Chairperson, hon Minister and Deputy Minister, hon members, fellow South Africans, the German poet, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote: "Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough: we must do." As we enter the third decade of our democracy, we must ask ourselves if the intentions of the department have been followed by tangible actions. There is no doubt that from a policy drafting stage, we are coming up with good proposals but we are failing to implement what we consider to be our win.
There have been great policies drafted for the department, from the Breaking New Ground, BNG, policy to the National Development Plan, NDP. As the DA we do agree with the provisions as outlined in the NDP for inclusive human settlements. We agree that we must not reinforce apartheid geography when it comes to human settlements and that we must build an active citizenry and not a dependent inactive citizenry.
Goethe offers us another piece of wisdom by saying,
If you treat an individual as he is, he will remain how he is. But if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.
If we want recipients of housing opportunities to be active citizens, we should treat them as active citizens. We should involve them early on before a house is built or a service is installed. As things stand, recipients have no choice on what kind of house they get. We should get out of the mindset of building houses of the same type, shape and form and move to consulting recipients before units are built. The department is good at talking about removing barriers to housing trade but the actions do not follow the intention. To this day, we have a provision in the Housing Act, Act 107 of 1997, which prohibits the recipients of subsidy housing from selling their houses for a period of eight years. Even the very same BNG policy that the hon spoke about earlier on warned in 2004 that the eight-year period is a massive barrier to housing trade and proposed that the years be reduced to five years.
As the DA we believe that the number of years should, in fact, be two years. We do not believe that the circumstances that necessitated the eight or five-year restrictions still persist today. It is time we took bold action and amended section 10A of the Housing Act and allowed recipients of subsidy housing to sell their houses after two years to whomever they wish to sell to.
Another barrier to the housing trade has been the issuing of title deeds, hon Minister. We have many recipients of subsidy housing who do not have title deeds to their houses, some of which date back as far as 10 years. Some of the recipients have passed on. When it comes to subsidy housing, there should be no happy letter without a title deed. The title deed must be the happy letter. If we are to unlock the potential of this market, every subsidy-house recipient must be given a title deed. Title deeds are not just a piece of paper; they are a powerful tool that gives holders economic opportunities to use as surety for loans. These loans can be used to ensure children get a university education. For example, Amukelani, from Nkowankowa, was able to go to university because her parents had a title deed as surety when applying for a study loan after the National Student Financial Aid Scheme, NSFAS rejected her application.
Hon Minister, I hope that when you talked about 100 days of title deeds for pre-1994, you were not talking about the plans that the Estate Agency Affairs Board, EAAB, will have to submit. We are talking about the actual title deeds. Plans are not service delivery; they just exist on a piece of paper. To be willing is not enough, we must start doing things.
Other municipalities must follow the example of the City of Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality ... [Interjections.] ... of giving title deeds to long-term tenants of council properties such as hostels to give them ownership of property. [Interjections.]
We need to empower our people economically through title deeds. This afternoon, the City of Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality has just announced the programme to roll out services to backyard dwellers, something that other municipalities must also learn from.
Even with the good policy proposals, as outlined in the BNG and NDP documents, we continue to see subsidised housing being built in areas far away from the economic centres. This is one area where intent and action are separate from each other. Hon members, if we are to change the apartheid geography and help with urban densification we must make state land and land belonging to parastatals available for housing. Why this is still a problem, puzzles me.
In 2004 when the BNG policy was adopted, it identified that the houses being built for the subsidy market were of a poor quality, primarily because tenders were awarded to people who knew little about construction. To this day, we continue to award tenders to politically connected individuals whose sole purpose is to line their pockets rather than building quality houses for our people.
Over the past three years we have spent over R2,5 billion, fixing the work of these unscrupulous tenderpreneurs. These are the billions that should have gone to build over 25 000 housing units or over 100 000 sites that could have been serviced. Hon Minister, knowing about the lessons we learned in the past 20 years is not enough; we must start applying them. Even in this very same budget we will spend close to R1 billion fixing the shoddy work of some contractors. Up to this day, I don't know of any contractor that has paid back the money of which he or she has defrauded the people of this country.
Hon members, in the delivery of housing the department should not only be chasing quantity but must ensure that the housing opportunities it delivers are of excellent quality. The National Home Builders Registration Council, NHBRC, and municipalities must get involved early on in the projects to ensure that quality housing units are delivered. We can't continue flushing cash down the drain or, should I say, flushing it into the pockets of corrupt tenderpreneurs.
Hon members, whilst the budget of the department has increased over the years, the increase is not aligned to the delivery on the ground. The number of housing opportunities is decreasing year after year, yet the budget is increasing.
One of the important things we must deal with is the corruption with regard to the waiting lists. We must make the lists publicly available so that each one knows where they are on the list.
We can't continue having houses standing empty for over five years, like those in Meadowlands and Dube, hon Mmemezi. They were empty when you were the MEC and they are still empty today because there are fights about who the recipients are.
Hon Minister, as I stated, there are good proposals contained in the NDP document. What we want to see is their implementation. The time of stating our intentions is over; it is time that we act. As Goethe said, and I quote:
Willing is not enough; we must do.
Plans are not enough; we must deliver. Ndza khensa [Thank you], Chairperson. [Applause.]