In their productive lives, people perform all kinds of chores for the betterment of their own conditions and those of others. While some opt to first take care of themselves, others prefer to first extend a helping hand to their fellowman. This is altruism. Such people deserve recognition. Tonight is their night.
Over its history of evolution, the human race has developed ways at special occasions to celebrate achievers. This is done by simply applauding them, bestowing orders or awards.
We at Human Settlements, at tonight’s function have invited you, our partners, to join us in appreciating and recognising those within our sector who have gone the extra mile.
Our highest expression of appreciating excellence is underpinned by the prestigious awards associated with one of the most outstanding South Africans - Dr. Govan Mbeki. Hence the Govan Mbeki Awards. They serve to recognise a special kind of excellence exhibited around the most basic of all human needs - shelter.
Until one has spent a night in the open skies, exposed to harsh elements, one cannot begin to fathom the importance of comfortable shelter in life. No human being should be without shelter. In our country, this need has become a right!
In the annuls of the history of human kind, it took one of the best thinkers, a German social scientist and activist of the 19th century, and a collaborator of Karl Marx, to make a very firm case for the provision of housing for the working poor. His name is Friedrich Engels.
In his today obscure and yet widely celebrated literary piece “The Conditions of the Working Class in England” – Engels exposes the inhumane living and working conditions of the Industrial Revolution era, and in so doing, spurred the rise of the struggle of the international working people to fight for the improvement of their lot.
“The way in which the vast mass of the poor are treated by modern society is truly scandalous. They are herded into great cities where they breathe a fouler air than in the countryside which they have left.”
“How is it possible that the poorer classes can remain healthy and have a reasonable expectation of life under such conditions? What can one expect but that they should suffer from continual outbreaks of epidemics and an excessively low expectation of life?”
Our essential task at Human Settlements is to alter such conditions in our country. It is an irony of our times that the first Minister of Housing in democratic South Africa – Joe Slovo – was a Lithuanian refugee who, as a child with his parents migrated to this country in the early 1900’s. He championed the celebrated Botshabelo Accord in Mangaung, and historic agreement by all stakeholders including trade unions, business and communities, in the creation the basis for the human settlements programme in South Africa.
The word Botshabelo is Sesotho for a place of refuge. Is it not a twist of history that a refugee from Lithuania would return back from apartheid imposed exile to Botshabelo, to champion the cause of the homeless in South Africa?
In the period that followed, other ministers after Joe Slovo carried on the torch that shone the way away from the degradation and indignity that is associated with homelessness. These torch-bearers, all women, are Ms Sankie Mthembi- Mahanyele, Ms Bridgette Mabandla and Ms Lindiwe Sisulu. The latter, at the launch of the Govan Mbeki Awards in 2006 quoted the following words from Govan Mbeki himself:
“The basis of the South African economy is the exploitation of labour that is unsettled labour that has no security of tenure, labour that is always on the move and labour that has no home.”
Our Human Settlements vision 2030 is a clarion call that says: None of our people must be homeless refugees in the squatter camps which dot the landscape of our country. This is the challenge of our mission.
In the past years, the Govan Mbeki Awards were celebrated under the auspices of the Department of Housing. In his State of the Nation Address in 2009, President Jacob Zuma announced the name change of the department from Housing to Human Settlements.
“We will proceed from the understanding that human settlement is not just about building houses. It is about transforming our cities and towns and building cohesive, sustainable and caring communities with closer access to work and social amenities, including sports and recreation facilities.”
This is more than a mere name change. This underscores our Human Settlements strategy of a co-ordinated and integrated approach towards developing new living areas in South Africa in contrast to the Apartheid spatial planning. In a word, an inclusive Human Settlements development towards the de-racialisation of residential space.
Hence we say: “Where we live should be where we leisure, where we learn. Where we stay should be where we play, where we pray.”
Much as a lot still needs to be done to eliminate the stubborn housing backlog in our country which amounts to above 2 million housing units required by around 12 million people, as people walk and drive across the length and breadth of the country, they are beginning to see real change. Hard concrete change; the changing residential landscape where our Human Settlements construction sites are being mistaken for private sector housing developments!
Small wonder that young people who occupy our high rise inner-city buildings and other people who move into our social housing, rental properties and other new home structures have begun to light-heartedly say: Human Settlements Rocks!
Tonight’s recipients of the Govan Mbeki Awards, the honorees, are our partners who excelled in making it possible for us to deliver upon our mandate in the past year. These are women and men who have labored hard, paid attention to detail, loved the output of their work and demanded nothing else but excellence. To the extent that they did all these, they lived and emulated Govan Mbeki and consequently it stands to reason that they have earned the privilege to be the meritorious bearers of his emblematic name.
