Nomvula Masehla | Project Director | Tax Publications | South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) | mail me |
Those in the know say building a house can cost anything from R10,000 to R20,000 per square meter. Factors such as location, quality of the material used, and design complexity can significantly raise costs.
High-end houses can cost upwards of R25,000 per square meter. It is a hefty price to pay, but one well worth it. This is especially true when sitting in the confines of your beautiful investment.
Despite the actual cost of your house, what’s clear to many is the importance of building within your price range. It is essential to build a house your income can maintain as the years roll on.
National restoration – rebuilding with solid foundations
South Africa is no stranger to paying the price of acquiring a place to call home. Having clawed its way out of the oppressive apartheid regime, many share an understanding. This understanding is that the right leadership can result in progress in leaps and bounds.
Nelson Mandela laid the foundation that supported the rainbow nation for many years. With a brag-worthy house standing on firm foundation, Mandela and Thabo Mbeki ensured its maintenance. This made for happy residents. However, with the title deed in the wrong hands and maintenance constantly ignored, things changed. What was once square meters of joy, unity, prosperity and growth slowly morphed into something derelict.
A country in desperate need of strong leadership, one that wasn’t self-serving, finally made its voice heard in the 2024 national election. The results of that election made it clear that change and restoration would need to be a collaborative effort. No single party received the majority vote. Leadership was, therefore, compelled to work together, rebuilding with solid foundation.
Can the GNU lay solid foundations?
Put in a position where the strengths of many diverse views and capabilities could be relied on, many are waiting. They are waiting with bated breath to see if the Government of National Unity (GNU) will lay the right foundation necessary for restoration.
President Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) echoes the outcome of the election that birthed the country’s first official GNU.
He stated:
We agree on one thing: that we need to build a better South Africa and improve the wellbeing of our people.
As with building a house, building or rebuilding a nation with solid foundation requires financial resources. Dreaming beyond your means could result in two things. First, the house (or rebuilt nation) may never materialise. Second, it may set in motion unaffordable and unsustainable plans.
The most critical question now is whether South Africa’s plans to rebuild consider the country’s financial capabilities. It is also important to consider whether the right projects are prioritised. So, let’s take a look at some of the rebuilding exercises that will require funds for ‘bricks and mortar’ mentioned by the President in his latest SONA.
Plans to achieve economic growth of 3% by 2029 will no doubt require adequate investment in infrastructure. This includes areas such as road, rail, water, and electricity. This will, in turn, mean ensuring municipalities and State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) act on their mandate. This would eliminate the risk of mismanagement of funds and fruitless or wasteful expenditure. Accountability will, therefore, need to be the tune sung in corridors.
There is no better way to ensure accountability than witnessing it within government and leadership itself. While the President referenced the need for infrastructure development and accountability within organs of the state, enforcement is crucial.
Protecting the rights of citizens
Enforcement, especially higher up the ladder, will set the tone. It will also deter future mismanagement. A house with faulty wiring is bound to have many electrical faults. Therefore, the presidential electrician needs to embark on an exercise of rewiring the culture within many organs of state.
Protecting the rights of citizens is one of the foundations of any constitution and South Africa is no different. The right to healthcare is enshrined in our constitution. While plans to move forward with National Health Insurance (NHI) were made clear by the President, one can’t help but wonder. Has this proposal gone through the necessary formulation process to ensure its success?
In an ideal world, the introduction of NHI should only have been considered once enough traction was made. This traction would involve improving healthcare services for citizens not on medical aid. Implementing NHI given the country’s status quo places unnecessary pressure on an already constrained economy. As mentioned by the President, hospitals will need refurbishing or building. Healthcare professionals will require additional training. All of this comes at a cost.
This cost must be incurred in a rushed state, as these measures need to be in place before the NHI child is born. The rushed implementation of NHI could unfortunately end up crippling the already unstable foundations of the country’s healthcare system.
Talks of implementing technology in an attempt to rebuild public service will come at its own financial cost. This includes giving South Africans access to digital public infrastructure, all in an attempt to improve their engagement with the government. However, given the fact that in 2023 roughly half the population had access to smartphones, one may question the premature nature of this initiative.
Foundations for national growth
Should the focus at the moment rather not be on poverty alleviating measures? The priority should be minimising the number of South Africans dependent on government grants first.
Plans such as these only make real sense once a greater proportion of the population has access to the tools necessary to benefit from such initiatives. Failing which, one is simply installing an electric garage to a house with no access to electricity. An effective means of alleviating poverty is ensuring the population receives quality education.
It was reassuring to hear the President mention the importance of education. However, the plan proposed in his SONA may need revisiting. While learning in your mother tongue would prove beneficial in school, it poses a potential problem later. Once an education higher than matric is sought, students may struggle.
They may struggle with having to learn in English, a medium that many higher education institutions use. Should the plan to teach in mother tongues be executed, it follows that resources need to be dedicated. These resources should ensure that this level of education is also available later in life. Failing which, the children coming out of our schooling systems will be like cleanly washed windows with multiple cracks.
In conclusion
The view outside is visible, but the cracks in the window detract from the beauty of what you are beholding. While these goals are noble and not insurmountable, careful planning is required. Properly timed and prioritized projects are needed to ensure they come to fruition.
We have clawed our way out of the dark before. With the right leadership, setting realistically achievable and executable goals, we can do it again. What is imperative at this point in the game is ensuring that we talk a talk that we can walk.
Hopefully, the 2025 National Budget reflects foresight by those in power. It should reflect what can and should be done immediately, and what can be postponed for a time when the country is standing on firmer foundations.
