Hon Deputy Chairperson, the overall performance rate of the department is 52,4% with a 99,7% budget expenditure. Rate suggests that the performance function and budget for the department do not appear well- aligned. A seemingly recurring challenge for the department.
Over the past three years, programme 3, which refers to the department's delivery support, has underperformed when compared to other programmes. Thirty one point five percent of targets were met during the 2017-18 financial year while 76,32% of the finale appropriated budget for the programme was spent.
Compare this to 2016-17 financial year where 41,2% of targets were met and 69,7% of the final appropriated budget was spent. While there has been an improvement in the expenditure, there has been a regression in terms of performance.
These are some of the targets that were not met during the 2017-18 financial year: out of a planned 400 informal settlements that well planned to be assessed, only 61 were assessed; out of a planned 300 informal settlements upgrading plans that had to be developed, only 109 were completed; out of a planned 1 700 nonstatutory military veterans that had to be adequately housed, only 480 received adequate housing; out of a target of 6 000 social housing units, only 3 535 units were delivered.
Gee my kans, ek is daar. [Give me a chance, I'm there.]
According to the presentation by the department to the select committees on 19 July the post 1994 backlog for title deeds as of 31 March 2019 is 500 845.
In 25 years of democracy the government has failed to provide dignified housing for our poor people. This has resulted in the much rooming of illegal shacks and land invasions. It is not clear how the department plans to offer support to municipalities and provinces as to improve the delivery of human settlements.
This budget does not provide a solution on how to address these serious challenges, except baie dankie, enkosi kakhulu [thank you very much]. [Applause.]
Hon Chairperson, let me greet the viewers at home who are listening and looking at this mockery that people are doing here in Parliament.
Let me premise by saying that as the ANC we rise in support of Budget Vote 38 o Human Settlements.
The ANC has been consistent on the need to providing suitable integrated human settlements that encourages social cohesion and
allocated in the well placed areas within proximity to economic opportunities where people can find jobs and social amenities. In line with our guiding document, the Freedom Charter, which declares that there shall be housing, security and comfort.
We acknowledge the challenges in the department, namely: the backlog in the issuing of title deeds, the increase in land invasions perpetuated by some political parties for cheap political games, the increase in farmworker evictions, to name just a few.
We, thus, call on the department to utilise this budget towards transforming the sector and ensuring that the masses of our people living in informal settlements, backyards and ghettoes are placed in dignified and well located human settlements. Unlike in the Western Cape where some of the poor people are subjected to mobile toilets, ipotipoti; and there's no white person who's using potipoti.
We call on the department to act with haste and do the following: accelerate the issuing of title deeds to ensure security of land rights; intensify the fight against corruption and act decisively against both the corrupters and the corruptees; investigate and act against those who drag the department's good name by being involved in fraudulent housing allocations; ensure that the mismanagement of
public funds is the thing of the past; ensure that money spent matches the number of houses built in line with the budget; employ men and women who are capable of spending this budget for the benefit of the working class and the poor.
The ANC condemns the opportunist tendencies incited by some anarchists who incite people to grab the land, thereafter leaving them to fend for themselves when they have to be arrested for illegal land occupation.
As much as the expropriation of land without compensation is the resolution of the ANC's 54th National Conference, we condemn anarchy with the contempt it deserves. [Applause.]
We are committed to changing the apartheid spatial planning
Hon member, just one minute. Hon Koni? You forget that you have a mic that you can speak through; your throat will get sore.
I know I've got a servant this side. [Laughter.]
Chair,
Setswana:
... ga re kitla re tla go letlelela mo teng ga Ntlo eno gore re tle go emela lekoko le le emetseng batho re reetse ka go rogakakiwa, le gatakakiwa ke batho bao e leng kgale ba utswa mo pusong ya magodu, fa at la go roga lekoko leo le iseng le buse.
Re buile ra re mafatshe a a loleya go duliwe mo go ona. Mme le gompieno re sa ntse re bua jalo. Ka a me a le makalo, ke a leboga.
