Hon House Chairperson, hon Minister, ...
IsiZulu:
... ngalesi siZulu sami saseGoli ngicela ukubuza ukuthi kulamaviki adlule uMnyango ufikile wasichazela ukuthi kuzoba nomthetho we ...
English:
... indigenous language systems that are being developed.
IsiZulu:
Into esifuna ukuyazi thina ukuthi njengoba sithuthukisa lo mthetho wezinhlelo zezilimi zomdabu. Lungasinceda kanjani ucwaningo nokuthuthukisa izilimi zomdabu ...
English:
... in ensuring that we are able to translate ...
IsiZulu:
... lezi limi zomdabu ...
English: ... into being used for academic purposes in order for us to redress what we are currently finding in the education space? Thank you.
The DEPUTY MINISTER OF HIGHER EDUCATION, SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY: As I indicated earlier in my responses, we have established a centre at the North-West University. The intention of the centre is to help to digitise all of the indigenous languages, in order for them to be accessible digitally, but also to enable their use for academic purposes. This will help to create a footprint digitally for all languages and therefore make them even more accessible academically.
I think the biggest challenge is the fact that many students come from their high schools and pass Grade 12, having had no access to the main languages that are being used, accept the languages taught at their schools. When they get into higher education institutions, they become deliberately excluded, not physically, not by having the gates shut down, but by the use of language and the fact that language is not accessible academically. What we intend to do, is to make sure that all languages are accessible digitally and therefore able to be used for academic purposes. Question 67:
The MINISTER OF HUMAN SETTLEMENTS, WATER AND SANITATION: Thank
you very much. Ms Tseki wants to find out from me what is the updated status of the fast-tracking of issuing of title deeds that we promised will be given every Friday and what the details that we have are and the dates. Therefore, my response to that is that in terms of the current powers and functions related to the registrations and the issuance of deeds, the provinces and municipalities are mainly responsible for this. The reason why we took a decision that we are going to fast- track this is because of the backlog that we are experiencing.
The department has worked out a working relationship with provinces and municipalities within the ambit of the Intergovernmental Relations Framework, legislation 13 of 2005, to register and issue title deeds to eligible housing beneficiaries. As from April 2019 to date, these are the statistics that we have per province: those title deeds that belong to the pre-1994 era, the lead in delivering these is the Eastern Cape and the lowest would be from the Western Cape in the delivery of those particular title deeds. However, in title deeds that would have been belonging to the period post- 1994, the lead here is Gauteng that has delivered 7 773 title deeds within one year, and the lowest here would be the Eastern Cape.
In title deeds that they belong to the current period, the lead here is KwaZulu-Natal having delivered 1 371 title deeds and the lowest is Limpopo, North West and the Northern Cape. The total number of title deeds that have been issued in the last few months is 29 000 ensuring that on a regular basis we are able to give these out. Notwithstanding the issues that the department has taken a decision to fast-track this, we are experiencing problems in fast-tracking this. The reason for this as we have discovered that sometimes it is actually finding the owner of the house because usually what happens in an informal transaction is that the owner of the house will not be found in the house. This as you know is illegal. The law makes it very clear that people who are given houses are required to be in their houses for eight years before they hand it over to anybody.
However, this is something that is regularly ignored and we are finding a difficulty in this. Our biggest problem is that sometimes we find that we get to a house and there isn't a clear division in a family over who should own the title deed. The biggest problem here is that we, as a government, cannot intervene in family disputes over the ownership of a house and who to accord the title deed to. We, therefore, going to look at ways or finding legal counsel to assist us make sure that we have these family disputes over title deeds resolved outside of government. And also to assist us to fast-track this, we are going to request the banking sector together with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, CSIR, to see if we cannot use technology to advance our issue of a title deed.
If now we as a country are able to register a child at birth, it should be possible using the same kind of technology and the same kind of logic to register a house even before it is built. Therefore, knowing ahead of time that the title deeds would belong to, and the title deeds should be given out at the time that the house is handed over. Thank you.
Sepedi: