The Democratic Alliance (DA) in the Northern Cape submitted a final request to the Northern Cape Provincial Legislature’s portfolio committee on cooperative governance to call the Northern Cape Department of Cooperative Governance, Human Settlements & Traditional Affairs to account on the R1 billion housing project.
Our final request comes as frustrations from unpaid contractors prevented the much-anticipated handover of houses to beneficiaries in Calvinia this past week. See pics here, here, here and here. We do not condone violence but we understand the unhappiness of contractors who are expected to deliver without receiving contractually agreed upon payments.
The department owed more than R148 million to contractors at the start of the 2024/25 financial year and owed R500 million to just one of its implementing agents as of August 2025. It is difficult to conceive how this can happen, considering that the loan for the R1 billion housing project was made fully available to the province. This is the methodology being tested by the frontloading pilot project which seems as though it is rapidly becoming an affront to financial management.
With an expanded unemployment rate of 46.9% in the Northern Cape, times are tough enough. Persistent non-payment by the provincial government, and a reluctance from the oversight bodies to demand accountability, makes it unnecessarily tougher.
I’ve been asking questions, at every question session and every committee meeting, about the management of this R1 billion housing project. If the committee does not agree to call the department to account, we will have no other option but to escalate the matter to national and law enforcement authorities.