Housing in Southern Africa October 2015

HBRC’s new Council

Rental Housing

between the Council and executives, who report to the Council instead of the Chairperson of the Committee reporting directly to the Council. “By doing this, you miss the clear line of demarcation and the responsibility of Council,” he says. There are a number of newly formed committees, which include: Social Ethics – which deals with ethical leadership and ethics in the industry and the long list of fraud cases internally and contractors who build shoddy houses. Chikane says that the NHBRC will need to find a way of dealing with these efficiently and still be able to focus on our core business. “Other areas of interest are the newTransformation Strategy - a com- prehensive and inclusionary strategy that includes women, youth, military veterans and peoplewith disabilities, and the Warranty Fund,” Chikane ex- plains. The current operating model, following the pilot model, will be reviewed to see whether it is permis- sible and if it will enable the NHBRC to fulfil its mandate. Also, part of the Council’s legislative requirements is to create awareness about its role regarding consumer awareness and,

there is a perception, even by the shareholder, that it needs to ‘beef up’ the communications unit. The Minister of Human Settle- ments has expressed that she would like the NHBRC to be responsible for and offer protection to all the houses in the country, far beyond what the state entity currently covers. The NHBRC has met with the Chief State Law Advisor and, Chikane says, “We believe that the New Bill will probably be presented to theMinister and the Portfolio Committee before the end of the financial year.” He notes that there is a perception by the shareholder that the NHBRC needs to be seen to be active and ‘to have teeth’ in taking action against builders who build shoddy houses. The NHBRC plans to roll out the Electronic Integrated Reporting system with Google maps, GIS, and also focus on training programmes for builders, youth, women, military veterans and people with disability. Chikane concludes, “I am very glad to do anything that benefits the people of our country and my aim in the next three years is to help the Minister to build sufficient capacity to deliver on her mandate.” ■

availability, design and technical services. Chikane has been tasked by the Minister of Human Settlements to en- sure that the state-owned entity can move speedily and has the capacity to carry out inspections, enrolments, facilitate training, deploy engineers and assist municipalities with techni- cal and design services and metros and provincial departments to fast track housing delivery. Some of the key issues that the Council has addressed include the reporting protocols in line with best practices, the Companies Act and King 3. “For instance, previous Chair- persons of Council served as Chair- persons of the Remuneration and Human Capital Committee. That is inconsistent with best practice, particularly King 3. This has since changed. Another issue was the inti- mate relationship between the Chief Internal Auditor, Company Secretary and management. We have since inculcated a culture of independent reporting, mainly and functionally to Council and administratively to management,” explains Chikane. He cites the example of the thin line

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