Government involvement on housing
5.4 Discussion of findings
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The procurement system employed on housing was identified as another predicament by the Designer, saying it affects design quality due to the fact that comprehensible design processes with their checks and balances are not in place. The Designer however suggested that the involvement of local skills should be prioritised during construction of low-cost houses to reduce costs concurrently minimizing procurement misfortunes. Lastly, the Designer suggests that it is imperative to use the appropriate benchmarking in order to achieve good design quality and through this he ensures that quality assurance will be achieved in low-cost housing for years to come. The designer thought the strategy would be to introduce quality assurance systems and develop training to all relevant employees.
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able to meet up with maintenance servicing of their houses. Considering that maintenance does not start and end with a day to day cleaning. Living space is another huge concern due to quantities of people staying in houses which was range from 3-5 occupants per house at 57.5%.
5.4.2 House details factors
Initially the house size was said to be 42m² in the initial stages of the reconstruction and development programme (RDP) in 1994. However, it seems as if there was a revision to the size of the house hence it is 40m² now as shown in fig. 5.15 with 92% of responses confirmed. When considering the size of the houses 40m² with room spaces less than 2.9m x 2.8m this gives an indication that the quality of life within these homes is not as satisfactory as it should be and confirmed in fig. 5.16 that 92% responses highlighted space for movement not enough. When it comes to location, it is supposed to be close to infrastructural services like schools, hospitals and transport services. From fig. 5.10 shows that 70% responses agree to the right location for houses. The number of rooms seems to be insufficient as 49% response in fig. 5.11 shows. This shows that the people are overcrowded in these houses as shown in fig. 5.4 that 58% responses confirmed to have 3 to 5 occupants in the house.
5.4.3 Design quality factors
When looking at the details and design of these low-cost houses within the three areas, it is clearly noticeable that a design model used has many similarities across the three areas.
This is another aspect attributing to poor design quality as in fig. 5.16 shows that 89%
responses confirmed that beneficiaries felt that it would have improved design quality should they have been given a say in design type. 77% responses confirmed not satisfied with the design. 78% responses complained about number of rooms, while 92% responses complained about limited space for movement inside rooms. Lastly, 95% responses confirmed that beneficiaries felt it would be better if they were given materials to build their houses.
5.4.4 Workmanship quality factors
The findings showed that poor workmanship qualities were identified throughout the project.
Many structural flaws were noticed, for example, cracks in walls, floors, unstable roof structures, chipping paints, incomplete plumbing, falling ceilings etc. The workmanship quality raised concerns when assessing the statistics presented in fig. 5.17. When looking at rain water disposal assembling 44% responses confirmed rain water disposal assembled
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incorrect. 90% responses highlighted water penetration through walls causing humid walls and chipping paint as it shows that 89% responses confirmed paint is chipping. 86%
responses confirmed too much heat retention in summer; with the statistics of poor ventilation this is suffocating the beneficiaries. From 5.17 it is shown that 96% responses confirmed heat loses during winter months. 66% responses highlighted that walls have cracks.
5.4.5 Ailments and disabilities factors
Concurrent to this, many ailments and disabilities were evident within the three communities which are either caused or enhanced by the poor quality homes in which they live. These ailments according to the statistics are more severe in the rainy winter months. This tends to suggest that poor cross-flow ventilation in the units intensifies the ailments. From fig. 5.18 it shows that 36% responses indicated there is member of the family with illnesses, temporal health problems or disabilities and 21% responses confirmed to have physical illness. When observing the situation regarding the illnesses, temporal health problems, these were linked to respiratory health problems. Whereas, fig. 5.19 shows that 10% responses highlighted diabetes as other illness faced by beneficiaries, 3% responses confirmed epilepsy and 4%
response confirmed high blood pressure.
5.4.6 Government involvement factors
Government plays a fundamental role in providing adequate houses to South African communities and making sure quality is attained during the construction of low-cost houses.
