Qualifying government employees and members of the public will now have the opportunity to access affordable housing finance following a R10.5 billion investment in SA Home Loans (SAHL).
The Government Employees’ Pension Fund (GEPF), through its investment manager, the Public Investment Corporation (PIC), on Wednesday launched a partnership to facilitate special home loan opportunities for government employees and members of the public.
The investment comprises:
- R5 billion for public service employees;
- R2 billion for affordable housing end-user financing
- R2 billion to enable SAHL to extend home loans to the rest of qualifying home loan applicants; and
- R1.5 billion will be used to fund affordable housing developers.
The investment in SAHL is part of the developmental investment mandate that the PIC is carrying out on behalf of the GEPF.
“The PIC is intentionally implementing a developmental investment mandate, which primarily seeks to achieve two types of returns, namely financial and social returns,” said PIC board member Claudia Manning.
Lack of access to housing has been identified by the National Development Plan (NDP) as one of the big challenges facing South Africa.
Abel Sithole, principal executive officer of the GEPF, said: “We believe there are many GEPF members who do not qualify for bank-issued housing loans and housing subsidies offered by the government.
“We believe we have the necessary capacity and skills to deliver excellent home financing services to clients that will be coming through the GEHS platform, as we have consistently done with all our clients,” said Kevin Penwarden, Chief Executive Officer of SAHL.
