R33.3 MILLION BREAKS GROUND ON 153 HOMES AS NELSON MANDELA BAY CONFRONTS A 100 000 HOUSE BACKLOG
Published: October 07, 2026<< BACK TO NEWS
Joe Slovo and KwaNobuhle developments advance the Municipality’s constitutional duty to turn the right of access to adequate housing into lived reality, even as need continues to far outstrip available funding.
For 153 families in Joe Slovo and KwaNobuhle, the long wait for a home of their own now has an end date. Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality has broken ground on two human settlements developments with a combined value of R33,303,663.00, with construction under way since 1 October 2026 and completion scheduled for 26 February 2027.
The developments, 83 houses in Joe Slovo in Gqeberha and 70 houses in KwaNobuhle Area 11 in Kariega, arrive against the backdrop of one of the most pressing human settlements challenges in the country. The metro carries a housing backlog of approximately 100 000 units, while some 150 informal settlements remain home to thousands of residents who continue to live without secure tenure, dignified shelter or dependable access to basic services.
For the Municipality, every one of these homes is a measured step towards a promise made in the Constitution, and a reminder of how much work remains.
Section 26 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa guarantees everyone the right to have access to adequate housing. It obliges the state to take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to achieve the progressive realisation of that right. Section 152 in turn charges local government with ensuring the provision of services to communities in a sustainable manner and promoting social and economic development.
The Municipality’s approach is further shaped by the Constitutional Court’s landmark Grootboom judgment of 2000, which established that a reasonable housing programme must make provision for those in the most desperate need. That principle sits at the centre of how beneficiaries for these developments are identified and prioritised.
The gap between demand and available funding is laid bare by the two projects themselves. The Municipality applied to the Eastern Cape Department of Human Settlements for funding to build 500 houses in Joe Slovo and 300 houses in KwaNobuhle Area 11. Funding was approved for 83 and 70 houses respectively, amounting to 153 of the 800 homes requested, or roughly one in every five.
For the 2026/27 financial year, the Joe Slovo project carries a budget of R18,066,693.00 and the KwaNobuhle Area 11 project a budget of R15,236,970.00. Together they represent an average public investment of approximately R217 671 per home.
Housing is a concurrent national and provincial competence under Schedule 4 of the Constitution, and this architecture determines how funding flows to communities. Through the annual Division of Revenue Act, National Government allocates the Human Settlements Development Grant to provinces, which assess, approve and fund housing projects such as those in Joe Slovo and KwaNobuhle. Metropolitan municipalities receive the Urban Settlements Development Grant, which funds bulk infrastructure and serviced land, together with the Informal Settlements Upgrading Partnership Grant, which supports the incremental upgrading of informal settlements.
This system places the Municipality at the point of delivery while the largest share of housing funding is determined at national and provincial level. Municipal own revenue, already committed to water, sanitation, electricity, roads and other essential services for more than a million residents, cannot on its own close a backlog of this magnitude.
These constraints are compounded by a sustained period of national fiscal pressure on human settlements grants, rising construction and material costs, the scarcity of well located serviced land and the bulk infrastructure that must be in place before a single house can be built. Every allocation therefore demands disciplined choices about where the next home is built and who receives it first.
Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality Executive Mayor, Councillor Babalwa Lobishe, said the Municipality understands the plight of residents and the difficult conditions in which many people continue to live.
"This number might sound like a small number, but it means a lot to an elderly woman who stays in a shack with her grandchildren, who by the Easter season will spend time in a formal house for the first time.
"As we build houses, we have to understand the disparities. As we deliver houses, we focus on the elderly, households headed by children, people with disabilities, the unemployed and those who are earning between R0 and R3,500, who are eligible for subsidised housing in terms of the Human Settlements policy,” said Executive Mayor Lobishe.
The developments also carry an economic dividend. Seven SMME contractors have been appointed across the two sites, three in Joe Slovo and four in KwaNobuhle Area 11, ensuring that public investment in housing also builds enterprise, skills and income within the metro.
Executive Mayor Lobishe said the Municipality, working together with Provincial and National Government, is working towards increasing the budget allocation for housing so that more houses can be delivered to residents.
"We have built our internal capacity and we are now capable of delivering much bigger developments so that we can make a difference in the 100 000 housing backlog that we have,” added Executive Mayor Lobishe.
Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality is committed to decent, accessible and sustainable human settlements. Decent, because every family deserves shelter that offers safety, dignity and security of tenure. Accessible, because a home must connect residents to schools, clinics, public transport and economic opportunity rather than isolate them on the periphery of the city. Sustainable, because the settlements built today must be serviced, maintained and resilient for the generations who will inherit them.
To honour that commitment, the Municipality will continue to make every allocated rand work harder through disciplined project management and timely spending. It will accelerate the upgrading of informal settlements alongside the construction of new homes, and will press through every intergovernmental structure for a funding allocation that reflects the true scale of need in Nelson Mandela Bay. Beneficiary allocation will remain transparent and aligned with national housing policy, with the most vulnerable residents kept firmly at the front of the queue.
The Municipality said the commencement of the two developments demonstrates its continued commitment to accelerating housing delivery while ensuring that vulnerable residents remain at the centre of its housing programme. The 153 homes now rising in Joe Slovo and KwaNobuhle are a beginning, not an end.
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