Mahikeng – In what has been described as “taking the bull by its horns” the Bokone-Bophirima Department of Local Government and Human Settlements has terminated the contracts of poor performing housing developers in the province. This happened when the department held One-on-One Contract Review Sessions with developers in all four districts since last week.

The objective of the contracts review sessions is meant to monitor and evaluate performance of contractors and get the first hand information from the developers themselves about projects that have stalled and those that have not met  deadlines, with a view of unblocking all bottlenecks and speeding-up housing provision in the province.

The department has contracted housing developers to provide integrated human settlements across the province with important services such as sanitation and water system.

“We can’t allow a situation where developers take their own time to complete their projects outside the agreed work schedule with the department. We had to part ways with some of the developers as they were not rising to their contractual obligations. Contractors who have raised genuine challenges in terms of delays have been given an extension to complete their work as soon as possible. Our communities can’t wait for long, they need those houses” said Maine.

Some developers have raised diverse challenges which range from unfavourable weather conditions, unavailability of building materials, industrial action and protests by communities.

Strict measures were employed to those who were given extensions. They were instructed to ensure the speedy completion of the projects at hand or face termination of their contracts or be blacklisted forthwith.

According to Maine the poor performing contractors affect the performance of the province as far as housing delivery is concerned. Bokone Bophirima province had scooped the best performing award during the 2013 Govan Mbeki Awards.

“Our province has made a mark nationally as the best performing in housing delivery. The poor performance and shoddy work by these contractors will dent the image that we have worked so hard for. They need to up their game for us to remain at the peak. On the same note the poor performance is also making our communities to get agitated and to rise against government because the promised houses are not forth coming” remarked Maine.

Currently there are several housing projects that are taking place in different municipalities to decrease the housing backlog in the province.

The One-on-One Contract Review Session was to pave way for the provincial housing developer’s convention which will be held in the province soon. The convention will discuss general housing delivery issues and provide feedback to developers.

-TDN

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