Hon Chairperson, hon members, fellow South Africans, to the Minister, congratulations on your reappointment, and welcome back. During your first briefing as a Minister you mentioned the word "crisis". I believe you were talking about your new-found Department of Water and Sanitation.
This department is bankrupt with unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure as the standard practise. Irregular expenditure increased from R330 million in the 2014-15 financial year with 1800% to a unacceptable R6,4 billion in the 2017-18 financial year, with a further R2,5 billion in the 2018-19 financial year.
An overdraft on the main account increased from R199 million to R896 million. The overdraft on the trading account stands R1,2 billion and these over drafts are in conflict with Treasury regulations. An amount of R1,7 billion on accruals payable to service providers for work done in the previous financial year must be paid from this year's budget. Most of your senior officials are on acting basis.
Afrikaans:
Minister, nou is dit die regte tyd om bekwaamde mense, wat die departement kan bestuur sonder politieke inmengery, aan te stel.
English:
Hon Chairperson, section 26 of the Constitution stipulates that everyone has the right to adequate housing. In the ANC's first Election Manifesto in 1994, the party stated, and I quote: "A roof
over one's head and reasonable living conditions are not a privilege. They are a basic right for every human being".
Chairperson, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and other strategic documents such as the National Development Plan do not insinuate that a house is only a roof over the head. The word "house" or "home" intricately also implies access to basic services such as water, electricity and sewerage networks. Those documents make it clear that human settlements, formal or informal, implies that it is places where people can live in dignity in houses with access to networks that facilitate basic services.
Chairperson, in the spirit of the greatness of the father of our nation, the late Nelson Mandela, I wish I could say that on Mandela Day 2019, we finally ensured that all South Africans own a house in which they can live in dignity. That includes proper toilets, water points, dumping sites, streets and electricity. Madiba once said, and I quote:
As long as many of our people still live in utter poverty, as long as children still live under plastic covers, as long as many of our people are still without jobs, no South African should rest and wallow in the joy of freedom.
Madiba clearly understood that failure regarding the housing and human settlements programme would result in public dismay.
In 1994, the late Minister Joe Slovo, Minister of Housing and his department were sincere in their intention to provide suitable and sustainable housing and basic services to all South Africans. Plans to succeed with this were in the making and focused on important issues such as the development of informal human settlements on land that was close to municipal and other service networks as to give people access to water, sewerage systems and electricity.
To break down the barriers caused by apartheid and inequality and to enhance the integration of all communities, new residential areas were supposed to be integrated with middleclass and affluent residential areas. This would enable all people to gain access to nearby public and privately- owned assets such as schools, health and safety facilities, transport, access routes, shops, recreational facilities and places of work.
To achieve this, the government developed interventions that would result in an orderly housing and human settlements plan, based on instruments such as municipal and regional spatial development
plans. Somewhere, since 1994, on the long road to give our people holistic and political freedom, we lost the plot.
The hon Minister of Police, hon Bheki Cele, said last week that people in a gang infested area in the Cape Metro live in conditions better suited for pigs. This is a shocking revelation meant as a dig at the DA who governs the Metro. Sadly, hon Cele's comment is true. The hon Cele, however, failed to admit that his party caused the implosion of the national housing plan and the human settlement development strategy.
Chairperson, I refer to the Informal Settlements and Human Rights in South Africa report by the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa, published in May 2018. Figures in this submission, and I quote:
... show that the majority of poor and low-income people in South Africa continue to live in informal settlements or slums and suggest that the government's housing programmes are failing to address the growing challenges posed by informal settlements.
The submission shows that residents of informal settlements include children, women and people with disabilities, and that many do not
have access to sanitation and clean water. The hon Cele should have admitted that as the focus shifted from services to the people to state capture. The dignity of people was thrown out of the window. The ratio of the number of families to toilets and water points became lower and lower as funds for proper housing and human settlement development plans drained into the pit of corruption.
Hon Chairperson, unfortunately, for the ANC, EFF and BLF, housing became a political tool to win elections and to destabilise communities. The truth is that people invaded land that was not evaluated by Environmental Impact Assessments, EIA, or fitted into a carefully crafted Spatial Development Framework.
