Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu is putting pressure on State-owned freight and logistics company Transnet to pledge its unused land to be transferred to government for housing development.

“Perhaps we will have a pledge here that any land they are not using we can take,” the Minister said to applause from attendees at a recent gathering in Sandton.

Responding to the call, Transnet chairperson Mafika Mkwanazi pointed out that Transnet was a State-owned entity that was, therefore, guided by the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA).

“We are in constant discussions with the Ministry [of Human Settlements] and companies for the proper transfer of land. We are in the process of trying to transfer land to the relevant spheres of provincial and national government,” he stated.

Sisulu then asked for a definitive pledge that any land that would not be used over the next ten years be transferred to government, through the proper PFMA process.

However, Mkwanazi responded that this was not possible as there were specific processes that had to be followed before such a pledge could be made.

Meanwhile, on the topic of accessing sufficient land for housing developments, Sisulu said that, if she had it her way, she would expropriate land that was not being used for housing developments.

“It makes sense to me for any land that is not being used to be given over for housing purposes,” the Minister said.

However, she stated that recent attempted land grabs, allegedly arranged by the Economic Freedom Fighters, were unacceptable as private property had to be protected.

She urged landowners to take proper care of their land, adding that the Department of Human Settlements (DHS) was “very available” to take up any land that was not being used.

Meanwhile, Sisulu said there had perhaps been a disjuncture in the way the DHS’s housing policies had been communicated in the past, as the impression had been created that “the concept of free houses. . . is for everyone”.

She stated that, to qualify for a fully subsidised, or free, house, there were stringent criteria that had to be met.

“We have always insisted that [people who qualify] be indigent. They are the most vulnerable – the very young that have to fend for themselves, child-headed households, the elderly above the age of 80, people with disabilities and any other exceptional cases.

“So we provide those people with free houses,” she said, stating that, for everyone else, there was a programme in place to indicate which subsidies government would provide.

She added that it also seemed that, in the past, the disconnect had also been within government itself, where the allocation of houses had been the responsibility of municipalities, who had, perhaps, been using different criteria to national government.

“But we never intended to give free houses to everybody – it is not sustainable,” she said.

Sisulu said that some of these problems would, however, be eradicated with the implementation of a housing database, which would be developed in cooperation with Statistics South Africa’s census division.