P Vilakazi: Unblocking of Blocked projects programme launch

29 July 2006

Programme Director
The Executive mayors and mayors present
Dikgosi tsa rona
Councillors
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen

Today marks an important occasion in the history of our housing delivery
programme, not only in the province but throughout the country. We are gathered
here today in this grand occasion to celebrate the launch of a programme that
will unblock all the housing projects that were left unfinished from as far
back as eleven years ago.

Today’s celebration, therefore, has been long overdue, especially to people
who should have benefited from our housing programme long time ago. However, I
must hasten to mention that the road that had led us to this event today was
not an easy one, but the fact that we had vowed not to rest until we had
tangible solution to these problems, we could not give up. The fact that we
wanted to improve the lives of our people, kept us going.

It is for this reason that I want to send my sincere apology to all those
whose houses were delayed till this day due to a number of reasons. I must also
thank all of them for their patience and for having endured all the hardships
while waiting for their houses that have long been approved. I also want to
appeal to those who will still wait a little longer, to bear with us in this
regard.

As you may be aware, our nation entered into the new democracy in 1994 and
inherited all kinds of service backlogs, especially to the majority of our
people. We came into government with a full agenda of service delivery in order
to address service backlogs as soon as we could. At the same time, we
encountered a number of obstacles in our quest to address delivery
challenges.

The reality about the situation in our country is that whilst we were still
trying to put systems in place for service delivery, our people expected
service delivery from the “word go”. As government of the people, we chose to
start with both service delivery and introduction of systems at the same time.
In the process, we committed errors but have learned a lot.

This is the reason we have been experiencing a lot of problems in the
implementation of our housing programme not only in the province but throughout
the country, especially during the early years of our democracy. When the
housing programme was introduced, the national target was set at a million
houses within the first five years of our democracy.

However, as we began with the actual delivery of houses, we encountered a
number of problems. Some of them could be addressed immediately while others
needed more time. Those problems that could be addressed immediately were able
to be sorted out while those that were very difficult took us some time to be
addressed. This led to some of the projects being blocked. Some of these
projects failed to take off ground while others were abandoned on the way.

The problems that led to the blocking of these projects included the
following:

* Delays in obtaining tribal land release resolution from the relevant
authorities.
* Geo-technical report delays and the long process of enrolling the projects
with the National Homebuilders Registration Council.
* Fly-by-night developers and contractors.
* Lack of proper monitoring mechanisms by the government.
* Severely poor workmanship in some of the projects.

Although we regret that it has taken so long to address some of these
problems, we must celebrate together for the mere fact that at last we have
managed to overcome these problems. I stand before you today, oozing with
confidence that all the problems I have mentioned will never be repeated. As
government, we have put mechanisms in place to lay them to rest and to prevent
their recurrence in future.

Today’s event therefore augers well for the “Age of Hope” we are in. We have
identified more than 300 blocked projects in the whole country, which date as
far back as 1995. Seventy-two of these projects are in the North West Province.
About twenty of the blocked projects in the province have already been
unblocked. This means that we have already sorted out the problems that stalled
them. I want to assure you that if it comes to a push, the contractors will
have to work day and night to make sure that these projects are completed.

The reason we came to launch this programme in Taung is because we had seven
blocked projects in this area alone, all of which have already been unblocked.
I am therefore pleased to announce that we have already completed two of the
projects that were blocked in Greater Taung. These are Pudumoe, which was
initiated in 2005 and Reivilo hostel Redevelopment Project that was initiated
in 2004.

In addition, we have already set the ball rolling for the completion of the
remaining five projects. These include Taung Ext six, which has raised a lot of
attention from many sectors of the community. Construction has resumed on this
project and we hope it will be completed within the next three months. The same
applies to the Ba-ga Maidi project at Tlapeng, the Ba-ga Mothibi phase three at
Modutung, Phuduhutswana and Boipelo.

We are currently finalising an audit of all the blocked projects in the
province to determine the exact state of blockages and the required resources
to complete the projects. We are, however, making sure that we use the
remaining funds for each project to a large extent.

We hope to give a comprehensive report on this audit and the progress we
will have made during our next budget speech. However, I must confirm that the
blocked projects in the province involve approximately 28 000 houses at the
current subsidy value of a billion rand.

Nevertheless, we are determined to clean this backlog while at the same time
making sure that we do not repeat the same mistake in the future. We admit it
may take us some time, but it will be completed.

In her Budget Speech for this year, Minister of Housing, Dr Lindiwe Sisulu,
committed government to removing all the blockages that have, for so long
delayed progress in housing delivery.

Our province has already demonstrated high capacity in housing delivery by
emerging from being the worst performer in housing delivery to become the best
performer in the country. We are demonstrating again today our seriousness in
remaining the best performer by becoming the first province to launch a project
of this nature.

We intend to keep this remarkable record with the help of all our
stakeholders, including the beneficiaries, developers and municipalities.

Fa ke digela, ke rata go leboga dikgosi tseo dire amogetseng ka diatla tse
di bothitho fa re ne re kopa go dirisa lefatshe la borra bona-mogolo go
tsweletsa diporojeke tseno tsa kago ya matlo. Ba re thusitse thata go
rarabolola mathata a go fitlhelela lefatshe go agela sechaba sa rona matlo le
go ba tlisetsa ditirelo tse di maleba. Re lebogela tirisano mmogo ya lona.

A re tsweleleng go dirisana mmogo le mafapha a puso go tlisa ditirelo kwa
bathong.

Ke a leboga. I thank you.

Issued by: Department of Developmental Local Government and Housing, North
West Provincial Government
29 July 2006
Source: North West Provincial Government (http://www.nwpg.gov.za)