English:
Hon Koni, the point you raised is a point of debate, it's not a point of order.
Hon, just conclude, conclude.
Hon Chairperson, I just want to advice the hon members that if the shoe fits you, please wear it. [Applause.]
As we conclude, Chair, the ANC continues to honour its commitment to improving the quality of households' life for the poor people in the gap market in line with the call made by the Freedom Charter as well as the vision of the National Development Plan, NDP.
It is, therefore, for the above reasons that [Time expired.] the ANC will support this budget unconditionally. Thank you very much, Chairperson. [Applause.]
Hon members, you help us, we are not young anymore. [Inuadible.] so much noise you could become deurmekaar [confused].
Deputy Chairperson, just a friendly request that if we ring bells in the future that they be rung for the same three minutes as the three minutes you gave that gentleman. [Interjections.]
Division.
Voting
Vote agreed to (Democratic Alliance, Economic Freedom Fighters and Freedom Front Plus dissenting).
Vote No 39 - Rural Development and Land Reform - put
Hon Chair: Is it parliamentary to flirt from the Chair? [Laughter.]
Hon member Labuschagne, you must ask who flirted first. Any declaration of Vote, FFP?
Declarations of vote:
Hon Deputy Chair, I think the night is getting too old for you at this stage for making such assumptions and the mentioning things like that. I do have a declaration to make. My problem is the mic, it is short and I am standing up straight.
Stand up straight and put the mic up straight. It will reach your voice. [Laughter.]
Thank you so much to be so educative tonight, Deputy Chair. The Department of Agriculture, Rural Development and Land Reform is predicating its plans to alleviate the land issue on data and statistics that are inaccurate. In fact, the recent report by the Presidential Panel on Land Expropriation suggests that decent audit be done to establish exactly how much land is owned by the state.
Afrikaans:
Ons kan nie 'n begroting goedkeur as 27% van die geld op projekte spandeer word waarvan die data nie akkuraat is nie. Dit is gevaarlik om iemand die sonnebok te maak, as jy nie die korrekte feite het nie.
Ek gaan dit kort hou. Sedert 2012 was daar oproepe en versoeke is gerig dat daar bepaal moet word aan wie die grond behoort en hoeveel van die grond aan die staat behoort. Die vraag is dus nou: ...
English:
... The question is: Has the land audit being done? If yes: Where is it?
The other question is: The outcome of that audit; was the ANC satisfied with it or not? The department was unable to fulfil its legislative mandate last year. We cannot accept this budget.
Hon Deputy Chairperson, the DA rejects the report released this week by the Advisory Panel on Land Reform. The suggestions that have come out of the report are completely high- risk and simply will result in low reward for those who are continuously locked out from owning land or property.
It should however be noted that despite the report, reporting land expropriation without compensation, this decision was not anonymous amongst the panel members themselves.
The report further rejects providing land title and security of tenure to South Africans who live on communal land. Denying communal land is purely a continuation of the oppressive style of apartheid.
The report's recommendations would be dangerous for our fragile economy. Should some of the recommendations include relocating the department to the Presidency, despite the entire departments already existing with a mandate of land reform.
It is imperative that this government moves away from populous quick fix policies regarding land reform and instead introduce and implement ideas that will provide adequate support to our economy without having to take away the right to property ownership.
I want to also make it clear to South Africans that they take note that the IFP has been voting with the ANC on everything the whole evening. Hopefully they stand also against this Vote as the Ingonyama Trust will be nationalised. The DA rejects this Vote. [Applause.]
Hon Deputy Chair, it is a fact that no country in the world is more unequal than South Africa. It is also true that there is no country in the world where there are such inequalities in how land is distributed. This is not a coincidence. For 350 years the white minority committed genocide and disposed our people of their land.
That is why the struggle for national liberation is centred on the return of our land. Yet, to date 25 years after our first democratic elections and 23 years after the adoption of our Constitution, the black majority still own 4% of all privately owned land, while the white minority owns over 70%.
