ADDRESS BY PREMIER NJ MAHLANGU
Master of ceremonies
Housing MEC DD Mabuza
Housing MECs from other provinces
IHSA President Hans Smit
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
I am very pleased indeed to welcome you, on behalf of the government and people of Mpumalanga, to this auspicious occasion.
I sincerely appreciate being invited to this conference and for me to speak here today.
Many years ago our people gathered at Kliptown, outside Johannesburg and proclaimed to all that: There shall be houses, security and comfort .
They proclaimed that all people should have the right to live where they choose, be decently housed, and to bring up their families in comfort and security;
They also told all and sundry that:
- Unused housing space to be made available to the people;
- Rent and prices shall be lowered.
- Slums shall be demolished, and new suburbs built where all have transport, roads, lighting, playing fields, crèches and social centres;
- The aged, the orphans, the disabled and the sick shall be cared for by the state;
- Rest, leisure and recreation shall be the right of all,
- Fenced locations and ghettoes shall be abolished, and laws, which break up families, shall be repealed.
Ladies and gentlemen, I mention these things so we can get a sense of where we come from. Those men and women who on that day espoused what was to become the working document of the people – The Freedom Charter – were arrested, persecuted, imprisoned and even killed. All because they called for what is a basic necessity – The right to shelter.
Today we stand at the dawn of a new millennium. Millenniums that will demand of all of us to collectively deliver us from the consequences of our human weaknesses. Deliver us from a past where as a people - as South Africans, black and white - we were torn apart by prejudices.
And as a people we have begun to emerge, as if in tandem with the new millennium, into a nation confident of itself, aware of its immense possibilities and prepared to do extraordinary things to attain the goal that comes from creating a better quality of life for all.
We are moving into a century in which our priorities must be an end to the poverty of our people, a century in which the divisions of the past must truly cease to exist.
As we reconstruct South Africa and reclaim the whole country for all, we break down all the divisions and attitudes of the past, freeing everyone from the last vestiges of oppression.
Almost on a daily basis we are bombarded with images of poverty and want; hunger and disease; homelessness and squalor. All these things are not an invention of television, but an unfortunate past of our experience.
More than ever before, we become aware of the tragedies of our times, the horrors of conflict, the extent of suffering, and the reality of our common destiny.
But as we emerged from that past we boldly stated, among other things, that everyone has a right to have access to adequate housing. We pledged to provide shelter to all South Africans regardless of their race.
As government we have undertaken to speed up the programme to improve the quality of life of the people. We are aware that the fight against poverty requires a co-ordinated strategy that cuts across all sectors. A strategy that pays particular attention to rural and disadvantaged areas.
Master of ceremonies, we can confidently assert that we have indeed provided roofs over the heads of many South Africans who would otherwise not have had a chance to acquire a home with security of tenure based on ownership of property. However, we are quick to acknowledge more still be done.
Like all other provinces Mpumalanga is faced with many challenges as we try to execute our mandate of working for a better life.
Allow us, ladies and gentlemen, to briefly sketch our past, because without doing so we may not realise the giant leap we have taken in addressing the problem of homelessness.
We inherited a bloated, fragmented system that operated along colour lines a system that offered very little in the provision of shelter, particularly to the poorest of the poor. This led to people adopting desperate measures, which left us with a mushrooming of informal settlements.
Today we have a single housing policy and a subsidy system that is targeted towards low-income earners regardless of race.
As part of implementing our policy we had to put the building blocks in place and
lay a solid foundation to help steer and narrow the crevices prevalent in the processes around the delivery of homes to the poor.
We had to operate within an environment where our primary beneficiaries were not bank credit worthy and those who were, could not be granted loans because of the location of their prospective houses. We had to operate within an unwieldy and hostile environment.
And there were other problems. Some of our officials have been stealing monies earmarked for housing development and this has in some instances, stalled some of our programmes. Some of the culprits are currently serving jail sentences while others have been charged with various offences. We have identified loopholes in the system and are in the process of closing them.
Some unscrupulous developers have taken advantage of the poor and erected ill-constructed houses. Fortunately our people can now seek the protection of the Housing Consumer Protection Measures Act of 1998. This Act protects all homeowners against fly-by-night developers. It also seeks to foster an ethical culture in the industry backed by a Defect Warranty scheme We are sending a clear message that the houses we are building today, will have to be there in many more years to come.
As Housing Minister Sanki Mthembi-Mahanyele said, we are on the brink of a new beginning with a chance to build on our previous successes and begin to launch shelter provision in a much more integrated manner.
The past five years were characterised by :
- establishment of housing delivery systems,
- setting up procedures for the processing of applications;
- establishing the institutional framework for housing delivery;
- stabilising the housing environment and;
- mobilising credit and providing housing subsidy assistance.
We laid a solid foundation having moved from acute shortage of homes, the proliferation of informal settlements to a position where we can safely say that we have made gains by laying a framework that has gone a long way towards ironing out the creases around the acquisition of home for the poor.
This therefore, means that the next term will see greater focus on ensuring improved quality of housing built, both in terms of the housing constructed and the built environment created in new residential areas. This will be in line with the principles of integrated and co-ordinated development to ensure maximum private and public sector investment in well located land next to areas of social and economic activities.
In the next five years we will unashamedly focus on the rural areas to uplift the poverty-stricken communities and avail land for sustainable social economic activities.
The other challenge is to provide an economic infrastructure base to curb the rural urban migration and set up social services that will be attractive and keep the youth from seeking greater pastures elsewhere.
But above all the greatest challenge is to give effect to Section 24 of the Constitution, which states that all South Africans have a right to access adequate housing.
