Chairperson, the ANC-led government in Gauteng has spent R12 million to build transit camps for informal inhabitants living in squalor at Protea South in Soweto. The camps will be used to temporarily house dwellers before they are relocated to proper houses with free basic services.
More than 800 families will be the first to benefit from this initiative. They have been staying in the area for eight years. The settlement has no basic facilities, such as toilets and water. For residents of this informal settlement, all this is set to change. They will be moved to a transit settlement before being moved to new houses in two years' time.
Government has set a timeframe that by 2014 all the informal settlements in Gauteng should be eradicated. Furthermore, within the next one and a half to two years Protea South should no longer be an informal settlement but should be a normal settlement. The process to build new houses will start in April 2007, once plans have been approved. They will be built in Protea South, Protea Glen and Doornkop.
The ANC welcomes the initiative taken by the Gauteng Department of Housing in implementing the ANC plan to make local government better through the building of sustainable human settlements and viable communities. I thank you. [Applause.]