As violent protests over land and housing erupt sporadically across the country, the government has confirmed that it will build fewer houses than expected over the next year and is likely to miss its five-year target by more than 100,000. The Department of Human Settlements planned to build 745,000 houses from 2014 to 2019, according to the government’s medium-term strategic plan but has now reduced this to 635,000. With only one year to go before the five-year term of the plan ends it has only built 415,000 houses, an indication that even the new target will be hard to reach. The new numbers appear in a progress report on the Department of Monitoring and Evaluation’s website. The revised targets are due in part to underperformance but also to budget cuts made in February, which came about through a reprioritisation of spending to find R57bn needed to fund free higher education. Grants for housing, which are transferred to the provinces, were cut by R7.2bn over the next three years...
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