We will continue to look for alternative methods of garnering financial support to augment the subsidy grant. To this end innovative and more creative ways of amassing savings in communities will be investigated with a view of applying these models to top up the grant.
The current term of office will embark on mobilising savings including stokvels for housing development purposes and the use of subsidies as structured support and incentives to match savings and therefore increase the total amount available for house construction.
Various models will be established including combinations of the following:
- Savings and rental subsidy for rental payments;
- Group savings e.g. stokvels and revolving fund grant and housing subsidy;
- Savings and ownership subsidy
The main is being to ensure that households including individuals take part in housing acquisition. It is important to dispel the notion that government provides everything.
While we do acknowledge that support is necessary as a means of intervention and helping out those who do not have the means, this is merely an outstretched helping hand to make sure that the quality of life of our people is improved.
Housing finance interventions are a necessity to protect the poor from the harsh economic realities of fluctuating inflation and interest rates. For this reason, the current phase will see the growth of alternative housing finance products including micro loans that are cheaper than conventional mortgage bond for low income earners to enhance their housing units and provide protection against interest rate increases.
For the next five years we will ensure that:
- The backlog is significantly reduced;
- Alleviate poverty and improve the quality of life by providing access to basic services and within the means of the available resources;
- Increase the proportion of rental stock and provide tenure diversification;
- Upgrading of existing informal settlements, where appropriate replacing shacks with houses and providing serves;
- Adopting a differentiated approach to meet the specific needs of the poor including tenure requirements, migratory patterns, household size and affordability levels;
In addition, we will focus on rural development. Specifically, adopting a shift in emphasis to rural development in all our programmes by adopting a rural strategy, which will foster co-ordination of all rural infrastructure development programmes. This will include a clear definition of rural settlements and set standards appropriate to type of settlement to guide infrastructure development and ensure affordability. It will also focus on economic development and ensure affordability. It will also focus on economic development, job creation and capacity building.
Because we recognise that government alone cannot carry the task of reconstructing and developing our country alone, we intend to foster and promote public private partnerships by involving the private sector. Government is establishing suitable instruments for infrastructure development collaboration, co-ordination of public sector programmes and policy enhancement to accommodate changing circumstances in both the public and the private sector.
We intend to promote a healthy and competitive industry, which delivers value for money in line with international best practice, and promote the participation and growth of emerging small and micro enterprises.
While the central strategic thrust of growth and development of infrastrure programmes contains the key to sustainable employment and human resource development, this thrust can only yield results over a sustained period. However, key to sustainability and affordability of infrastructure development programmes is economic development with emphasis on employment creation, capacity building and training. Support programmes for small business development as an integral part of the infrastructure development programme to sustain employment and enhance affordability levels. The public sector will aim to maximise employment opportunities through labour intensive construction and empower communities through training.
We will formulate short and medium plans for infrastructure development, which examine different options including spatial development of the area to integrate economic, social infrastructure and local resources.
More successful implementation has been and will be witnessed where co-ordinated and integrated development lie at the core of all the programmes such as Presidential Projects on Urban Renewal, the National Pilot Project on Housing tabled at the Job Summit last year and the Consolidated Municipal Infrastructure Programme.
The co-ordination of infrastructure will include co-ordination of development policies, strategy and implementation approach supported by targeted allocation of funds and mutually complementing projects to avoid duplication and enhance service delivery.
While our primary objective is to house the nation in safe and affordable homes backed by security of tenure and ownership of property, we have in the process contributed substantially by way of job creation. It is estimated that for every house built, one permanent and three temporary jobs are created.
Our programme has supported the involvement of women in an industry known for its lack of flexibility. Government has helped support people like Irene Mahlangu from this province, who with basic schooling and no academic qualifications has managed to produce R2 million worth of projects and has repaid her loan.
Other spin-offs include partnerships, skills transfer, rebuilding communities in areas that were strife-torn etc.
The Maputo-Corridor will contribute immensely towards enhancing economic growth in this area.
We are happy that some farmers are prepared to donate land and have freely and voluntarily engaged in the building of houses for farm workers and supported the development of houses in the area.
Many unskilled people have managed to become marketable. These are the types of things that are positive spin-offs from our drive to build a better life.
Let me conclude by reminding you that the struggle against underdevelopment, for emancipation, for the renewal of the South African people is inextricably bound with the fate of our region, our continent and the downtrodden of the earth.
We should feel the greater need, now more than before, to educate ourselves and the world about what amalgam of historical events has given birth to our collective human experience.
It is only by understanding this that we can be forewarned and forearmed about the challenges that lie ahead in our effort to construct a better world. Only this experience can prepare us to be a nation of sages, statesmen and stateswomen who can inspire others and help solve problems besetting our world.
More than ever before, we become aware of the tragedies of our times, the horrors of conflict, the extent of suffering, and the reality of our common destiny.
We need to educate ourselves about our own national history. We need to educate ourselves about the reality that we come from centuries of dispossession and resistance, we come from the history of Jan van Riebeeck, Isandlwana, of e-Ncome, of the Anglo-Boer War, of the Voortrekkers, of Bambatha, of February 2nd 1990, of April 1994.
Finally Master of Ceremonies, all our efforts will come to nothing unless we deal urgently and purposefully with the HIV/AIDS emergency in and through all we do.
This is the priority that underlies all priorities, for unless we succeed, we face a future full of suffering and loss, with untold consequences for our communities and the education institutions that serve them.
We must work to ensure that all of us – every single one of us plays a part in stemming the epidemic, and to ensure that the rights of all persons infected with the HIV virus are fully protected.
I Thank You.