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Today, in yet another display of political expediency over principle, the Democratic Alliance (DA) has today voted to support the Budget Vote 33 of corruption-accused Human Settlements Minister, Thembi Simelane, a budget that is itself fraught with serious concerns.

After weeks of political brinkmanship and having vowed to oppose Simelane’s budget due to the serious allegations of corruption she faces, the DA has now made a whiplash-inducing backtrack to support the very budget they had condemned and communicated their intention to vote against on Monday afternoon.

ActionSA has remained consistent and principled. Our vote against the budget was not based only on the serious allegations facing Minister Simelane, over which we have led accountability efforts by laying criminal charges and lodging a complaint with the Public Protector. More fundamentally, we opposed the budget because it reflects a continued failure to deliver adequate housing and basic services to South Africans, a failure that cannot be supported by any rational party.

Beyond these serious allegations, a closer examination of the budget makes it clear that Simelane’s department has failed disastrously in its mandate. Despite a R34 billion allocation, vulnerable South Africans continue to receive defective housing, poor workmanship, and even the certification of substandard buildings by the NHBRC — the very regulator meant to guarantee quality. This is not just incompetence, but it is the active funding of failure. 

Informal settlement funding has been slashed by R1.1 billion, disaster housing sits at a paltry R1.6 billion, and only R60 million is budgeted over three years for climate resilience. Meanwhile, the title deed backlog remains above 2 million, and affordable rental and social housing budgets are stagnant or shrinking in real terms. These aren’t isolated issues. They are systemic and reflect the broader inefficiencies within this department.

The budget attempts to paint a picture of growth, but the truth is starkly different. While it increases by 4.4% in nominal terms, it actually declines by 3.5% in real value once inflation is accounted for and every major housing programme receives less in real terms. 

Furthermore, provinces and municipalities are failing to spend key grants like the HSDG, ISUP and USDG, with billions returned to Treasury and no accountability enforced. The Housing Development Agency remains funded despite an ongoing SIU corruption investigation, and the proposed Human Settlements Development Bank is an underfunded shell with no clear roadmap. This budget is not a pro-poor investment it is managed decline, masked by spin and sustained by silence.

As the constructive and principled opposition in Parliament, ActionSA evaluates each Budget Vote on its merits, not as ammunition for internal coalition warfare, an approach that has seen us support budgets that serve the people and reject those that entrench dysfunction.

Issued by ActionSA Parliamentary Chief Whip Lerato Ngobeni