Gauteng dept of human settlements says it can't afford to create family units in hostels

JOHANNESBURG - The Gauteng Department of Human Settlements said it could not afford to create family units in hostels despite having a half-billion rand project to refurbish them.

The budget is for a project that began three years ago, set to do repair and maintenance works on the building infrastructure on the communal structures.

The work included painting, flooring, electrical work and paving, among other light works.

The province owns six hostels in the inner city, including George Goch, Jeppe, Denver and others.

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Gauteng MEC for Human Settlements Tasneem Motara said they could not afford to do more than what the budget allowed.

"Ultimately, we want to redevelop the hostel spaces to be communal family living units but that costs extensive amounts of money because that means that you’ve got to demolish the current buildings and redesign and re-plan, which has a lot of costs involved. Here, you didn't have to do re-designs, you are just dealing with the actual design as it is and just repairing and refurbishing," said Motara.