Chairperson, Acting Chief Whip, hon members of this House, and our member from the SA Local Government Association, Salga, Cllr Mxolose, I greet you this afternoon. I am very happy, Chairperson, that I am speaking after having been there, together with the NCOP, and "dirtied my hands" in the Free State, having been there and listened to the cries of our people as they face the challenges of these times, but also having a glimpse of hope, knowing full well that they are in good hands with the ANC government.
As I stand before you today, I have agreed with the Minister that the NCOP needs to buy me shoe polish! I've just arrived from the Langa N2 Gateway Project, Phase 3, in Joe Slovo. I am happy that this has now finally come to fruition. We've polished that project and it is now shining!
Today we had a sod-turning ceremony where we are building houses for the people of Joe Slovo in Langa, as per a court judgment. If we remember, the court judgment mandated us to build 1 500 units, but we went further, to build 2 846 housing units. [Applause.] We almost doubled the requirement!
We want to say also that when we are doing this work, building these houses, we'll be taking into account the concerns of backyard dwellers. So, in each project we'll take 50% of the target group from within that informal settlement, and also take 50% from the backyard dwellers.
This morning we had a four-dimensional approach, which means that we were there as the national department, the Minister and I, the province led by the premier, Helen Zille, the MEC for human settlements, Madikizela, and the community of Joe Slovo, demonstrating a spirit of positive partnership. It is for this reason that we invite the NCOP to put a little bit of dust on their shoes and visit Joe Slovo to see that development in action.
It is for this reason also that we as South Africans say that without doubt our future, especially the future of our children, is brighter today than ever before. Many more of our children have access to social amenities in the growing number of integrated human settlements that we are building across the country.
However, we do understand that the NCOP report speaks to the challenges that we face in this journey as we build this nation. What we want to say is that we also want to be honest. Where we make mistakes we'll admit them and ensure that we improve where we have erred, as demonstrated by what we did when we demolished the houses that were wrongly built.
You have seen the kind of corruption that the Minister is fighting within the department, and also with the contractors that build shoddy houses for our people. We want to say that we will continue making the kind of effort needed to make sure that the government, particularly this Parliament, gets value for money.
Moreover, as government we have placed the vulnerable sections of our communities, particularly the elderly, the disabled, women and the youth, at the centre of our programmes. Much of our effort goes towards ensuring that these vulnerable groups do not remain marginalised, as the Deputy Minister has said, but become part of government's integrated service delivery programmes to ensure that they have access to services and access to jobs. Therefore, in regard to government, we are continuing to monitor that process to ensure that our society is transformed day by day. Let us not focus too much attention on the magnitude of the backlogs that have been mentioned, particularly because they have been inherited. Let us also not focus on the limited resources that we have, but rather let us put our focus on the kind of finance that we have in our hands, and the kind of institutions that we have, and deliver what we can to our people. We want to make sure that in doing so we have an institutional framework that speaks for itself.
As the executive in the Department of Human Settlements we have reached out to our communities and have seen for ourselves what our people have gone through. We are of the view, however, that despite random expressions of dissatisfaction within communities around the issues of service delivery, particularly in housing, there is significant goodwill among our people. There are areas where people can see for themselves that the government is trying its utmost to meet their needs with limited resources.
As our people bear testimony to this delivery of services in the various communities, as is the case in Joe Slovo today, it is understandable that they will, at times, become impatient to be the immediate beneficiaries of service delivery. It is important that we work together to ensure faster improvement in the delivery of services. Our people must always be at the centre of development so that they can understand where there are bottlenecks and be a part of the solution in order to avoid a situation, as the hon member has said, where people promise that they are going to build them houses. If our people are part of that development they will understand that integrated development plans, IDPs, have mandated municipalities to build houses. But if they are not part of the development, people will lie to them because they don't understand what the plans of municipalities are. We are saying people must be at the centre of the development. It is they who must be part of shaping their destiny.
As I said earlier on, we should not pull each other down and allow things to get worse. If we are to achieve accelerated service delivery, we need to work together in partnership. There should be partnership between government, the private sector and our communities. Let us call upon our communities to refrain from venting their anger by destroying their own properties, as they will need these properties for their development.
We need to come together and strengthen the partnership between the state and the citizens. I must emphasise that in this democracy people remain free to articulate their needs and their concerns, but they should do so in a responsible manner.
