This poorly built RDP home had its roof blown off during recent high winds in the township of Agisanang near Sannieshof in Tswaing Local Municipality, North West province.
- The North West is sitting with roughly 25,400 government-funded homes that have been left incomplete for more than a year.
- The SA Human Rights Commission found “a systemic and chronic” problem of incomplete and inadequate RDP houses in the province.
- Some residents in Delareyville are living in shacks alongside unfinished or poorly built RDP houses, without proper sanitation or water.
- The provincial government is spending R1.12-billion, 80% of its housing budget for the year, on finishing incomplete projects.
Agnes Maropeng has lived in a corrugated iron shack for over 35 years in the informal settlement of Skierlek in Delareyville in the North West province.
Maropeng said her family and dozens of her neighbours in the beleaguered Tswaing Local Municipality have been promised housing, water and sanitation for decades.
Her street is flooded with raw sewage. The stench hangs over several blocks. “It is disgusting. I feel embarrassed living like this,” said Maropeng.
Carrying her toddler daughter on her back, she walks about three kilometres a day to collect water in buckets.
Agnes Maropeng has lived in a corrugated iron shack for over 35 years in the informal settlement of Skierlek.
Not far from Maropeng, Ganta Shey also lives in a corrugated iron shack without services alongside a half-built RDP house started over a decade ago.
We saw dozens of incomplete houses, sewage spillages, and people pushing wheelbarrows stacked with buckets for water and firewood.
In 2014, 60 new homes were to be built in Extension 7 of Delareyville at a cost of just under R7-million. After R6-million was spent, only half the homes were complete. A 2026 report to Parliament noted 30 homes were left with only foundations and wall plates.
According to satellite imagery, no new housing has been developed in extension 7 since at least 2016.
Shey’s neighbours, including Nametika Mampe, her son Saher, and pensioner Lenah Kagoma, all have houses half-built and abandoned by contractors years ago.
A recent storm toppled the walls of many of these incomplete houses.
Ganta Shey stands outside his incomplete RDP home in Delareyville.
In extension 8, a few hundred metres from Shey and Mampe, is another stalled housing project started in 2014. Almost the entire budget was spent, R272-million, to construct about 1,000 houses, but they were never connected to water or sewers.
The North West Department of Human Settlements (NW DHS) said it needs another R176-million to complete the project and connect the homes to services.
A parliamentary account of the October 2025 oversight visit by Parliament’s human settlements portfolio committee described the incomplete homes as “a daily reminder of unfulfilled promises”.
The committee noted that in many projects, houses were incomplete, without services, not built at all, or showed signs of shoddy workmanship.
After a storm some walls of incomplete RDP homes collapsed in Delareyville.
About 40 minutes north-east of Delareyville is Agisanang, a township bordering Sannieshof. Here, houses have been completed but the workmanship is shoddy.
After the recent storm, Elisa Ditselanyane worries that her shoddily built RDP house “is going to fall on me, my son or mom”. She pointed out cracks in the walls and foundations. Her neighbour’s roof had been ripped off in the wind.
Water supply is unreliable, according to residents. Sewage clogs the drainage pipes and runs back into homes.
Elisa Ditselanyane lives in one of the poorly built RDP homes in the township of Agisanang near Sannieshof.
In 2024, the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) found “a systemic and chronic” problem of incomplete and inadequate RDP houses in the North West. It found many housing projects in the province “were left at the foundation and wall plate stages after contractors abandoned the projects”, while “some of the houses that were completed were inadequate due to poor workmanship, lack of internal privacy and poor accessibility to persons with disabilities”.
The SAHRC found that the NW DHS was largely to blame for the province’s failures to deliver adequate and complete RDP houses.
It said the department failed to appoint capable contractors, properly manage contracts, hold poor-performing contractors and officials accountable, and in some cases had reappointed contractors who had previously failed to deliver.
The delays left beneficiaries living in unsafe and undignified conditions, contributed to illegal occupation of unfinished houses and worsened the province’s housing backlog, it said.
The SAHRC also found shortcomings across government, including inadequate provincial oversight and widespread problems at municipal level. Poor coordination and lack of municipal infrastructure delayed the provision of basic services to some completed houses.
The flooded and muddied streets of the RDP section of Agisanang.
Human settlements MEC Oageng Molapisi told Parliament on 28 August 2026 that the North West is sitting with roughly 25,400 blocked houses requiring an estimated R4.6-billion to complete.
Molapisi said in a September press briefing that he is periodically engaging with municipalities to monitor and respond to matters raised by the SAHRC.
For the 2026/27 financial year, the NW DHS has a settlements budget of nearly R1.4-billion, comprising the Human Settlements Development and Informal Settlements Upgrading Partnership grants.
NW DHS communications director Dineo Thapelo said that approximately R1.12-billion (80%) is directed towards the completion and unblocking of projects, while R279.5-million (20%) is available for new projects.
“This approach prioritises the completion of existing commitments and blocked projects while retaining a defined allocation for new human settlements interventions,” said Thapelo.
A sewage-flooded street in the RDP section of extension 7 of Delareyville.
However, on 23 September 2026, the SAHRC announced another investigation into the human rights impact of delays in developing and upgrading informal settlements in the North West.
The SAHRC said that it will examine access to basic services, the causes and extent of delays, and their impact on residents’ rights.
NW DSH has not yet replied to follow-up questions about its current plans and budget to address the situation.
Tswaing Local Municipality has not replied to our questions on water and sanitation.
Dora Seleke has been waiting decades for an RDP home in Agisanang. She lives in a shack with over a dozen relatives.
Seth Thorne,Ihsaan Haffejee
groundup.org.za
