Chairperson, I hope my time is being adjusted. In a number of forewords, Minister Sexwale has written, and I quote:
All people have the right to live where they choose, to be decently housed and to bring up their families in comfort and security. Slums shall be demolished and new suburbs built where all shall have transport, roads, lighting, playing fields, crches and social centres.
He envisaged integrated human settlements where people will have quality of household life. Mixed residential communities will have schools, clinics, sporting facilities, playing fields, shopping centres and economic opportunities. This would give effect to the Breaking New Ground policy, launched in 1994.
President Zuma has set challenging and exciting goals for government to achieve, which includes, among others, the upgrading of 400 000 units in informal settlements, providing 80 000 affordable social and rental housing units and improving housing finance opportunities for 600 000 households for people earning between R3 500 and R12 800.
The point I want to make is that none of this can happen without suitable bulk infrastructure, and the Minister has alluded to this already. Without roads, water, sanitation and electricity we cannot build houses, we cannot grow the economy and we know that. Sometimes, in our rush to deliver, we have built houses without infrastructure, and this has led to continued ongoing hardship for the beneficiaries. Imagine the excitement of moving into your own house for the first time in 80 years, but the heartbreak at finding that the taps do not run, the spanking new flush toilet does not flush, and you still have to use a primus stove to do your cooking because the electricity has not been connected. Excitement soon turns to anger when these issues have failed to be addressed, months down the line. Then we have serious problems. These are poor people and they do deserve better.
In this regard, the ANC welcomes the action taken by government to establish a new grant, the Urban Settlements Development Grant, as announced by the Minister of Finance in the Budget tabled in Parliament. This grant is one of several streams of funding for human settlements and it seeks, firstly, to encourage towns and cities to be proactive developers of urban infrastructure by mobilising domestic capital. Secondly, it seeks to realise the positive impacts of urbanisation by addressing towns' and cities' performance constraints and, thirdly, to improve co-ordination and planning.
This new initiative comes with its own challenges. It requires that Parliament plays a more effective oversight role. Municipalities will be accountable to the national department and as such will fall directly under the oversight of Parliament. This will mean ensuring that there is capacity to manage the grant.
This Conditional Grant totals just under R6,5 billion for the 2011-12 year and will increase to just over R8 billion in 2013-14. It is allocated to metropolitan municipalities to support infrastructure development for informal settlement upgrading.
Building infrastructure will require a determined effort by government departments to break down the silo mentality and to work together, so that when people move into their new houses, everything works.
Another major outcome for the department is sanitation. Government has recognised the vital need of providing basic services to remote rural areas. Since 2007, government identified rural development as one of the country's major priorities. In response to this, National Treasury established the Rural Household Infrastructure Grant. This has been referred to already. A total of R1,2 billion over the 2010 Medium-Term Expenditure Framework has been allocated to this fund. All the members in the committee were concerned about the short spend on this year's Budget.
This grant encourages the use of community-based organisations, CBOs, NGOs and public entities to ensure that communities are trained on how to sustain and maintain the infrastructure beyond implementation. Programmes are labour-intensive. The committee was concerned that the grant was not used to the full. In some instances, service providers do not seem to be clear about their mandate, whether they have capacity. This affects service delivery. Next year we will ensure that this budget is fully spent. With the critical need for water and sanitation we cannot tolerate unspent budgets.
In this financial year, government has provided a total of R122 billion through various allocations for housing, water, sanitation and electricity - all included in Human Settlements - and we are pleased about that. The ANC welcomes the accreditation by Minister Tokyo Sexwale of eight municipalities to Level 2 status.
Accreditation involves the progressive delegation and eventually the assignment of certain defined functions in relation to human settlements programmes to local government. These municipalities can now take responsibility for their own projects with fewer bureaucratic hurdles. It will also shift the onus from provinces to these municipalities, and we expect them to speed up delivery and improve quality control.
While the ANC applauds this move, we are of the view that this will have to be carefully monitored. Provinces will still have the funding and will have to manage the payments. Communication will have to be beefed up.
The ANC supports the Minister's exciting 2030 vision. As a team working together under the strong leadership of our chairperson, the hon Nomhle Dambuza, we will give the Minister and the department our full support. Like Martin Luther King, we have a dream. It is to see all people who move into their houses enjoying the experience of turning on the tap to running water, being able to flush their toilet and turn on the lights by the flick of a switch. The ANC supports this budget. Thank you. [Applause.]