Amid the country’s housing backlog, President Cyril Ramaphosa has called for the revolution of South Africa’s construction sector through more energy-efficient and technology driven greener solutions.

Addressing the Innovative Building Technologies Summit, a two-day event at Johannesburg’s Nasrec Expo Centre, President Ramaphosa emphasised the critical and immediate necessity of tackling the housing shortfall.

This backlog, exceeding two million units, highlights the failure of conventional construction techniques to keep pace with escalating urbanisation and the challenges posed by climate change.

Gathering more than 500 leaders from government, industry, and community sectors, the summit aimed to explore cutting-edge alternatives such as modular homes and 3D printing technologies.

These discussions are crucial as South Africa contends with a stark reality: only 17,000 low-income homes were constructed last year, falling dramatically short of the 63,000 target.

Ramaphosa highlighted the government’s efforts, noting that over five million housing opportunities had been created through various policies — one of the continent’s most ambitious social programmes.

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Ramaphosa further underscored the challenges the country has faced, saying that despite the success the country has seen in bringing housing to its people, there remain more than five million people who are still waiting for this provision, more than 30 years into democracy.

“Despite this progress, more than 2.5 million families are still on the waiting list for housing throughout the country. Inadequate supply and limited land availability. The rising construction costs and delays in project delivery contribute to the situation of scarcity,” he stated. 

He also bemoaned the country’s soaring number of informal settlements, which now stand at more than 4,000, saying this has compounded the government’s ability to deliver key services to the people.

“The delivery of services to unplanned settlements is stretching the government’s resources. Rapid urbanisation and the population growth and migration of people into our country, and also climate change, are factors that are reshaping our human settlements on an unprecedented scale.”

As a result of these challenges, Ramaphosa reflected that technology is the only solution that must be explored by the government in moving the country forward when it comes to the most basic human right of all — housing.

“We must embrace technology. Technological progress has now come upon us. Premier Panyaza Lesufi correctly says that people in the stone ages did not stop using stone because they ran out of stone, but because new technologies came,” he said.

siyabonga.sithole@inl.co.za

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