South African Housing Foundation, Cape Sun, Cape Town
9 October 2006
The Premier, Mr Ebrahim Rasool
Honourable Zimbabwe Minister of Finance, David Chapfika
Honourable Botswana Minister of Lands and Housing, Ramadeluka Seretsi
Ministers and Deputy Minister of the Republic of South Africa
Member of Executive Council, Richard Dyantyi
Executive Mayor Helen Zille
Friends
Ladies and gentlemen
Please allow me first and foremost to express my gratitude for the
invitation extended to my office to attend this conference. Also, it is with
deep satisfaction that I address this august audience and share the platform
with my colleagues both from here locally, and regionally.
Here, we meet to say that the creation of a solid foundation for a
prosperous and a stable future for our countries lies in the provision of
housing. Our shared fate is that we are seen by countries, which over decades
succeeded in overcoming the challenge, to be centres of underdevelopment where
hopelessness consistently describes our condition. And so we meet to indicate
the contrary.
In our context, housing is intricately bound with the human dignity of our
people that we seek to preserve. It is bound with the dignity of bringing up a
family within the confines and security of the home. It is the foundation upon
which sustainable communities are built, the essential element without which
social cohesion becomes an elusive idea.
It is in the recognition of the need to provide housing that we make
emphatic the statement that people matter. Thus, as we put housing at the top
of our agenda, housing becomes the rallying point for the creation of
sustainable communities. It becomes the rallying point for the democratisation
of the economy to lay the foundation for savings.
Democracy provides no guarantees that wealth will be shared to help fight
poverty. Instead, in the event of achievements in economic growth most see
wealth being siphoned up the ladder to enrich those that are already rich. Only
a balanced distribution of decent housing can stop this result, thus enabling
democracy to work to the advantage of everyone.
Housing, therefore, has a critical role to play within communities.
In the context of migration, where housing has been securely and decently
developed, it helps retain important skills for communities. For this reason,
last year, we invited our communities, the private sector, academics and other
role players to join government in a social contract towards the creation of
sustainable communities.
We had taken regard that urbanisation in the developing world was growing at
an alarming rate, increasing the number of people in slums and thereby
increasing risks related to the non-delivery of basic services. Against the
background and against an appreciation of the resilience of the apartheid space
economy with its dualistic character of deep-seated inequalities and
inefficiencies along affluence we committed ourselves to collectively focusing
on the development of sustainable communities.
The position we took was in line with the adoption in 2000 by the world of
the Millennium Declaration, wherein the goal of achieving sustainable
communities found revitalisation after years of non-achievements. What the
Millennium Declaration achieved was to place for the first time the global
community on a platform of co-ordinated action in the hands of the United
Nations to achieve the goal of sustainable communities. In these actions,
meeting the basic needs of people to alleviate poverty became the core driving
motive as we noted collectively that despite the world's achievement of
extra-ordinary economic progress in the 1990s nearly half of its population
still lived on less than $2 per day.
We noted too that an estimated 1,2 billion people, 500 million in South Asia
and 300 million in Africa struggled on less than $1 a day.
No other period in history has seen more political commitment to the
attainment of this objective by both Africa and developing countries. Yet, at
the same time, no other period has seen developed countries more failing and
less obliging in partnership. They have, instead been more ready and willing to
participate in relief efforts in humanitarian crisis whose roots themselves lie
in the non-achievement of sustainable communities.
At the global level, the challenge to create sustainable communities lies
indeed here. For no other time in history, has required of developing countries
including Africa to incessantly negotiate a favourite climate from the
international community that would make delivery possible. On account of
limited state resources, due to unequal power relations, our Century is thus
one that is being characterised by efforts to have the developed world reduce
barriers to trade, increase official development assistance, increase foreign
direct investment and scrap international debts.
As South Africa, we assented to the achievement of a united global action
after the attainment of political freedom in 1994. Our subsequent changing of
the legislative and policy frameworks to enable the achievement of sustainable
communities was possible in part by the implementation of the provision within
the preamble of our Constitution, guiding the state to effect improvements in
the quality of all its citizens. On the other hand, it was a demonstration of
our commitment to carrying out our international obligations thus helping the
international community to progress in achieving an end to world poverty.
I dare say that within a ten year period the changing of the legislative
framework and policies in accordance with both the prescripts of our
Constitution and international obligations has made the achievement of some
important results possible. Social grants that are aimed against poverty
alleviation have increased more than three fold since 1994. Between 1994 and
2004 for the 10 percent of the poorest households access to water was increased
by 187 percent. Access to electricity grew by 578 percent and access to housing
by 42 percent. Since 2000, in addition, there has been recorded a marked
decline in poverty, from approximately 18,5 million to approximately 15,4
million by 2004.
But whilst these may be seen as important results, and indeed they have
tempted many to conclude that South Africa was on the way to achieving the
Millennium Development Goals, the reality of urbanisation is exerting
tremendous challenges. The phenomenon is drastically changing the spatial
characteristics of our cities and towns as demonstrated by the decline in some
and growth in others that in the past had been smaller.
From the lessons of apartheid however we have learned that the growth of
urban areas cannot be stopped and can only be managed through a set of correct
policies and the requisite collaboration amongst all the stakeholders. These
lessons have showed that indeed it is only through the creation of sustainable
communities that a sustainable growth path for any country becomes possible.
More so, small towns that in some cases have quite major economic bases are
increasingly becoming receivers of migrants, mainly made up of women, from the
rural areas.
The challenge is at the scale of movement of people from the rural areas,
urban residents will reach five billion by 2030. This growth is highest in
Sub-Saharan Africa (4,58%), followed by South-Eastern Asia (3,82%), Eastern
Asia (3,39%), Western Asia (2,96%), Southern Asia (2,89%) and Northern Africa
(2,48%). And because it is highest in Sub-Saharan Africa there is therefore
more urgency here on our part to take the necessary steps.
Hence, the idea of the innovation hub that we have developed and have begun
to implement in Gauteng; through it we hope to generate cheaper and alternative
building materials that are energy efficient and quicker to put up, to help
address the housing backlog. Already, in this project, the initial 20 houses
have been built by the National Home Builders' Registration Council in
association with ABSA. A second project in Johannesburg is also being put up
whilst other provinces are also putting up theirs.
It is our hope that the availability of cheaper and alternative building
material, once it has been found to be efficient, will also help us address the
challenges relating to the rising cost of the material needed including its
shortage. We would know, for instance, from the data collected by the Bureau
for Economic Research, the price of cement has in the past seven years more
than doubled and that in 2005 alone building costs accelerated by 17,5% and in
the first half of 2006 by 6,2%. For us this is indeed a worrying trend that is
bound to have major implications on our ability to roll out low-cost housing
and thereby create sustainable communities.
It is also worrying in view of the programme to meet the demand caused by
expectations flowing from the 2010 World Cup. For here it will not only be the
development of low-cost housing that will require an adequate supply of
building material, particularly cement, but also the provision of social
housing that is key in the integration of different income groupings.
I fully trust that the suppliers would be able to take the necessary steps
to ensure an increase in supply and ensure that prices are accordingly
moderated. Through the Task Team on the social contract we would also be
discussing these matters to ensure that in accordance with the Social Contract,
agreements are indeed kept by all parties to the Contract.
Housing is the most visible indicator of the economic health of any country.
It is a clear indicator of the distribution of wealth and in our case the
clearest indicator of the extent of exclusion of the poor from the economy. Let
us all work together consistently to attain the sustainability of our
communities.
I thank you.
Issued by: Department of Housing
9 October 2006
