Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu was considering the formation of a Women Construction Bank to focus on financing women-led cooperatives and construction companies involved in community infrastructure and human settlements projects.

Delivering a keynote address at the Policy Convention of the South African Women in Construction this week she said that it was her “dream” to establish a construction bank dedicated to assisting women in construction with bridging finance and loans for building material and vehicles.

Sisulu believed the National Urban Reconstruction and Housing Agency, after merging with the Rural Housing Loan Fund and the National Housing Finance Cooperation – two other development finance institutions within the Department of Human Settlements – would be able to assist with this “national task”.

This emerged after the Department of Human Settlements committed to allocating 30%, or R35-billion of its R150-billion human settlements project budget, over the next five years, to women-owned enterprises.

A Women in Construction Support Branch, led by a deputy director-general, would be established to support women-led cooperatives and companies to access this allocation.

Sisulu called on all construction-sector partners to government’s housing programme, which aimed to have 1.5-million houses built within five years, to award 30% of their subcontracting work to women.