The Free State Province has a huge backlog of housing-related service delivery issues, leading the Portfolio Committee on Human Settlement to conduct an oversight in March to understand the magnitude of the problem. This visit culminated in an oversight report containing its observations and recommendations.
The committee subsequently invited the Free State provincial Department of Human Settlements to Parliament to discuss the contents of this report, the committee Chairperson, Mr Albert Seabi, explained.
The head of the provincial Department of Human Settlements, Adv Tumelo Phahlo, then briefed the committee on one of the province’s current service delivery predicaments – a R454 million contract with Vharanani Properties, which dates back to 2023, in which Vharanani was meant to build 2 000 houses. However, many of these homes are incomplete or otherwise defective. A dispute then arose between Vharanani and the department and the site was abandoned, leading the department to take the matter to arbitration to settle this dispute.
Responding to the committee oversight recommendations, Adv Phahlo stated that the department has come up with a recovery plan and has allocated the scope of the unfinished work of this project to a number of contractors for completion. The department has also terminated its contract with Vharanani and reported the company to the National Treasury for blacklisting.
Other stumbling blocks for service delivery in the province include a backlog in water and sanitation projects in both formal and informal settlements, the illegal occupation of a military veterans’ housing project, and slow eradication of asbestos materials in housing.
On the sanitation backlog in the greater Mangaung Metro, especially in some parts of Botshabelo, the executive mayor of the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality, Mr Gregory Nthatisi, stated that currently 1 030 households have been provided with sanitation and 79 000 households are still outstanding. He said that the metro would need R3 billion to address this shortfall through the Informal Settlement Upgrading Partnership Grant (ISUPG). He also noted that since the committee’s oversight visit, the metro has hired a sanitation and water manager, who will begin work in January 2026.
In following up on that issue, a member of the committee, Mr Sello Dithebe, asked if the city’s application meets standard set in the ISUPG to enable the city to provide the remaining 79 000 residents with waterborne sanitation. Mr Nthatisi assured the committee that the required reporting standards have been met.
Regarding the illegal occupation of military veterans’ houses in Vista Park Housing Project, the mayor stated unequivocally that the national department needs to define who is a military veteran, because some illegal occupants in these houses call themselves veterans but are too young for such a status. He also asked the department to ensure that the beneficiations accrued to military veterans are revised to ensure that those who were rewarded for serving the previous government are not receiving the benefits meant for military veterans of the liberation struggle, who received no rewards or allowances for their service.
When the MEC of Human Settlements in the Free State Province, Mr Teboho Mokoena, was asked by the member of the committee, Ms Mbali Dlamini, what the department has done to uproot alleged tender collusion in the department. He responded that a thorough forensic investigation would be initiated in this regard and bring those involved to book.
According to the department, this collusion is linked to millions of unpaid invoices that the department is unable to account for in its audit process. In response to a question about this from the committee, Adv Phahlo noted that an investigation of senior officials thought to be involved in duplicate payments which has created this problem will be investigated and consequences applied.
Another committee member, Ms Saira Abadar, observed that service delivery backlogs are the result of a lack of proper project management or an implementation plan and wanted to know what the provincial department plans to do about this. Adv Phahlo replied that there is a new culture of change management in the department, a sense of responsibility and responsiveness among the staff he has assembled. They are all eager to address the service delivery problems while forging a more responsive trajectory to the needs of the people they serve.
Abel Mputing
31 October 2025
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