Not far from us, in Grabouw, one of the biggest informal settlements resulted from the political driven capturing of state land off National Public Works. Siyayanzela is far from municipal services networks needed to provide people with toilets and water points. Siyayanzela is far from town facilities and no EIA was concluded to determine if the site is suitable and safe for people to live on. The settlement does not fall in the parameters of integrated communities and the breaking down of divisions between people caused by apartheid.
In Botrivier, also not far from here, people invaded a piece of land which was not subjected to an EIA.
IsiXhosa:
I-Botrivier yayiphantsi kolawulo lwe-ANC, mhla abantu babebekwa kulo mhlaba.
English:
Years later, after a housing development project was approved for the site, an EIA indicated that the township was developed on an old dumping site and that the ground is not stable and fit for a housing project.
Afrikaans:
As gevolg hiervan, moet ons New France op ander grond hervestig, wat beteken dat mense nog langer moet wag.
English:
Chairperson, as the former portfolio chair of Housing in the Theewaterskloof Municipality, I know that the need for housing opportunities are bigger than before and that the ANC's failure with the National Housing Programme made the people angry to the extent
that most municipal related protests are directly or indirectly related to inadequate housing and access to service facilities.
Chairperson, I want to conclude with a few ideas that must reflect in housing and human settlement plans, strategies and policies. We, all three tiers of government, must overcome our differences and start to work as a collective. And whilst we do that, we must adhere to a key requirement of the National Development Plan, example, to develop our own capacities and abilities to truly serve our people.
IsiXhosa:
Kunyanzelekile sizikhuphe iipolotiki xa sithetha ngonikezelo lwezindlu.
English:
We must utilise the collective capacities and abilities of government, private sector, stakeholders and all communities to develop human settlements and housing projects in accordance with Integrated Development Plans, Spatial Development Frameworks and other plans and strategies.
We must develop new solutions to overcome the backlog with title deeds and see to it that all beneficiaries become the legal owners
of their homes. Owners who want to offer their homes as collateral for loans, to maintain and upgrade their homes, cannot do so without title deeds.
Hon Chairperson, models of delivery cannot continue to depend on local government only. Instead, all three tiers of government must become facilitators of a diverse and multifaceted approach to ensure the involvement of many role players. Thus far the government thought only of suitable housing as units with top structures and access to civil works.
From my own experience, I can tell you that communities on the waiting lists for housing projects do not just yearn for top structures but also for access to basic services. Housing opportunities should be redesigned to provide extended services sites which must provide access to service infrastructure, a foundation for informal houses, a toilet, access to electricity and a water point.
If government, after consultation with the people, creates extended services sites and opportunities to develop top structures at a later stage, the housing backlog can gradually be reduced. Finally, I would like to emphasise that if municipalities continue to be
agents for the implementation of housing projects, third-level authorities need to be stabilised.
Most municipalities have serious deficiencies in planning, development and project management. Capacities to maintain housing registers, to conduct public participation and to facilitate the establishment of local community- based housing committees are very thin. The ability to prevent invasions on project land and to do containment of invaded premises, which have been earmarked for housing projects and where beneficiaries have already been designated, is virtually nonexistent.
We need solutions to the housing crisis. But those solutions can only be realised with trusted and effective leadership. Hon Sisulu, we need that from you. I thank you. [Applause.]
The DEPUTY MINISTER OF HUMAN SETTLEMENT, WATER AND SANITATION (MS P
TSHWETE): Hon Chair, Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, Ministers and Deputy Ministers, Deputy Minister Mahlobo, Chaiperson of the Select Committee, the MECs, hon Members of the NCOP and all honoured guests led by Acting Director-General. Allow me to pass my condolences to the family of Nomhle Tshaba Nyumba, chairperson of the Mpumalanga, South African Women in Construction, SAWIC, who passed on Friday the
19 July 2019. Their loss is equally felt by all of us. We appreciate the role played by SAWIC in the department in ensuring that women play an important role in construction.
Hon Chair, it is a great privilege to deliver this speech, when the country is celebrating 25 years of democracy and the provision of more than 4,7 million housing opportunities to our people. With the lingering poverty, unemployment and inequality in our country, this makes all the achievements and strives we have in this regard seem less essential. However, in an effort to accelerate economic growth, there is a need to build a modern developmental state that has the means to drive economic and social transformation.
