{
  "id": 11189824,
  "title": "R1-billion to fix North West’s failed housing projects",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/01/r1-billion-to-fix-north-wests-failed-housing-projects",
  "topic": "world",
  "section": "World",
  "published": "2026-10-01T12:26:33.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "GroundUp",
    "slug": "groundup",
    "url": "https://groundup.org.za/article/promises-made-and-millions-spent-but-north-west-families-left-in-shacks/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Over 35 years, Agnes Maropeng has dwelled in a corrugated iron shack in Skierlek, a North West province informal settlement. Her community of Tswaing Local Municipality has long been promised housing, water and sanitation, yet remains flooded with raw sewage. Maropeng walks three kilometres daily to fetch water in buckets. Nearby, Ganta Shey lives in a half-built RDP house, abandoned by contractors years ago. Dozens of incomplete houses, sewage spills and people carrying buckets for water fill the landscape. In 2014, R7-million was allocated for just half the homes to be completed. Satellite images show no new housing in Extension 7 since at least 2016. Similar stalled projects exist in extension 8, with R272-million spent on constructing about 1,000 houses without water or sewer connections. The North West Department of Human Settlements (NW DHS) requires R176-million to finish these projects. The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) reported a systemic issue of incomplete and inadequate RDP houses in the province, blaming the NW DHS for appointing uncapable contractors, poor contract management, and poor accountability. The department has a budget of nearly R1.4-billion for 2026/27, with R1.12-billion allocated to complete existing projects. However, the SAHRC has launched another investigation into the human rights impact of delays in developing and upgrading informal settlements in the North West.",
  "summary": "The province is sitting with roughly 25,400 unfinished homes",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}