Hon House Chairperson, the Department of Human Settlements still faces many challenges as it struggles to deliver adequate and humane living standards for all South Africans.
The IFP understands that there will always be such challenges, but what we cannot accept is the fact that the department continues to drag its feet when it comes to addressing them.
We still find many of our hostels with living standards that would not even be fit for pigs. Our hostel dwellers live in the most abject poverty and with very few having reasonable access to the most basic of services such as water and sanitation.
The government under the presidency of former President Thabo Mbeki promised to eradicate the bucket system by 2007. President Jacob Zuma has now extended this deadline to 2016. [Laughter.] Nine years longer is not a delay; it is a total failure to deliver and a failure by this government to fulfil its promises to the people of South Africa.
This department says it seeks to "create sustainable human settlements and improve the quality of household life," but then embarks on something as ridiculous as sending the sanitation portfolio to the Department of Water Affairs. This begs the question: Is the Department of Human Settlements intentionally or just negligently sabotaging itself? Sanitation and human settlement go hand in hand and should always form part of the same department.
Ake uzibuze nje nawe ukuthi: Ungakwazi yini ukususa amathe olimini? [Just ask yourself: Can you remove saliva from the tongue?]
Backyard dwellers and dwellers in our informal settlements, particularly the people currently living in Ward 24 in Wintervelt, Ward 40 in Mamelodi, Ward 8 in Mmakaunyane, Ward 103 in Dark City, Ward 101 in Zithobeni and Ward 105 in Sokhulumi, continue to live in the most cramped and terrible conditions with little or no access to basic sanitation and other services. What is the department doing to alleviate their suffering?
We also note the following informal settlement hot spots in KwaZulu-Natal, namely Malukazi in Umlazi as well as Kenneth Road, and therefore we urge the department to intervene and move these people from the aforementioned hot spots to the new development in Cornubia.
The RDP housing projects continue to be substandard, which then necessitates additional departmental spending in the form of rectification and rerectification of structures. This is nothing less than criminal. Contracts to friends and comrades must end; contractors must be held accountable for substandard service delivery and must not be rewarded by additional contracts instead.
The IFP urges the Minister to take on the plight of our most vulnerable and not to stand for trickle-feeding service delivery in this department. He should not tolerate departmental budget underspending, and should fight for sanitation to be part of the Department of Human Settlements and not allow it to be ceded to the portfolio of the Department of Water and Sanitation, where it will surely fail.
Ngidlulisa ukubonga, ikakhulukazi kumhlonishwa umfowethu, umqondisi- jikelele kanye nekomiti asebenzisana nalo ngoba kuyakhombisa ukuthi kukhona la uMnyango ubheke khona. [I wish to express my gratitude, especially to the Hon Director-General and the committee that he is working with because it is evident that the department is making good progress.]
The IFP supports the Budget Vote. I thank you. [Applause.]