Madam Chairperson
Honourable Ministers
Honourable Members of Parliament
Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee Hon. Dambuza
Mildred Ramakaba-Lesiea former Member of Parliament and member of the Portfolio Committee of Housing
Distinguished guests
Fellow South Africans
DG of Human Settlements Thabane Zulu and the entire Human Settlements team, I greet you this afternoon.
Allow me Chairperson to dedicate this speech in this year of celebrating 100 years of self-less struggle in memory of the first Minister of Housing the late Cde Joe Slovo. May I also pay tribute to the late Minister of Public Services and Administration Cde Roy Padayachie, the former Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Cde Sicelo Shiceka and Member of Parliament Cde Florence Nyanda, may their souls rest in peace. We send our heartfelt condolences to their families.
The first 18 years of the democratic South Africa have been very successful. The government has laid a sound foundation for socio-economic development although challenges remain.
The vision for the first two decades of freedom is encapsulated in the following pillars:
- The building of a united democratic, non-racial and non-sexist society.
- Deepening our democracy, the culture of human rights and peoples participation in changing their lives for the better.
- Meeting the basic needs and developing human resources. Fighting crime and combating corruption.
- Building the economy and creating jobs.
It is against this background that as the department of Human Settlements we believe that there is a need to double our efforts in order to fast-tract the housing delivery process.
Delivery of housing cannot be the responsibility of government alone. We need all hands on deck. We need all stakeholders on board.
Hence we created the Youth Build, Women’s Build, Each One Settle One and now we are embarking on the Veterans Build.
Youth build
The department of Humans Settlements recognises the role played by the youth in struggle to bring about a democratic South Africa.
It is our belief that the youth is critical in the transformation of our society. It is about time that the voice of young people not only be heard but also to be counted.
As a result of this we have the Youth Build every year in which we call upon young people to partner with our department in building houses for the most vulnerable sector in our society. Namely the elderly, the sick, people with disability and child headed households. The youth involvement sends a bold step that they want to be part of the process that changes South Africa’s landscape for the better.
Through this programme youth volunteers have built lots of houses. Many of these young people have been absorbed within the housing market after the completion of the programme. The department commends these young people for their self-less effort, putting interest of their communities first by dedicating their time in helping others.
More young people need to come on board and assist the department in the execution of its mandate of providing sustainable human settlements. We encourage young people to establish their own construction companies. National Urban Reconstruction and Housing Agency (NURCHA) has been established to help the emerging contractors.
NURCHA has also secured R120 million to assist emerging contractors. The department of Human Settlements extends an invitation for more dialogue and more action by the youth.
This can be in form of volunteerism as mentioned earlier, streams of study as well as taking jobs in areas that will enhance sustainable human settlements.
Some of these young people have heeded the call and taken bursaries that the department offers in the built environment and many have since graduated providing much needed skills in different provinces.
We have also introduced the following initiatives:
- Human Settlements Vision 2030. In which the department recognises that a child born in 2010 would be 20 years in 2030 and in need of a place to stay and planning for that future adult starts now.
- Youth Roundtable where Minister met with recognised formation such as those represented by their parties in Parliament to discuss issues of human settlements and developmental areas affecting everyone in the country including the youth.
- All provinces were called upon to convene Youth Summits where the youth as response to human settlements call to action will present interventions that they can bring to developing the country.
Veterans build
The department has concluded the process of rolling out this programme.
Women’s build
In its attempt to empower women the department of Human Settlements created a Women’s Build programme which takes place on a yearly basis. All provinces are urged to initiate Women’s Build. So far responses have been positive. In provinces such as the Free State we handed over beautiful houses built by women. This province allocated 1 956 houses to women contractors. Their Women’s Build last year August was held in Brandford in honour of the role played by our struggle icon Cde. Winnie Madikizela Mandela, Malibongwe.
We thank women from all walks of life who continue to partner with us in housing the nation. As government we will continue to support, capacitate and link them up with NURCHA if they need start-up funding as emerging contractors and NHFC if they are involved in the gap market.
Allow me Chairperson to congratulate South African Women in Construction (SAWIC) for the successful conference held in Durban from the 2nd – 3rd may 2012. We welcome its elected President, Ms Nompumelelo Pakade. SAWIC and Khuthaza are the prominent organisations which organise women in construction.
We were in Kimberley, Northern Cape where we saw members of SAWIC doing very good work building quality houses. They are in charge of relatively large project. China Square is one of the outstanding projects in which they have completed 500 houses. They are also involved in Soul City project rectifying 1 000 badly build units by a man contractor. I am also told that there are 3 projects under a woman contractor in Springbok which I’ll be visiting soon.
In Gauteng SAWIC members are working jointly with Human Settlements provincial department on an Enterprise Development programme where SAWIC will empower emerging women contractors with skills through experiential learning programme and the department will give projects in accordance with their experience with clearly defined objectives from entry to exit points.
Despite this evidently good work done by these women they still face lots of challenges.
On the 9th December 2011, I held a women economic empowerment roundtable discussion with women in the construction sector. The outcome emphasised the following:
- Fast-tracking of the 30% quota to women contractors.
- Integrate quota in the planning process of the provinces linking it to human settlement development grant.
- All provinces are to do forward planning that includes the implementation of the quota.All provinces should implement a MINMEC decision of allocating 1 956 units to women contractors as part of women economic empowerment and also celebrating the historic women’s march of 1956.
Public Private Partnership
We had a successful partnership initiative with a number of stakeholders. The beautiful houses in Mazista / Skierlik in North West on land donated by a farmer demonstrate that we still have many South Africans with a good heart. These houses were handed over by the Premier of North West Thandi Modise and the Minister of Human Settlements Tokyo Sexwale.
