Chairperson, I thought you were going to say there was a miscalculation and you were giving me another 30 minutes. [Laughter.] As usual, Ministers have to read their initial inputs at the speed of a Ferrari. Those of you who heard me reading very fast - I don't speak that fast - please understand I was trying to fit in as much as possible. You can go and read the full text because I did jump over some of the details that I thought were unnecessary to read. I say this because it is important that when you come to fire a question as the debate around human settlements commences, you should do so with an understanding that it must be an informed debate.
Hon members, I always leave this House and go to Cabinet with a sense of satisfaction, based on the knowledge that people, particularly the portfolio committee, don't play political football with housing. My portfolio committee, which is a multiparty committee - and I'm your member as much as I'm your point person within the Cabinet - is a very constructive one. There is political point-scoring and I accept that, but there is no cheap political point-scoring. There is a feeling that all of us are committed to providing for our people, and I welcome that. [Applause.]
My second point is that I have heard a number of good suggestions here, which, I believe, we will respond to as the debate progresses. I want to say that we will commit ourselves to the issue of title deeds in particular. It is unacceptable that people remain without title deeds in certain situations. Sometimes confusion comes as a result of family members jostling around on who should get the title deed. I'm happy to say that we will be working quite closely with Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma of the Department of Home Affairs on the smartcards - the new identity document cards that she is introducing. It is foolproof and it is going to assist us in following up on who owns houses, where, and so on. The cards will also help us to detect fraud.
MaNjobe, as the mother here - and we respect that - you have come out very strongly on sanitation. It has been a central theme for people here. Sanitation is a form of infrastructure. As I said, we are a UN signatory and sanitation has been internationalised. It is simply good manners that this asset, which is required for human dignity, must be a nationalised topic in South Africa. I'm happy that the Presidential Infrastructure Co- ordinating Commission, under the President, has accepted that this is a central issue. The committee under Winnie Mandela will be reporting quite soon and table its report before the portfolio committee, as I've said. It has already had interactions with Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe. I have had sight of and I am studying even further the recommendations of that committee. I think we're going to turn the corner in that area because it's low-hanging fruit. These are not houses we are talking about, but toilets, and the first dignity that we must give to our people is in that area.
Hon Sithole, thanks for raising the question of hostels, but we are doing something about this. You should have been - I invited all of you - to Jabulani Hostel. Jabulani and Dube hostels have been improved. They are first-class residential areas today. This came as a result of another member of the IFP, whom you replaced: Baba Nkosi. He was my guest at Jabulani Hostel. He is the one who instigated that we should do this, and I respect that. We are now also taking the message from you. Sir, please find the time and visit Dube, where I am from, and Jabulani. [Applause.] We are listening to you because you want to bring change to the lives of our people.
Hon Sosibo and the rest of this House, I want you to follow this example. We are not just talking about housing as amatshotshombe [shacks.] A house is actually an asset. It's an asset and I want to hear the language of capital, of an asset, of equity, to make sure that when the time is right and people have to trade these assets, they do so knowing that they can now participate in the property market as well as the financial market - but not prematurely. That's what this House does.
However, what has been raised is that we cannot continue giving houses freely all the time. Of course this is so. The only reason we do so is because we cannot turn our backs on our people; on those South Africans who are in an unfortunate position and have fallen through the cracks. It's simply not tenable that we turn our backs on them. However, we really hope that when the economy turns around, the scenario will be different.
As I said, the economy is performing at around 3%. We all know the number. The South African economy should have been at 7% by now. This means that we are experiencing negative economic growth. It should have been at 6% by the year 2000. It is now 10 years later, but we are still lingering around 3%. There is a negative here. When jobs are available as a result of a strongly performing economy, we will have the possibility of people turning jobs into assets. There is no such thing as: "Long live the job!". A job is for something; so that people can have an asset. The first basic asset that we all require is a house. It's not a car, a watch, furniture ...