NHBRC to crackdown on unregistered home builders

The National Home Builders Registration Council (NHBRC) warned industry on Wednesday that it has been "given teeth" by South Africa's Department of Human Settlements to shutdown unregistered home builders.

This comes after Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale announced in his department's 2010 budget speech that South Africa will have to fork out R1,3-billion, or 10% of the department's budget, to rectify badly built reconstruction and development programme houses.

Newly appointed NHBRC CEO Sipho Mashinini told Engineering News Online at a media breakfast in Johannesburg that the council was already reviewing about 40 projects in KwaZulu-Natal and planned to shutdown builders as early as next week.

"We will also be moving into the Eastern Cape by June 3, and are currently looking at projects in Gauteng," he added.

On concerns raised around possible lead times for nonregistered builders to comply, Mashinini said that there was "no room to break the law".

He said that the council was in the business of ensuring that homebuilders consistently delivered sustainable quality houses.

The council pointed out that registration was not only applicable to developers and home builders, but also to contractors and sub-contractors.

NHBRC said that an inspection company would be set up in South Africa's nine provinces by May 28, to ensure that quality houses were delivered. Mashinini noted that the council was also considering the possibility of setting up its own inspection company. (Read more...)

By: Loni Prinsloo
www.engineeringnews.co.za

SA border towns booming

South Africa and Mozambique via the Maputo Corridor is creating positive spin-offs for the property market in neighbouring towns such as Nelspruit, Komatipoort and Malelane.

The Nkomazi municipality, which incorporates the eastern Lowveld region of Mpumalanga and is bordered by the Kruger National Park, Mozambique and Swaziland, includes towns such as Komatipoort, Marloth Park, Hectorspruit and Malelane. The Maputo Corridor runs through Gauteng and Mpumalanga — some of South Africa’s most productive and industrialised regions — across the border at Komatipoort to the deep-water port of Maputo. Infrastructural development is a key focus in order to stimulate growth and development in the region of the Maputo Corridor, which provides a cost effective transportation link. (Read more...)

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