The efforts to accelerate housing delivery to communities have advanced to another level, when a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between Peoples Housing Partnership Trust (PHPT) and 2 Non-Governmental organizations namely: Habitat Foundation and Development Action Group. The signing of the Memorandum took place on the 19th January 2007 at Department of Local Government and Housing Head office in Cape Town.

In a fully packed boardroom, the session was punctuated by smiles from the representatives present. Judging from the atmosphere during the session, it was clear that a big deal was going to be signed on the doted line. Mr. Ray Rughbar, Chief Director, Housing Delivery bids a warmest welcome to people that were present in the session.

Ms. Vino Subramoney, PHPT gave background on what the session was about. She thanked the Department of Local Government & Housing and everyone who worked very hard on the initiation of the project. Ms. Subramoney said " in order for this initiative to be successful, there is a need from role players to collaborate efforts." According to Subramoney the partnership will be based on mutual understanding and trust from the role players.

Ms. Shanaaz Majiet, Head of the Department of Local Government and Housing
said "our desired outcome can only be achieved if we combine our collective
strength." According to her the department of Local Government and Housing is looking forward to be in partnership with these NGO's in many things.

On the day two memorandums were signed namely;

1. The Memorandum of understanding
2. Service Level Agreement.

Both Habitat for Humanity and Development Action Group spend 3.5 million in Phase One. Phase 1 is scheduled to kickoff from the 1st of February 2007 to 31 March 2007. A second phase allocation will be based on the success of phase one.

Mrs. Lulama Nojozi, Assistant Director Service Delivery and Community Empowerment gave a flashback on the developments before the signing took place. According to Nojozi the initiative began when they attended a seminar in Pretoria last year.

Nojozi said "we had an idea of this partnership after we identified some bottlenecks within the PHPT Projects, and this resulted in some projects being blocked." According to Nojozi many of these arose due to the lack of information and some 'fly-by night' consultants who collect grants from government without rendering the required service to the community". The National Housing department was delighted with the idea, as the Western Cape was the first province to pilot a project of this nature. Negotiations with the 2 NGO's started towards the end of 2006.

The memorandum is based on the following;

Both Non Governmental organization will capacitate the identified projects and transfer knowledge to the role players. They will also assist in providing administrative and technical support to PHPT. Accreditation of training in courses such as;

• Project management
• Construction Management
• Conflict Resolution

Nojozi believe that the partnership will be a breakthrough, as this will unblock many project and result in accelerating housing delivery. She concluded by saying they will evaluate the project through monthly progress reports, and accreditation reports.

PHP is the housing delivery mechanism that aims at assisting qualifying beneficiaries of the Housing Subsidy Scheme. These beneficiaries choose to make contribution to their subsidy by building or being involved in the building of their own homes.
Some of the key principles behind this policy are the establishment of partnerships, transfer of skills and community empowerment.

Issued by: Directorate of Customer Relations and Communication
Department of Local Government and Housing
Tel: 021 483 2870