The categories in which they have performed to the satisfaction of the auditors include:
- Best provincial Department in performance Delivery
- Best Metropolitan Municipality
- Best Informal Settlements Upgrading Project
- Best Priority Project
- Best Rental Project
- Best Finance Linked Individual Subsidy
- Best Accredited Municipality
- Best Woman Contractor ix) Best Youth Contractor
- Best Contractors Project In the Non-Subsidy Market
- Each One Settle One
- Best Support Department
- Best Student Awards
- Human Settlements and the Future
- All these categories find resonance with various divisions of our department. Going forward, following our recent budget vote, the following milestones are noteworthy:
- Development Finance Institutions (DFI)
- In order to ensure the alignment of appropriate financial instruments to achieve the human settlements mandate, the consolidation of the development finance institutions (DFIs) Rural Housing Loan Fund, NURCHA and the NHFC is in the process of being finalised.
- The Home Loans and Mortgage Disclosure Act (HLAMDA) the setting up of the
- Office of Disclosure is now completed.
- The Finance Linked Individual Subsidy Programme (FLISP) was introduced in the market on record time last month and implementation is on course towards assisting households earning up to R15 000.
- The President has assented to Sectional Titles Scheme Management Act and the Community Scheme Ombud Service Act.
- Negotiations on the Home Ownership Mortgage Indemnity Guarantee Fund (MDI) to assist ordinary working people and those in the middle class to obtain their own homes outside of the GAP market will be concluded in October this year. Beneficiaries to both these initiatives include more than 2 million public servants that cannot acquire mortgage loans.
- The Estate Agency Affairs Act has been transferred from Department of Trade and Industry to Human Settlements. This legislative instrument opens up vast opportunities for residential developments in South Africa to be in tune with the demands of the new democratic and non-racial dispensation.
- Lest we forget, as earlier indicated, many of our citizens still live in shacks. Many more are dehumanised as they do not even have a shack to call home, let alone a basic structure such as a toilet. Globally sanitation is a top priority item on the agenda of the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals, of which our country is signatory. Therefore, there is no way whatsoever that such a crucial matter could be left wallowing at the local level of Makhaza in Western Cape or Moqaka in the Free State and which, correctly so, attracted negative headlines around service delivery protests. This is not on.
It is for this reason that sanitation as a critical basic human need which addresses the dignity of any human being has been elevated to a national priority project. As it is internationalised at the United Nations Organisation ( UNO), it cannot be localised at home. This is largely thanks to the Interim Report of the Ministerial Sanitation Task Team established under the Chairmanship of Honourable MP Mrs. Winnie Nomzamo Madikizela-Mandela.
To conclude, Human Settlements, like all government departments, is the custodian of billions of rand earmarked for the improvements of the lives of our people, in our case a total budget of R122 billion. As government, we are decision makers, public policy makers, law makers, facilitators, executives, financiers with the authority to spend billions of tax payers funds every year. Our primary stakeholders are the poorest of the poor and the working people. Our main objective is their upliftment through bringing them into not merely the housing sector as asset owners, but most importantly, by facilitating their entry into the property and financial markets where their homes/houses, as tradable capital, assets can be utilised for loans, mortgages and bonds from banks and other financial institutions.
Above that, we are the single largest driver of housing with a total 25 percent market share. However, we do not operate in isolation. Our partners in business are the various service providers; professional engineers, architects, attorneys, contractors, material suppliers, various technicians, on so on.
However, a word of caution: Like all entities running businesses, we demand value for money and nothing less! We are not the shortest route to amassing wealth by shoddy contractors, unscrupulous elements and fraudsters, irrespective of whether such characters are found in government at whatever level or out there in society, irrespective of their standing.
Where such unethical tendencies and practices manifest themselves, we shall act with characteristic ruthlessness that every business would employ to defend its interests. Public funds must not be taken for granted. Govan Mbeki, a stickler to financial discipline always wagged a finger at wrong doing.
Much as we have been acerbic and sharply critical in the public domain in respect of corruption, we have also been equally enthusiastic and welcoming to good work and
positive developments around Human Settlements, as is demonstrated by the presence of all of us at this function for the recognition of excellence.
To all our honourees, winners and runners up, it is fitting to say: well done and congratulations to all of you as individuals, municipalities, provinces and private sector operators. We remain hopeful and confident that you will carry the name of the icon of your awards, Govan Mbeki, with distinguished dignity, mindful of the fact that it is all in the name of the people that we are who we are.
I thank you!
