MEC Madikizela dispels housing list myths and reveals new Housing Data programme

Imogen Vollenhoven
06 August 2013

Today MEC of Human Settlements Bonginkosi Madikizela held a conference to discuss the Housing Demand Data Improvement Plan.

Madikizela said that the HDDIP was part of a plan to help change the problems faced with the current waiting list and how the system is run by George Municipality.

MEC Madikizela explains that they have identified a number of gaps in the housing demand data base of the municipalities.

“It became very clear to us that certain interventions needed to be made and then this programme was rolled out to all municipalities and at this present moment we have covered all 24 metro  municipalities,” added Madikizela.

He also said that the City Of Cape Town has always been very proactive in dealing with some of these challenges.

Furthermore Madikizela said that they want to dispel the myth, that the waiting list is a myth and reiterates his call for it to be dispelled by adding that the waiting list does exist but however says that people must understand that there needs to be control measures in place as something like this can be easily manipulated.

Meanwhile the Manager of Housing Administration for George Municipality Betsy Badenhorst said that they have already implemented the HDDIP and that the plan has improved the application process.

Badenhorst said that the system allows the municipality to safeguard the integrity of data and also to put control measures in place whereby only certain officials are granted access to certain levels of the process. 

Badenhorst explains that the benefits are as follows:

·        The system indicates the where applicants applied in more than one municipality

·        It prevents an existing applicant from applying again as a new duplicate application

·        When capturing an ID number on the data base it prevents the capture of invalid ID numbers

·        All changes to the record are recorded in the order trail with details of the change, the name of the person who changed the details and the date and time that the change occurred.