Figure 5.20 shows that 55% responses said government should prioritize low to middle income earners for low-cost house. Figure 5.21 shows that 56% responses agreed that government is making effort to respond to demands raised by communities regarding provision of adequate houses. Figure 5.22 shows that 66% responses said government sends inspectors on site for inspections during construction of low-cost houses. Figure 5.23 shows that 27% responses agreed that government provide beneficiaries with maintenance plans. Lastly, fig. 5.24 shows that 75% of responses agreed that government is fighting homelessness.
5.4.7 Building inspector factors
The inspector from the City of Cape Town confirm to know quality assurance systems, saying that the City have adopted the international organisation for standardisation (ISO) 9001 of 2008 and they been introducing ISO to all relevant departments. The inspector also confirmed that system is working for the delivery of low-cost houses. The only challenge
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facing the Western Cape Government and Local government of Cape Town (City of Cape Town) is huge backlog, said the inspector. Adding to that thee inspector said government has set unrealistic time-frames to eliminate the backlog. The only solution to a complete implementation of quality assurance systems is first: the training of inspectors to quality assurance systems; the involvement of management in the implementation of the systems.
The inspector from the Human Settlements concurred with the inspector from the City of Cape Town in everything except they are using benchmarking at Human Settlements as their quality assurance system and the inspector also confirmed that the system is working in the delivery of low-cost houses in Cape Town.
5.4.8 Contractor factors
The contractor said there is correlation between quality, quality assurance and quality assurance systems. Then the contractor describes what these words meant to him as the contractor as shown in the contractor responses above. However, the contractor said the company have not yet adopted the quality assurance system but in order for the company to improve they compare their performance to that of the competitors. Hence, suggesting the use of benchmarking mechanism as the tool to confirm to quality workmanship standards.
The contractor said that the strategy of competing with other competitors is assisting/or working for the company because they are improving daily. The contractor mentioned that the low-cost housing projections are promising in the country particularly in Cape Town.
However, highlighting what will be hindrance as inadequate skill, inappropriate inspection/or monitoring sequences. The contractor stressed the use influence that NHBRC can make if they enhance their training programmes to help elevate community member‟s skills in construction of their communities.
5.4.9 Designer factors
Like the contractor the designer also said the words are closely correlated and he described the three words according his own understanding as shown in the designer responses above. The designer confirmed that the company introduced all relevant employees to benchmarking and it is working for the company. The only predicament as mentioned by the designer is the repetitive design model use in the delivery of low-cost housing in the entire country. This is unconsciously destroying the skill/or creativity of South African designers.
Like the contractor the designer touched based on many factors to be looked at like the selection of appropriate procurement system in the early stages of the project, and the introduction of appropriate benchmarking in each organisation working in the delivery of low- cost housing.
107 5.5 Chapter summary
This chapter presented all the data and findings based on the three batches of quantitative questionnaire surveys conducted within the three Cape Town communities mentioned: Delft, Khayelitsha and Langa as well as the qualitative interviews carried out with the Building Inspectors, Contractor and Designer.
From the data retrieved from the locations mentioned above, it was discovered that there were problems around resultant quality that the houses possess, many of which are falling apart or incomplete and not accommodating families adequately. Many questions and comments arose around procurement measures, time constraints, tight budgets, appropriate quality assurance system and pressures surrounding the current housing backlog which filters down from government to Designers and Contractors which ultimately causes design processes to fail and construction workmanship quality to drop, resulting in a poor resultant quality housing unit.
The interviews carried out with the Building Inspectors, Contractor and Designer, it was discovered that similar comments were suggested. The designer, contractor and the Building Inspector from Human Settlements did not seem to have adequate skill on quality assurance systems, though they are using benchmarking as their quality assurance system. However, the Building Inspector from the City of Cape Town seems to understand quality assurance systems and it was anticipated that quality assurance is the major priority in their projects.
City of Cape Town adopted ISO 9001:2008 and slowly introducing it to all departments.
108 Chapter 6
Conclusion and Recommendations 6.1 Introduction
In the previous chapter the questionnaires and structured interviews were carefully analysed in order to reflect a true result to the hypothesis/or research questions structured in chapter 1.
Chapter 5 gathered valuable data to test the hypothesis/or research questions to a certain extent. In this chapter the findings, recommendations and conclusions will be presented to round off this phase of the research study.