Commission a national disgrace, says minister

THE National Housing Corporation (NHC) has for the past 20 years failed to keep all statutory records of its management, says Minister for Housing and Urban Development Justin Tkatchenko.
He said it had allowed tolerated failure and mismanagement with a lack of will to reform or change.
He described its running as “disgraceful” saying it had “suffered from the political appointments of inappropriate persons to positions of responsibility and trust”.
“The conduct of the NHC is a national disgrace,” he said.
“Since the findings of the Public Accounts Committee inquiry in 2009, the last 10 years has unfortunately been much the same, culminating in over 30 years of abuse and malpractice in NHC by tenants and its senior management.”
He said the previous governments had watched this abuse continue and in some instances aided and abetted the pilfering that went on at the NHC.
“The mismanagement and the neglect has culminated in committing three steps taken by my administration to bring the organisation back from insolvency and failure.
“We are implementing organisation reform, cost-cutting and trading and returning value with NHC.
“The NHC has taken steps to restructure the organisation saving K5 million in costs,” he said.
“From 322 employees we have cut down to 219 positions all advertised, no more nepotism, bribery, regionalism employment.
“We have stopped all unnecessary exposure and expenses, and scaled down unnecessary spending.”