Since 1994 this government has invested around R85 billion in the provision of housing opportunities for qualifying citizens. There are a large number of people that have been assisted through various human settlement programmes. These are according to the requirement enshrined in Chapter 2 of the Constitution of South Africa, that of providing adequate shelter to the citizens. Where we have made mistakes, as I said earlier on, we take full responsibility and commit ourselves to rectifying them.
The Department of Human Settlements has begun reporting on the progress in relation to the Delivery Agreement for Outcome 8: Sustainable Human Settlements and Improved Quality of Household Life. Remember that this government has 12 outcomes and, as Human Settlements, we are part of Outcome 8. We have given a report in regard to progress that we have made already. We did that last week at Cabinet level.
Efforts are being made to ensure co-ordination in order to improve service delivery. In recent months, we have seen the establishment of the co- ordination of the metropolitan cities, that is Durban Metropolitan Municipality, Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality, Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality, Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality, City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality, the City of Cape Town, and the two emerging metros, which are Buffalo City Municipality and Mangaung Municipality, working as a collective. We commit ourselves as a department to fast-tracking accreditation of these municipalities so that service delivery can go to our people faster, without further hindrance.
One of the key objectives of this initiative is to ensure faster improvement of service delivery. As a direct result of intersphere collaboration, there are enhanced service delivery plans in terms of the plans that have been agreed to by all spheres of government. The implication of this is that the business of the Department of Human Settlements is not only about the construction of low-cost houses, but rather an overarching mandate that seeks to transform the human settlement landscape of our country. The success of this will come as a result of all the stakeholders and potential beneficiaries coming together and taking their respective responsibilities seriously.
On the matter of performance of the provincial departments, it must be noted, without going off at a tangent on this input, that, as an hon member has said, we have removed funding from one province to Limpopo. Our idea there is to ensure that we move on the Lephalale project, which will be on a similar scale to the N2 Gateway Project. We want to ensure that there is a project that speaks to human settlements and we see that Lephalale is going in that direction.
A significant recovery in housing delivery on a national basis has been indicated in the third quarter; this positive trend is expected to be sustained during the last quarter of the financial year. The interventions of the national department and the Ministry are apparently having the desired positive effect on the improvement of delivery of housing in all provinces.
Furthermore, we have given focused attention to certain issues, including removing the legislative frameworks that impede service delivery in respect of creating human settlements. The issue of funding for infrastructure impedes development, and in this regard the chairperson from the Eastern Cape spoke about the lack of water in Cacadu. We have a housing development in that area, but because we don't have funding for the bulk infrastructure, it impedes delivery. We have held negotiations with Treasury in order to ensure that we have funding for the bulk infrastructure.
Our national programme of upgrading informal settlements is at the centre of service delivery. Latest reports also include focused attention being given to the delivery of basic services in the form of serviced sites that are being completed in line with Outcome 8 targets. These serviced sites afford inhabitants in the informal settlements access to water and sanitation. This restores dignity, while improving the quality of life of our people. We do not only upgrade informal settlements - we upgrade them, but also build houses for people, where they live.
I have noted with great concern that the NCOP report itself, the 6 to 10 September report, speaks to the issue of housing built with no access roads, and houses built with inferior-quality material, which is why they leak and fall down in some instances. This is ironic, as these houses were built in 2007, after the passing of the Breaking New Ground legislation in 2004. To us, it is a worrying factor. It means that there is a breakdown of communication between the municipalities and the provinces and the various aspects of quality assurance - the quality assurance at the provincial level, the inspectorate at the municipality level, the National Home Builders Registration Council, NHBRC, and the Department of Human Settlements.
We are happy with this report, because we are going to take it back to the department. We are happy because there is a standing arrangement between ourselves and the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Cogta, where Outcomes 8 and 9 enable us to sit as Ministers and MECs at Minmec and discuss some of these bottlenecks. We are not building houses in the air; we are building houses on the land of municipalities. Together, especially in the area of infrastructure, we can sit down and talk about this issue.
We believe that there are supposed to be housing specifications that all municipalities adhere to. Even contractors should be given clear housing specifications that speak to the issue of human settlement, namely Breaking New Ground. At this moment, in this municipality, it is not happening. If in 2007 they built houses of this nature, it means they do not know what we are talking about. We need to go back to basics and talk to these people and find out what went wrong.
In conclusion, we want to build on the foundation that has been developed for ensuring faster improvement of service delivery. We will deal with the report together with the Department of Cogta, as I have said. As a department, we also want to look at whether there is rot spoiling things in our department, so that we can take those people out and make sure that we put in people who care about our people, who put our people first. Thank you. [Applause.]