On Monday 22 July 2019, as delegated by Minister Lindiwe Sisulu, myself and Deputy Minister, David Mahlobo visited Ntokozweni ward 17 in Baziya in the King Sabata Dalindyebo Local Municipality, KSD, where thorough consultations and engagements with the three spheres of government and the community agreed on a way forward to address the challenges they are faced with. Hon Chair, following our visit to this village on Monday, we have agreed that the provincial Department of Human Settlements as a matter of urgency will facilitate the construction of houses destroyed during 2016 and 2018 disasters.
The province has already applied for approval to expand the scope of work of the appointment of contractor to ensure that all identified beneficiaries benefit including child-headed household of 22-year old Amanda Mcoboki, the head of a family of that resides with her siblings in a rented rondavel after both disasters of 2016 and 2018. We are looking forward in working with the Eastern Cape government, KSD Municipality and OR Tambo District Municipality in ensuring that we restore dignity of the people of Ntokozweni.
We will continue to strengthen our efforts to deliver housing and support the SMMEs to play an active in the Human Settlements Value Chain. We have seen that, building houses through the People's Housing Process, PHP, model works. It delivers a large of impact thereof, results in capacity building, empowerment programmes and job creation. The department has supported the establishment of construction and non-construction cooperatives to deliver various services in the Human Settlements Value Chain.
We will, through implementation of the PHP or Zenzeleni Housing Campaign, address housing for vulnerable communities including Military Veterans. Upgrading of informal settlements and allocation of service sites in turn increase the rate of delivery and makes a huge dent in reversing the house backlog and job creation. A classic
example of this is the successful execution of the PHP programme in the Vulindlela Rural Housing Project in KwaZulu-Natal which will deliver 25 000 housing units on completion and are currently standing at more that 22 000 housing units delivered.
After the minister delegated responsibilities to me with regards to veterans and vulnerable groups, my office in consultation with Minister will engage provinces with regard t the plight of the Military Veterans. I will propose to the Minister for the convening of a consultative conference with Military Veterans with regard to issues related to human settlements. After consulting with the Minister, my office will identify date. This will be done through working with provincial structures of the Military Veterans. Most die having undignified houses, that will have to be addressed urgently.
IsiXhosa:
Basweleka abantu abadala bengazange bazifumana izindlu.
English:
We will also visit and hand over houses project built using this methodology in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality on the Eastern Cape. In Viljoenskroon in the Free Sate, Mossel Bay,
George and Knysna in the Western Cape, is where government is implementing the PHP project. We wish to continue to urge all provinces that have not started implementing the decision of MINMECH to allocate 30% of their budget to women to start doing so. We are going ahead with our Women in the Build Industry Conference in Mpumalanga during the month of August to ensure that we take this conservation to the next level of implementation.
Hon Chair, we are happy to inform that today young people and with disabilities have remained resolute and committed to the cause. We will ensure that they get the necessary support and remove all the unnecessary red tapes and stumbling blocks that hinder their progress going forward. They include Free State disabled entrepreneur, Falcon Reinforced Concrete, Themba Biko, winner of the Govan Mbeki award. As part of my responsibilities my office and the department will engage relevant departments with regards to statistics of unemployed qualified graduates use in all provinces between the ages of 18 and 40. That will be done in consultation with the Department of Labour, Statistics SA and the Social Development with regard to people with disabilities.
This will be done cognisant of the fact that the biasness will be on gender in particular young women. We will also continue to work done
by the former Deputy Minister, Zoe Kota-Fredericks by visiting a social housing project in the Daggafontein in Gauteng being implemented by young the company. Let's Care and the social Housing Regulatory Authority. We remain resolute in our endeavour to create jobs and fight unemployment especially amongst the youth. We will continue in facilitating skills transfer and job creation opportunities in the build environment. We call on government and private sector to ensure that 10% of mega projects, 10% of all human settlement projects contracts, 20% allocation of service sites favours the youth.
We will ensure that young people also have access to professional development like bursaries and scholarships, conveyance through provision of title deeds, learnership through estate agents affairs and construction education training authority pathway. Hon Chair, ladies and gentlemen, we embark on this new dawn. We call on all sectors, stakeholders, the youth, women and people with disabilities to be at the forefront of their own development thereby creating an active citizenship. I thank you. [Applause]