The ANC has for 25 years in this government failed to redistribute even 10% of land back to its people. Of the land that has been redistributed, they have failed to provide any meaningful postsettlement support to land recipients condemning them to future. Instead, this government has used proactive land acquisition strategy to allocate land to their own comrades.
The ANC government has through its own internal incompetence failed to use recapitalisation programme to recapitalise land reform farms, but rather have used to entrench their patronage networks. That is
why it falls upon the EFF to carry on the struggle of Ntate Robert Sobukwe, Mama Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Ntate Steve Biko, Ntate Chris Hani and Ntate Harry Gwala and the first step is amending section 25 of the Constitution, so that land can be expropriated without compensation.
All other alternatives have failed for a quarter of a century. That is why the Constitution needs to be amended.
Secondly, land must be placed under the custodianship of the state. This must be done in a manner that gives maximum security of tenure to citizens and to businesses. This along with other policies and programmes will lay the basis for successful land reform. Not this thing of what the ANC is doing of buying back what is rightfully ours. You are just misusing money for nothing; you could take that money to free education.
Hon Anele neh ...
Setswana:
Maloko a EFF otlhe a lekanwa ke ditlhako tsa ona. Go simolola ka baeteledipele go ya kwa malokong a a kwa tlase, ga go ope yo o
kileng a amangwa le bosenyi. Maloko otlhe a robala boroko, ga ba tshwenngwe ke sepe.
English:
The EFF rejects this Budget Vote. [Applause.]
Hon Deputy Chairperson, good afternoon. The land reform and rural development now with agriculture, is one of the most important departments in our government.
Setswana:
Mokgatlho wa ANC jaaka e le mokgatlho o mogolo wa naga eno, o atlenegisa Tekanyetsokabo 38 e e filweng lefapha. Lefapha le filwe matlole a a kanang ka R10,946 ya dimilione e e bonalang e le kabo e e kwa tlase, mme re lebogela go itse gore motshwaratekanyo o tla kgona go e dirisa ka tshwanelo. Re le mokgatlho wa ANC re batla go itsise jaana gore Moporesitente wa rona o amogetse ditshitshinyo le dikakanyo tsa mokgatlho wa DA ka Puo ya Moporesitente ya Pulo ya Palamente.
O tlhagisitse fa go le botlhokwa thata gore lefatshe le neelwe beng ba lona. Go ya ka kgobokanyo ya Freedom Charter mo ngwageng wa 1955, mokgatlho wa ANC o ne wa bonela pele gore lefatshe le boele go beng
ba lona. Gompieno re makatswa ke go bona bo mabinagotsholwa ba ba tlolatlolang ba bina pina ya tshwene e ba sa itsing gore e lediwa ke mang.
Ba bua dipuo tse ba sa di itseng, mme ga ba itse gore kgang ya lefatshe e simolotse leng. [Legofi.] Re le mokgatlho wa ANC, re batla go bona gore ba tla ikamanya le mokgatlho wa DA o o leng kgatlhanong le gore lefatshe le busediwe mo go rona. Lefatshe le le thupilweng ke dinwamadi e leng mmuso wa maloba wa kgatelelo. Re le mokgatlho wa ANC, re sa le re na le ponelopele ya go busetsa lefatshe go beng ba lona.
Re tshegetsa kakanyo ya poelo ya lefatshe go beng ba lona e e tlhotlhomisitsweng ke Moporesitente Rre Matamela Ramaphosa mo pegelong ya lefatshe. Pego eno ga e na matshosetsi mo set?habeng jaaka ke utlwa dinotshi di opela mo teng ga mafuti. Pego eno e bontsha jaaka go tlile go nna le kanelo mo go rona jaaka baagi le gone e bontsha gore lefatshe le fiwa batho botlhe ka kakaretso, e seng jaaka ba bangwe ba bua gore ke la batho ba ba rileng. ... [Tsenoganong.]
Re le mokgatlho wa ANC re dumalana le tekanyetsokabo eno. [Legofi.] [Nako e fedile.]
Division demanded.
The Council divided.