The Department of Human Settlements is awaiting the conclusion of a land acquisition strategy to identify, earmark and allocate available State-owned land for housing purposes.

Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu said only two-million hectares of the 17-million hectares of State-owned land across 1.16-million land parcels remained undeveloped.

However, as not all this land was suited for residential development, the Housing Development Agency was currently completing the strategy that would lead to the identification of what State-owned land was suitable for residential purposes.

Responding to a Parliamentary question, she noted that Limpopo held the bulk of the undeveloped land at 539 662 ha, followed by North West, Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal with 448 646 ha, 389 567 ha and 292 668 ha of undeveloped land respectively.

Gauteng held the smallest portion of the undeveloped land, at 31 824 ha, followed by Mpumalanga with 36 066 ha; the Free State with 99 499 ha; the Northern Cape with 106 441 ha and the Western Cape with 117 290 ha.