Thank you Programme Director
Deputy Minister of Human Settlement, Zoe Kota-Fredericks
MEC for the Department of Co-operative Government, Human Settlements and Traditional Affairs, Mme Makoma Makhurupetje and other MECs present
Executive Mayor of Capricorn District Municipality
Executive Mayor of Polokwane Municipality
Councilors present here today
Traditional leaders present
Acting Head of Department, Mr. Makoko MG and the officials
Representatives from NHBRC
Representatives from Housing Development Agency
Representatives from Polokwane Housing Agency
Officials from the provincial government and the municipalities
Members of the media
Ladies and gentlemen.
We are gathered here today in our ongoing programme of burying and removing from the face of our societies some of the remaining remnants of the previous apartheid regime.
We are here to be part of the celebration of the triumph of human spirit over evil forces and to restore the dignity of our people through the provision of quality housing infrastructure.
We are here in our revolutionary transformation of society aimed at creating a new social order which will benefit the ordinary masses.
We are here in our progressive commitment of reclaiming the pride of our people from the appalling conditions of the pre 1994 hostel era, an era whose intentions was to dehumanise and denigrate the status of the Black majority, and condemn them to a life of poverty and destitution.
Programme Director, The journey we have travelled has not been easy, given the challenges we face in the provision of houses due to an ever increasing demand and the rapid migration of people to cities.
Despite the challenges, here we are today witnessing these ground breaking developments and other significant and visible changes throughout our province. We can proudly say the journey was worth it and we have every reason to celebrate this milestone.
It is therefore befitting to be here and handover this infrastructure so that we reverse the ugly legacy of the past, one unit at a time.
The delivery of this housing project signals the long standing truce the ANC led government has with the people of South Africa that together we can move South Africa forward. It finds its roots in the Freedom Charter which, during this month of June we celebrate 60 years of its founding during that historic, the real Congress of the People at Kliptown, Soweto in 1955.
The Freedom Charter continues to be our guiding light in our resolve to improve the living conditions of our people. There is no way we shall take our eyes off the ball because doing so will be undermining the mandate of this epoch breaking document.
rogramme Director, this community Residential Unit is a targeted programme for resolution of specific historical problems relating to public housing stock, and for the provision of new formal rental accommodation in conjunction with and complementary to the other rental housing programmes of the National Department of Human Settlement, and the involvement of the private sector.
It is a programme aimed at supporting the transition of individuals and households from an informal and inadequate housing situation into the formal housing market.
Programme Director, in delivering her Budget Vote in the National Assembly, the Minister of Human Settlement, Lindiwe Sisulu said that “it is time for South Africa to shed lingering legacy of apartheid and deal with the often atrocious living conditions in hostels”.
Indeed hostels have a very notorious history such as the pre 1994 violence and the recent xenophobic attacks that were seen in KwaZulu-Natal and Johannesburg.
As we gather here today to sound the death knell to the inhumane conditions of the past, we make a declaration to the people of our province that our commitment to providing quality housing infrastructure will be implemented without hindrance, because ours is a believe that housing is the basic need for every person.
Through the implementation of our social contract we have been able to move away from inequality and towards a more inclusive society that we proudly are today.
The delivery of this infrastructure is in line with the medium term strategic framework and the outcome 8 of the National Development Plan, which is about Sustainable human settlements and improved quality of household life.
Infrastructure in our country underpins economic and social development. Both the New Growth Path and the National Development Plan stress the importance of infrastructure as jobs drivers. They both agree that a central task for the state is to ensure that infrastructure grows sufficiently to serve the expanding economy and population and that it is built, operated and maintained efficiently and cost effectively.
Investment in infrastructure is a particular imperative for our province as the pre-1994 government was characterised by underinvestment in infrastructure in black communities. This situation hobbled economic and social development in these regions, making it more difficult for entrepreneurs to take advantage of economic opportunities and undermining efforts to improve their socio economic well-being.
President Jacob Zuma said in his State of the Nation Address in June last year that “we will continue with various infrastructure projects that will change the living conditions of our people and boost economic growth”.
Indeed as government we have set ourselves goals that we hope to achieve through our infrastructure plan.
We are steadfast that central to our country’s renewal is the development of a strong and effective state institutional structures to formulate and extent development policies, including infrastructure investment within the context of a common national vision.
Our department is faced with the huge task of ensuring that the province’s housing infrastructure matches the best there is in the developed country. It is through our department that Limpopo should make due contribution towards moving our beautiful country from the developing country to the developed one. It is through the collective efforts of all of us here to work hard and make this province a better province and the province we can all be proud to call our home.
During this financial year, government is committed to building 10 500 good quality housing units in order to provide shelter to the less fortunate, and also rectify 700 housing units which were poorly built.
We will be building 120 rental units for our people to have access to quality and habitable houses that they can call home away from home, and transfer 150 housing units through the Enhanced Extended Discount Benefit Scheme.
Through following legal processes, we will be acquiring 50 hectares of land to the value of R14 459 m for human settlement in this time where housing has become one of the most basic of needs.
All these we do because we want to ensure that the people of Limpopo are settled in an integrated and sustainable environment as their well-being cannot be postponed any longer.
As we give the community of Seshego in particular and Limpopo in general its long lost dignity, we call upon the beneficiaries to take care of this facility by guarding jealously against any attempt to vandalise and misuse it.
We all have a role to play in ensuring that this structure is preserved for future generations. There are predators out there wanting to prey on our good story and your flight out of poverty. Let us form a defensive wall and give them no space to operate.
Ours is to carry each other and soar into the sky, look down with pride at the beautiful work that the ANC led government has done to take our people to new trajectory.
As government, we will ensure that both existing and new infrastructure is kept in good conditions by having regular monitoring and inspection. This we will achieve by working with our municipalities who are the coal face of service delivery, and the sphere of government very close to the people.
It is my honour to unveil and handover to the people of Seshego this community rental unit and hereby calls upon the beneficiaries to join us as government in telling the good story that moves South Africa forward, because indeed our country is better than what it was before the dawn of democracy.
Thank you.
