South Africa

One South African city spent R371 million to build houses that are standing empty and being stripped bare

Shaun Jacobs • 5 October 2026

3,510 houses in the Tembisa Extension 25 Mega Housing Project are standing empty after the City of Ekurhuleni spent R371 million building them.

The project was launched by the city in 2018 to move people out of informal settlements by providing low-income housing.

However, they are yet to accommodate a single individual, with construction halting in 2021, leaving all the apartments and houses unfinished.

Launched with much fanfare, the Tembisa housing project was designed to address severe housing shortages in the City of Ekurhuleni.

The City of Ekurhuleni is a sprawling municipality that includes South Africa’s busiest airport, OR Tambo and the cities of Benoni, Boksburg, and Germiston.

It also has some of the largest townships in the country, including Tembisa, Katlehong, and Vosloorus. These areas have struggled with a lack of formal housing for decades.

The Gauteng Provincial Government began a drive in the 2010s to build “Mega Human Settlements” to address the province’s housing shortfall.

Its plan was to move away from scattered RDP housing developments and build high-density social housing complexes with integrated bulk infrastructure.

Under this drive, the Tembisa Extension 25 Mega Housing Project was unveiled to relocate thousands of families from informal settlements in the township.

The project began construction in the 2017/2018 financial year, when the municipality began investing heavily into bulk earthworks and foundations.

It was envisioned that the project would build 3,510 units by June 2021, when families would begin moving into social housing.

However, challenges quickly arose, with contractors and engineering firms halting work due to unpaid invoices and budget shortfalls.

The project was designed to be cheap, with a budget of R371 million. This budget quickly ran out, and by mid-2021, construction had halted.

While the municipality planned for construction to be completed by June 2021, the houses were left empty and unfinished by the contractors.

These houses are now the targets of vandalism and crime, with their contents being stripped of anything of value, including metal roofs, transformers, copper wiring, and door frames.

Five years later, government still investigating

Minister of Human Settlements, Thembisile Simelane

The Tembisa project has been the subject of several government investigations, including a handful by the Department of Human Settlements.

These investigations have all ended with promises from the government to re-procure contractors and fix damaged units.

However, five years later, not a single family from Tembisa or the nearby Winnie Mandela informal settlement have been housed.

Human Settlements Minister Thembisile Simelane explained in a recent answer to a parliamentary question that her department is not responsible for the failed project.

“It should be noted that the projects are funded and implemented by the City of Ekurhuleni. As the implementing authority, the city is responsible,” Simelane said.

The Gauteng Department of Human Settlements exercises provincial oversight, coordination, and support responsibilities.

Simelane said the provincial department continues to work with the City of Ekurhuleni to address the project’s challenges.

The minister’s department will await a report from a Technical Committee before taking action, as the committee will recommend appropriate rectification measures.

“Based on the preliminary assessment, the rectification and implementation process is currently estimated to require 36 months,” Simelane said.

This means the project that was intended to be finished within three years will take a decade to complete if work begins tomorrow.

Simelane said the City of Ekurhuleni is working to hold those responsible for the project’s delays and vandalism accountable.

The city said the project was severely affected by site hijacking and disruption caused by the construction mafia.

“These circumstances materially affected the contractor’s ability to access and operate on the site and also resulted in vandalism, theft and deterioration of municipal assets and partially completed works,” it said.

Simelane said her department would only consider further investigations into wrongdoing after the technical committee’s final report.