented, they pointed us to provincial government departments.