Infrastructure
With reference to his reply to question 2 of 7 March 2025:
- What were the reasons given to the beneficiary for the delay in the transfer of this military veteran house in the Blue Downs Project;
- whether the conveyancers who have been appointed to do the transfer received any payment of their fee for the transfer; if so, (a) why, (b) what will his Department do to resolve this unduly delayed transfer, (c) when does his Department expect transfer to be completed and (d) what steps will his Department take if the transfer does not take place in the expected time period;
- whether his Department has a policy, standard operating procedure or executive instruction outlining when title deed transfers and the handover of housing titles to beneficiaries should occur; if so, what are the relevant details;
- how many of the housing units in this military veterans’ housing project have not yet been transferred to the beneficiaries?
- The latest communication from the Department’s service provider, I Murison Attorneys, in February 2025, informed the beneficiary that the Department is still awaiting the issue of the Section 137 Certificate from the City of Cape Town before transfer can take place.
- The conveyancers have not yet claimed their fee for the outstanding transfers.
(a)N/A.
(b) The Department immediately engaged with Eskom who required various tests to be undertaken and various electrical repair works also to be undertaken. Appointments were made for consultants and contractor to perform the various tests required. A large part of the delay has been establishing contact with Eskom officials and arranging outages through Eskom to perform the tests and repairs they required.
(c) It is estimated that the transfers would be completed during July 2025.
(d) The only barrier to transfer is the Clearance required from Eskom, so everything will be done to comply with Eskom’s requirements. The DOI is in constant contact with Eskom.
- Due to the backlog experienced in transferring units to the beneficiaries, the department has developed a Title Deed Restoration Project Framework (including a Standard Operating Procedure) which will be approved in the first quarter of 2025/2026. This framework was workshopped extensively across municipalities and a peer review was undertaken. This will then formalise an approach that considers the state of readiness of a project to deliver on the transfers and what actions need to be undertaken to achieve transfer to the beneficiaries.
The Province received a clean audit on the title deeds because of the revised approach for quantifying and evidence reporting.
In addition, the Western Cape Department of Infrastructure has two policies in place.
- The Policy to improve Title Transfer in New Greenfields Subsidy Housing; and
- The Addendum for Title Transfers on UISP Projects.
- Of the 73 Military Veteran houses, 47 transfers are outstanding.
