I think one of the things that one needs to start with in engaging with this particular debate is the level to which we need to be careful. I get worried when the DA starts to emphasise the notion of rural development, especially when it calls on the department to strengthen the capacity of financing rural housing support mechanisms. For obvious reasons, they are being disingenuous; it is not about a love for rural development. We know that the policy framework that characterises the DA is premised on neoliberalism. There is no way that the DA would have such a great interest in rural development. [Interjections.]
The main issue here behind that support for rural development is the fear and the extent to which they don't want our people to move from the rural areas and, in particular, from the Eastern Cape to the Western Cape. [Interjections.] They want our people to remain there in the Eastern Cape. [Interjections.] So we know that's their strategy.
Ours is quite different; ours is about rural development. Through that rural development programme we will integrate the South African society. It is about the integration of the rural economy and the urban economy. It's about the integration of human settlements in the rural areas with those in the urban areas. We will, therefore, build a united, democratic, nonracial, nonsexist and prosperous society; not the one that they are talking about. [Applause.] Theirs is about: "Keep them there in the Eastern Cape." [Interjections.] "Let them not come to us and bother us because of the issues."
They talk about informal settlements and the mushrooming of informal settlements, and I said in the last debate that the DA is Cape Town-blind. To them, Cape Town is the Western Cape. You just have to go down the N1 - I'm repeating this- to De Doorns; just to De Doorns here on the N1. When I drive home to Kimberley, I am shocked to see the mushrooming of informal settlements in that particular area. What is it that the DA is doing in the Western Cape to eradicate informal settlements? All they can talk about is Cape Town.
Let me take the opportunity to applaud and congratulate the department on the manner in which they have approached this thing, especially the example that the Deputy Minister was giving with regard to Limpopo. What we are saying, hon Deputy Minister, is that there must be a socialisation of that economy. Let us emphasise the socialisation and the broadening or the maximisation of our people's participation, especially young people and young women.
The only issue that we are consistently raising - and we will consistently raise this - is the support for youth construction co-operatives. Yesterday, interestingly, the matter was raised with Public Works, and a commitment was given for the development and support of these co-operatives through the Public Works Programme. We think that through our integrated approach, as departments, we would then be able to tap into that.
Those young people who have benefited from that Limpopo programme should not be deployed anywhere else or in other projects. Let them be organised. Let them be formalised and given opportunity, capacity and training in order for them to access other avenues that will be economically beneficial to them as we continue our programme on housing.
Having been to Gauteng to bury our stalwart, Mama Sisulu, over the weekend, one was exposed to very important developments that are happening there. For example, social housing projects are developing there, especially the one next to Noordgesig. However, what we have picked up is that while the department is progressing in relation to social housing provision, there is a lack of integration with other departments; hence the upsets that we see in Noordgesig. The planning did not go with the infrastructure and therefore there was an overreliance on the electricity grid in the Noordgesig community, which in turn - as was reported - caused overloading. Therefore, we are calling on the department, while it is moving in a positive way, to let that movement be accompanied by an integrated way of settling our people and ensuring that they benefit.
The other aspect that we are raising, hon Deputy Minister, is that 80% of the human settlement development grant will be going to provinces - 80%! What we have realised - I mean, this our experience from the past - is provinces' lack of capacity to spend these conditional grants that are transferred to them. Therefore we are calling on the department to put in place mechanisms that will ensure that we don't have a disintegrated approach in terms of money being dumped in provinces and provinces being left on their own.
When we were engaging with your department we could pick up that it seemed as if there was a disjuncture between the national and the provincial level. The national level seemed not to have a grip on what happens in our provinces when it came to the spending of these grants. So we are calling on the department to really improve on the co-ordination level. Yes, we understand that provinces have their own powers and so forth, as prescribed in the Constitution, but let's find a mechanism to ensure that, whatever it is that we are doing, provinces are capacitated much better to be able to spend on the jobs that we need so badly.
We are raising the point because we are aware that job creation is primary to this government's priorities, and one area that is being identified as such an important area is infrastructure development and human settlement. It is our view, Deputy Minister, that with your department there must be some way of integrating some of the programmes that are geared at job creation with those of the Expanded Public Works Programme; because if one looks at this programme, it says that it skills young or unemployed people in bricklaying, among other things. But how are these people then integrated into the main activities that must take place. Our view is that if in the Expanded Public Works Programme there are people who were trained to produce bricks, these people must be organised and the systems they are using to produce bricks must be integrated with what Human Settlements is doing. In that way we won't have to deal with this whole notion of fronting and the question of whether people are only coming in as labour providers. At the end of the day we integrate them in such a manner that they ultimately become owners of the processes of any particular form of production.
Lastly, yes, we are aware that certain municipalities have been identified as your agents, for lack of a better word. We are just calling for the systems in the national department to support these municipalities. We found it quite worrying and we think that support is quite important for municipalities to be able to deliver. [Time expired.]