Programme Director
Executive Mayor
Mayors and Councillors present
Distinguished guests
Residents of Bela-Bela
All others present and all protocol observed.
Programme director, If there is still anyone out there who still doubts that this government is delivering on its mandate, who still wonder if the dreams of our fore fathers is still alive in our time and who still question the power of our precious teenage democracy, we say that today is the answer.
Today is a very important day for all the beneficiaries who at last will be recipients of their title deeds. The whole exercise is accompanied by a sense of pride and achievement. It instils in our people a sheer feeling of belonging, ownership and patriotism.
Indeed, in 1955, our famous founding fathers and mothers gathered at Kliptown to the Freedom Charter, a historical document whose ideals still light the whole of South Africa from Musina to Cape Town. On this revolutionary charter, a charter that was expanded by the warm blood of generations, we find a pledge to the just cause of housing the nation: “There shall be houses, security and comfort”.
Our founders had realised as early as 1955 that our housing challenge was a national one. And accompanying this challenge was the imperative of home ownership. Under the system of the 99 year lease, the back of poverty could not be broken. The system ensured that our people did not own the homes in which they lived. The situation was deliberately made difficult for them to get title deeds. They could not access bank loans. They could not rise from the ashes of poverty.
The system dwarfed the significance of their human hood. It was a frontal attack on their sense of pride. It was a frontal attack on their human dignity. It ensured that they continued to feel inferior to their white counterparts who were drowning in a sea of privileges. And let’s remember that not to have home ownership is to sustain continuous severe blows to one‘s mind.
Our struggle was for freedom, equality, human rights and justice. Let us not practice selective amnesia by forgetting that we emerged from a history that restricted home ownership to a privileged few, an era that sought to deny all those other than whites, ownership of property. This was aimed at denying the majority of our people their dignity.
Yes, everyone can see that the people of this country have travelled across the oceans of decades in search of this new life. This is the journey we continue today. And this is the journey we will hand over to future generations. We say today without fear or favour that we shall no betray our forebears. Our people have a right to live where they choose, to be decently housed and bring up their families in comfort and security.
So, I stand here today to hand over 881 title deeds. We take this time to congratulate the recipients of these title deeds, for your hearts have for a long time been yearning for the comfort and pride of home ownership. Yes, today we pump back life into your world, we infuse you with self confidence and dignity. Today you can feel that you are a living part of South Africa, that you are an element of that popular energy which is entirely called forth for the progress and happiness of our people.
As President Nelson Mandela once said: “I surely wish the pockets of my shirt were big enough to fit all of you in. I am happy and on reaching heaven I will look for a branch of the African National Congress (ANC) and join it.”
This is a government led by the African National Congress, hard at work and doing all it can, in fact, it’s very best for its people. Even if I were smart enough to know every big word there is, I still cannot describe the elation that must be going through the hearts and minds of these beneficiaries.
My department is not the best performing department by mistake. It is so because it has internalised the vision and mission and delivers on its mandate. Province wide since 2007 to date, the department has successfully transferred 17 782 title to beneficiaries. We have registered and endorsed 3 278 title deeds for low cost housing properties in the financial year 2011/12. This exceeds the planned target of 1 200 that was set. We have also transferred 927 title deeds for pre-1994 housing stock through the Enhanced Extended Discount Benefit Scheme (EEDBS). This amounts to a combined total of 4 205 title deeds transferred in the financial year 2011/12. It stands to reason that, our annual target of delivering 2000 title deeds was exceeded by more than 100%.This title deeds are endorsed to curb the selling or letting of these houses for a period of eight years.
I must, however point out some of the challenges that are experienced in the process of transferring properties. These include non- cooperation by some municipalities in assisting to convene meetings with beneficiaries for signing of transfer documents. We must meet with Mayors and municipal mangers to address this challenge. The delays by South African Revenue Service (SARS) and Deeds Office in processing transfer documents are a point of concern. Untraceable beneficiaries and non-proclamation of townships are further challenges that must be attended to without delay. As per the Housing policy we shall be placing advertisements in the print media to try and trace beneficiaries. We shall be engaging SARS and the Deeds Office to expedite all our submissions.
Programme director, today I can with pride say that my department has fulfilled its mandate and commitment of delivering sustainable human settlement which is not only about housing. It is also about providing secure and dignified residential environments. We have and shall continue to transfer thousands of title deeds to new owners who have occupied houses on a long term basis for decades. There is still much more to be done as such there is no room for complacency.
Since 2009, we have built 46 743 quality houses for our people which translates to putting decent roofs over the heads of 186 972 human beings. We have for the area of Leseding allocated 100 units for this very financial year at a cost of R5.4m. The contractor is currently on site, thanks to my department’s forward planning. We expect quality houses for our people and the appointed contractor knows very well that any sub–standard work will not be tolerated and comes with severe penalties and consequences.
Together we remain the core architects of a normal society. We live up to the heroic words of Sekou Toure when he said that: “To take part in the African revolution, it is not enough to write a revolutionary song; you must fashion the revolution with the people. And if you fashion it with the people the songs will come by themselves and of themselves.”
Through the facilitation of home ownership and title deeds in particular, we have set out on a quest for our true humanity, and somewhere in the distant horizon, we already see the glittering prize. May we march forward with unshakable courage and determination, drawing strength from our common plight and struggles. In time we shall all say, we have bestowed upon the people of Limpopo the greatest gift possible-self pride, human dignity, self confidence, a feeling of well being-a more human face.
Surely, we will ultimately remove from our vocabulary the concepts of homelessness and poverty, for we have a historical opportunity to open the door to unyielding hope and the possibility of a better tomorrow. And as we celebrate this achievement, let us keep in mind that much more still need to be done.
As we consider the long road that unfolds before our people, let us sing as one that:
“Homelessness and poverty, you cannot outlast us. We will defeat you, for we are the champions of the new era of responsibility. We embody the revolutionary spirit of service. We have been called by the Almighty to shape the destiny of our people.”
We will continue to carry forth this great fruit of our freedom and deliver it safely into the hands of current and future generations.
By so doing, we are protecting the dreams of our children as well as those of the founding fathers and mothers of our sacred Freedom Charter. And the absence of title deeds in the hands of our people will forever be testimony to unfinished business. For the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our army but from the power of implementing our timeless ideals which are enshrined on the face of the Freedom Charter.
In the forgotten corners of our lives, our stories are singular, our destiny is shared, a new dawn is at hand and Limpopo’s beacon burns just as bright. This is our moment. This is our time. We all say South Africa, we have come so far, we have seen so much. And together we can and must do more.
God bless you all.
I thank you!
