Programme Director,
MECs present
Executive mayors
Mayors
Speakers
Chief whips
Municipal managers
Heads of departments
National Home Builders Registration Council
SALGA Limpopo
Banking institutions
Members of the Advisory panel
Members of the Limpopo Rental Housing Tribunal
Development Bank of Southern Africa
Mining institutions
House of traditional leaders
Members of the media
Distinguished guests
Comrades and friends
Ladies and gentlemen
It is undeniably our pleasure to meet with all our partners in the housing field to celebrate a number of landmarks in the province’s housing delivery programme. Our pleasure is derived from the fact that we understand the historical significance that hosting an event of this magnitude has for our people in the province. These awards tonight provide all of us as stakeholders and role players in the housing sector with an opportunity to take a look at the strides we have made in ensuring that we utilise housing delivery as a foundation for our country’s on-going transformation project.
The Govan Mbeki Housing Awards take us into the direction of building a caring society as we continue to provide shelter to our people. The purpose of these awards is to motivate all stakeholders in the housing industry to harness human and other resources in accelerating housing delivery to improve the lives of millions of people especially the poor of our country and our province. We therefore build sustainable livelihoods, communities and human settlements, providing quality housing opportunities with secure tenure and access to water, electricity, adequate sanitation and other basic services.
Indeed, Programme Director, tonight is not about ourselves who have been given the honour to serve, but about men and women, organisations and formations who have responded positively to the challenge of housing our people in this very province. It is an important night where we recognise the men and women who have gone beyond the normal call of duty and have done their work excellently.
We are more than humbled this evening that these Awards bear the name of one of the renowned struggle heroes of our time, a revolutionary par excellence – Govan Mbeki, Isithwalande -Seaparankwe. Isithwalande is the highest honour that an individual can receive from the African National Congress. Oom Gov was awarded this honour in 1980 while he was still in Robben Island. Indeed Oom Govan Mbeki, a colossus of our liberation struggle and intellectual par excellence, would feel no shame at being associated with these awards.
Comrade Govan Mbeki embodied the values and ideals of the South African Revolution. He was a shining human symbol of a new age determined to deliver us to live forever in a new day. With his heroic revolutionary efforts, he demonstrated what men and women can do when their imagination is joined to a common purpose.
Govan Mbeki left his teaching profession in 1938 in order to better serve his people. At that time, oppression and slavery was at its peak. At that time, Africans were still considered second class citizens in their country. Coincidentally, we host these awards just a day after Workers’ Day, 1 May. As a trade unionist, Oom Gov fought very hard to ameliorate the working conditions of the working class and the peasants. He observed at that time that the backbone of the South African economy was labour. However, that labour did not have homes, secure tenure and the then Government cared less about those challenges.
We are happy today that because of the legacy of Oom Gov, workers ‘rights are enshrined in the supreme law of the land. Workers now have all internationally recognised rights including the right to freedom of association.
This night, therefore, is more than about the contestants but an occasion where all of us are re-committing ourselves to upholding the legacy of all our struggle activists, past and present, some of whom paid the ultimate sacrifice in ensuring that we attain freedom. The least we can do is to participate meaningfully in our respective fields in the reconstruction and development of our society and as such we will be honouring the memory of struggle icons like Govan Mbeki, Oliver Tambo, Gandhi, Ruth First and others.
About a month ago, we delivered the Budget vote of our multi-award winning department, a department that has been voted the best provincial department three times in a row and a department that is still title holders of the Govan Mbeki Award and confidently looking forward to defending it. We reiterated then as we do today that there is indeed a lot to celebrate for the people of our province when it comes to housing. We have announced that since 2009 we have built 46 743 quality houses for our people. This translates to putting roofs over the heads of 186 972 human beings. These awards are a challenge to all of us to roll our sleeves and work with the necessary speed to do even more in ensuring that we transform our province through housing.
This was possible because of the attitude we have adopted as a department in the last two and half years. We have since improved forward planning. Our contract management continues to mature with time. As a result, chance takers have been exposed by our rigorous systems and processes. Hence we remain the only Human Settlements department that has successfully blacklisted defaulting contractors. Our people deserve better and we dare not fail them.
This occasion gives recognition to those who have done their best in responding to the clarion call of the Freedom Charter which says “There shall be houses, security and comfort”. We therefore celebrate without fear the unselfish human commitment to the plight faced by the poor of our people in the terrain of housing.
Programme Director, as part of the department’s Integrated Human Settlements programme, we aspire to bridge the divide between all races, rich and poor. These innovative programmes are indeed changing our landscapes, reversing apartheid settlements patterns. Our programme is indeed in line with the National Vision 2030.
Guided by the clear vision known as Breaking New Ground, as a collective we remain committed to accelerating the delivery of housing as key strategy for poverty alleviation, utilising the provision of housing as a major job creation strategy, ensuring that land and wealth can be accessed by all as an asset for wealth creation and empowerment, leveraging growth in the economy, supporting the functioning of the entire residential property market to reduce duality within the sector by breaking the barriers between the first economy residential property boom and the second economy property slump as well as using housing delivery as an instrument for development of sustainable human settlements in support for spatial restructuring.
Yes, we are here tonight to honour the role players in the housing value chain, in the built environment including developers, contractors, banking sector, community based organisations, the mining sector, building material suppliers, professional associations that have committed themselves to partner with government in building sustainable human settlements and making the Millennium Development Goals achievable.
In honouring you tonight, we join the multitudes of families who, because of you, now have a decent place to call home. We join you in saying that your hard work and commitment have made a monumental difference in the lives of our people. The awards that you will receive here tonight are therefore a statement of confidence, our people’s confidence in the tremendous good that can be achieved when Government works with partners like you. We hope these awards will inspire many of your peers to continue with the tradition of delivering good quality housing products that we can all be proud of.
We need to organise ourselves into a potent force for change. Ours is a revolutionary task to create a better province. It is both an individual and a collective task. We thank you for throwing your hats into the ring and competing with your equals. It is indeed heartening that there are men and women, companies and organisations that are not afraid to put their work under the searing and unforgiving eye of public scrutiny. We say, you have a lot of convincing reasons to be proud of yourselves. Let the good feelings you experience create the success vibration that will form the foundation of our future collective success.
To all the contestants, especially to those who are going to compete at national, know that we have not done you any favour. Your work speaks volumes. You have changed the lives of the people of Limpopo. You have brought an everlasting smile and joy to orphans, aged, disabled, unemployed and the poor of the poorest. You have eradicated poverty.
You have created jobs and above all you have changed people’s lives for the better. As you go to compete with you peers at National level, I have no doubt that you have what it takes to be counted. As ambassadors, you are a mirror of our province. You under performance at National awards will be a bad reflection of our province. Bring home the silverware.
In conclusion, this occasion calls upon all of us as the servants of our people to redouble our efforts in a quest to deliver services to our people. This is a struggle, as we have repeatedly said, that is not for Government alone. We must internalise and live by this call for indeed until all our people are housed adequately, until corruption is vanquished from the housing sector, until sustainable human settlements become the norm rather than the exception, until partnership flourishes between Government and the private sector including financial institutions, real estate associations, property developers associations – our struggle continues.
Let us all follow the selfless example of Govan Mbeki. We have a duty to bring a better life to all of our people. Let us build sustainable human settlements Govan Mbeki dreamt of. Keep up the good work!
I thank you.