In Ladysmith, KZN at Emnambithi Municipality, Minister of Mineral Resources Ms Susan Shabangu, the Mayor and I handed over quality houses built by the mining company. In Limpopo, in the Vhembe district in Ngombane, South African Women in Construction (SAWIC) women, local women and I manufactured bricks and built houses for the poorest families, this process was spearheaded by the then Deputy Minister of Public Works, Ms Bogopane-Zulu.
In Orange Farm the ward councillor and I handed over houses built by Habitat for Humanity and Fed-Up through PHP.
Last Thursday, I visited a Vulindlela enhanced PHP project in Umsunduzi Municipality in the rural area of Pietermaritzburg. Their target is to build 25 000 housing units in 5 years. They have completed to date more than 6 000 units.
It is an in-situ upgrading which rebuilds dilapidated mud houses across 9 wards. It has created lots of job opportunities. The participation of Amakhosi and the local community structures display a good example of a nation at work.
We have lots of People’s Housing Process (PHP) projects across the country that need lots of support from provinces and municipalities. We reiterate that provinces must set aside 15% of their budget allocations for PHP related projects. We also encourage the creation of housing co-operatives. This is an area that also needs more attention.
Allow me Chairperson to congratulate Capacity Building within the department especially when it assists the weak municipalities across the country. I had a first-hand experience of this good work when I was called upon to grace these occasions during the World Aids Day celebration in December 2011 in Beaufort West, Karoo and also in celebrating the Human Rights Day celebration in Oudtshoorn, more especially its ability to harness community participation.
Informal settlement upgrading
There is a direct relationship between informal settlement formation and poverty. We have to accept urbanisation as an essential and indeed positive trend as it presents growth and development opportunities. One has to take into account that lack of effective planning is the major cause of the formation of new informal settlements.
We need planning that anticipates urban growth and housing demand. That government cannot upgrade informal settlements alone but only in partnership with all actors. However, government works with international and local actors towards the context-specific solution in order to address informal settlement upgrading and monitoring.
Our current polices of informal settlement upgrading are aimed at addressing the correlation between poverty and informal settlement. This is done in the context of poverty reductions income and employment generating activities by combining urban development policies with social policy measures.
We have in many instances partnered with community based organisations and non-profit organisations in many informal settlements. Our objective is to empower informal settlement dwellers during the process of informal settlement upgrading. We do not want them to be passive recipients of service delivery but they must also be part of the solution. Ours is the people-centred people driven democracy.
As the department of Human Settlements, we have upscaled the financial support in informal settlement upgrading by giving accredited City Metros the Urban Settlement Development Grant. This grant promotes integrated development planning to empower cities and towns to manage urban growth and development.
It may be used for land acquisition or land re-development, provision of basic infrastructure services for poor households including the installation of bulk services. This grant is also for upgrading of informal settlements.
Through this grant our objective is to transform the current townships into sustainable human settlements. Cities have to be creative is achieving this goal.
As I have said earlier informal settlement upgrading cannot be done by the department of Human Settlements alone. We need the support and collaboration of our sister departments.
Urban Settlement Development Grant (USDG) expenditure
The February analysis of the expenditure performance against the total allocation of USDG shows that eThekwini is the only municipality with the highest spending rate of 50.1% followed by the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality at 39.8% and Buffalo City Municipality is at its lowest at 16.4%.
Of course this differs from the month of January where eThekwini was first with spending rate at 56.5% followed by Ekurhuleni at 44.3%.
What must be borne in mind is that USDG allocation is 4 times more than the MIG Grant. This clearly indicates that Metros were not ready to spend this Grant.
With Buffalo City and Mangaung showing that they were not able to spend their grant hence they were advised to apply for rollovers.
The biggest challenge is not necessarily the capacity of metros to spend but rather the alignment in terms of their budget cycle with ours. Secondly is the operational budget of – OVS cap. I’m happy that MINTOP has agreed that the department through PMU establish a team including the departments’ entities to assist the Metros with their challenges.
International relations
The department of Human Settlements has strengthened its relations with Cuba. Our visit to Cuba to recruit more Cuban engineers is a case in point. We also attended the 4th conference of AMCHUD (African Ministerial Conference on Housing and Urban Development) held in Nairobi, Kenya as well as the Governing Bureau meeting held in Rabat, Morocco.
We also paid a visit to the Netherlands as part of our standing agreement between the two nations. We expect Netherlands to visit South Africa in November this year.
Our visit to India in January this year provided us an opportunity to meet with the Indian Minister of Housing and Urban poverty Alleviation thereby strengthening the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) co-operation on human settlements. The BRICS Summit held in India whose South African delegation was led by President Jacob Zuma strengthened the long relations between the two countries.
It was an honour for Human Settlements to be included in the delegation and we are looking forward to the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) Summit in South Africa 2013.
In conclusion
Chairperson, as the department of Human Settlements, we are excited about the Govan Mbeki Human Settlements Awards which are currently taking place across the country.
The Eastern Capes one was more blessed by the presence of our icon mama Epainette Mbeki at the age of 96, it was indeed a great honour.
These awards aimed at celebrating excellence in Human Settlements are named after our struggle icon Govan Mbeki, who stood for all that sustainable partnerships represents namely unity, strength, equality, non-racialism and non-sexism especially his spirit of sacrifice and selflessness.
The National Awards will be held at Gallagher Estate, Midrand on the 31st May 2012.
I thank you.
