By Nangamso Mabindla

Buffalo City Municipality's social housing system has been selected as the best project in the Eastern Cape at the Housing and Infrastructure Awards held last night at the Osner Hotel in East London.

Buffalo City won the R300 000 first prize in the awards, an initiative by the South African Department of Local Government (SALGA) to encourage municipalities to improve on housing delivery.

Buffalo City's Directorate of Development Planning's Lindelwa Maneli said she was proud to be involved with "the number one project in the province".

So-called social houses, such as the project in Amalinda, were subsidised and tenants paid rent to the municipality, Ms Maneli said. Occupants could then decide, over time, whether to buy the house or not.

Housing delivery was one of the primary concerns of provincial government, said Gugile Nkwinti, Eastern Cape MEC for local government. "Our people need to have decent shelter and we need to take it upon ourselves to make sure we serve our people to the best of our ability," he said.

The MEC said his department wanted to "obliterate" the notion that the Eastern Cape was one of the most incompetent provinces in the country.

"By beating the rest of South Africa at the National Vuna Awards, Buffalo City showed that we in this province have the potential to beat the best in the country."

The MEC said the city had proved that the province had the contenders to compete at national level. "Let's all learn from Councillor [Sindisile] Maclean and make the province proud."

Mr Nkwinti encouraged municipalities to improve on their housing programmes.

Ms Maneli said the next step for Buffalo City would be to turn its focus to people who could not afford to rent houses.

"With the new concept of high-density housing, we are looking at people earning less than R1 500. They deserve to have a roof over their heads."

This project could start as early as the end of next year, she added, depending on when the architects came up with a winning concept.

Buffalo City Municipality, the Nelson Mandela Metropole and the Swedish International Development Agency have issued a challenge to architects to come up with new design concepts for high-density housing in the province.

The concept has to be of good quality and costs must be kept within the R23 000 housing subsidy the municipalities received from the provincial government.