That's five minutes, Minister.
The MINISTER OF HUMAN SETTLEMENTS, WATER AND SANITATION: I would
like to thank all of those who have supported the Budget Vote. I would like to thank, in particular, the ANC members who stood here and debated on this matter. As they stood here and talked I could see that these are people who come from a party that is steeped in understanding what it is that they come to Parliament for. [Applause.] You could learn from them and what they were saying you could see they had read up on what they were saying. They were not just here to howl and demean and all of those things.
Thank you very much to the hon members I want to thank also in particular to the chair for giving excellent direction to the committee and I want to say at this point that I am glad that at this point we have brought together the two Departments of Human Settlement and Water and Sanitation because it makes our work in human settlement so much easier to work. A great number of our projects have been blocked in the past while we waited for water
licenses. Now, we will have one streamlined delivery and we will be able to deliver better.
At this point I would like to recognize the presence of the Deputy Minister Mahlobo here for Water and Sanitation purposes, thank you.
The Deputy Minister of Human Settlements, you do me proud, you have covered most of I would wanted to say and I would not go over that; especially in relation to responding to hon Basson. Yes, millions of our people are living in appalling conditions, that is the backlog we inherited from apartheid. Where else did you think we found it? And we are building every day, we are building every day to make life better for our people. Do you know where most of the other people come from? They are evicted by farmers in the Western Cape, your people, evicted on a daily basis and this must stop. [Interjections.] Yes, it must stop.
Then we have members of the DA coming here to say they have best practice, it is absolutely rubbish. Let me tell you. Where we run this province we delivered 16 700 houses per year. The DA
came in and you know what they deliver a shameful 7 400, what is that you teach us? [Interjections.] This is... This is not true. This is statistically proven, go and look at it, go and check it.
I would to say to the EFF it is unfortunate that you desist from supporting this Budget Vote because deep inside you know you support every step of what we are doing, every step of what we are doing. [Applause.] Simply just to be different and whatever it is you decide that you are going to blame someone else and absorb yourself. However, I do know that the message fell on every fertile ground and this Budget Vote will go through with your support at some point.
I would like to say to the IFP that we are very concerned about the rural areas and rural towns and we are dealing this. It is in our policy, please read our policy; we have been at this policy for a very long time. The reason why we have won international awards is precisely because it is world best practice.
I want to indicate to the member that we are very concerned about the IFP constituency that lives in our hostels. We built hostels, we renovated hostels and they refused to move from the original hostels, if you come along and persuade them, we will move them into descent accommodation. So that when you come here next time you will not be gambling about that. [Applause.]
The FF-Plus member says that he was a policeman and it confirms my worse fears. Once a policeman always a policeman [Interjections.] even in the way of thinking can't get over to becoming a politician. And again, please assist us with making sure you can police your farmers from throwing out our people from their land and evicting them. [Applause.]
Hon Meshoe, thank you for reminding us about the levels of poverty. This is what we are dealing with everyday. I don't know, apart from praying what it is that you are doing and your party. We are solving the problem of Alexander renewal and the allegation of missing billions is something that we are concerned about. Perhaps you can approach... hon Meshoe, you can approach the IFP to put this matter on Standing Committee on
Public Accounts, Scopa, so that we can get to the bottom of this. We are also very in agreement with you on this.
The UDM's hon Mgebe, I am here now but he is not here, okay. I would like him to... [Interjections.]
IsiXhosa: