JOHANNESBURG - The main opposition Democratic Alliance on Thursday accused the ruling African National Congress in Gauteng province of underspending its allocated housing budget, leaving poor people without houses.
The DA said the Gauteng department of human settlements' first quarterly report for the 2017/18 financial year showed that it had underspent by 69 percent under its housing development programme.
"The planned target of 50 houses to be built for provincial specific programmes was not achieved. The target of 60 projects planned using building technologies was not achieved," the DA said.
Some 1,050 stands meant to serviced under the first phase of the province's Integrated Residential Development Programme (IRDP) were not, while only 1,229 out of a target of 1,627 stands had been serviced for phase two.
"The department claims that none of these targets were met because of the delay in appointing contractors, the slow pace of work by the contractors and interference by the local business forum," the DA said.
"It is totally unacceptable that a fully furnished department with all the required resources and budget is failing to achieve any of its targets," it added, noting that the Gauteng housing waiting list had reached over a million.