Hon members, guests, ladies and gentlemen, comrades and friends, 26 June this year - I hope I will get more time because I am using spectacles I am not used to - marks the 55th anniversary of the adoption of the Freedom Charter, a key founding document of South Africa's democratic Constitution. We approach this historic occasion understanding that the Charter remains relevant to the vision of a new South Africa. Its housing clause states, without any equivocation:
There shall be houses, security and comfort! All people shall 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 have transport, roads, lighting, playing fields, crches and social centres.
Therein lies the founding philosophy, strategy, vision and practicality of Human Settlements.
Our country's Constitution resonates with the Charter on the question of housing and human settlements:
1) Everyone has the right to have access to adequate housing.
2) The state must take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to achieve the progressive realisation of this right.
The first Minister of Housing, Comrade Joe Slovo, rallied large and small contractors, labour unions, community organisations and financial institutions in 1994 in Bloemfontein, resulting in the landmark Botshabelo Accord, which stated:
Government strives for the establishment of viable, socially and economically integrated communities, situated in areas allowing convenient access to economic opportunities as well as health, educational and social amenities, and within which all South Africa's people will have access on a progressive basis to: a permanent residential structure with secure tenure, ensuring privacy and providing adequate protection against the elements; and potable water, adequate sanitary facilities, including waste disposal and domestic electricity supply.
That is the Botshabelo Accord.
President Zuma then gave further meaning to this in his state of the nation address last year. He stated:
As part of social infrastructure development, we will provide suitably located and affordable housing and decent human settlements. We will proceed from the understanding that human settlement is not just about building houses. It is about transforming our cities and towns, and about building cohesive, sustainable and caring communities with closer access to work and social amenities, including sporting and recreational facilities.
Against this backdrop, the mission of the Department of Human Settlements - on behalf of government - remains clear: to ensure decent shelter, the most basic need, as a critical part of a better life for all.
It is important to highlight the three key areas of our intervention, which touch every South African. First, at the uppermost end of the housing market our responsibility is to ensure an enabling environment through policies and legislation that protect consumers who are building or buying homes at that level. This is primarily achieved through the Home Loan and Mortgage Disclosure Act, to which we will return later.
Secondly, at the bottom-most end of the market, we provide housing subsidies to the poorest of the poor. This is a critical area, because the bulk of the housing backlog in South Africa exists there. Again, we will return to this point.
In between these two are the "gap market people" who don't qualify for either bank credit or a government subsidy. Their cries have been heard by the President and by my colleague, the Minister of Finance, Pravin Gordhan, resulting in the creation of a guarantee fund of R1 billion, for a start. These endeavours go beyond providing shelter, contributing also to economic growth and job creation, while at the same time restoring human dignity.
Our holistic approach to human settlement development recognises that the economic fortunes of South Africans are never static. Someone who lives in a shack in Gugulethu today may occupy an RDP house in Delft tomorrow - or, later, reside in Rondebosch.
As the Ministry, working within the Cabinet collective, we participated in developing a new outcomes-based approach to defining our targets and to measuring progress. The January 2010 extended Cabinet lekgotla tasked us with implementing what is known as Outcome 8, whose objective is "sustainable human settlements and improved quality of household life".
To meet that objective, we have prioritised four areas of work between now and 2014 because our Medium-Term Strategic Framework, MTSF, period ends then. These are: accelerated delivery of housing opportunities; access to basic services; more efficient land utilisation; and an improved property market. In the field of housing opportunities, the target is 220 000 units per year between now and 2014.
Additionally, we are acquiring more than 6 250 hectares of well-located land for human settlement development and an enabling environment is being created for the provision of 600 000 new loans in the affordable housing sector.
In addition, 500 000 informal settlement dwellings are being upgraded, as we speak. We must emphasise that such upgrading does not detract from government's long-term objective of eradicating slums. The combined effect is that by 2014 we will have made significant inroads in our mission of ensuring sustainable human settlements and an improved quality of household life.
Irrespective of what sceptics may say, the record of this government on housing delivery speaks for itself. Since 1994, more than 2,3 million housing units have been made available to nearly 11 million people. [Applause.]
The scale of government housing delivery is second only to China and, as the Banking Association of SA pointed out when we met this week:
Government's most dramatic intervention in the welfare housing sector has been its national housing subsidy programme. The success of South Africa's housing programme is unparalleled, and we can be proud of our achievements.
Those are the words of the banks, not ours. [Applause.]
This work continues unabated and, as things stand today, we have more than 8 000 human settlement projects under way across the country, with preliminary figures translating this into the construction of 219 000 housing units in the past financial year. At the same time, there is a need for realism as we go forward. We must learn to be candid inside this House, and with the nation at large.
Despite all these commendable efforts, the housing backlog has grown in leaps and bounds from 1,5 million housing units in 1994, and that backlog now stands at approximately 2,1 million. What does that mean? It means that approximately 12 million South Africans are still in need of better shelter. We have, therefore, hardly moved in just breaking the backlog, never mind the numbers associated with natural population growth.
As a reflection of the increased demand, the number of informal settlements has ballooned to more than 2 700 - 70 of which, by the way, are slums occupied solely by white people. Recently, when accompanying President Zuma in Pretoria, we saw an example of what white poverty meant. We can, therefore, make this statement: Let's not play about with poverty. It knows no colour line.
This partly explains the phenomenon of service delivery protests. Such protests in themselves fall within a democratic culture of protesting. But let's also make this clear: We join Minister Shiceka in condemning the violent behaviour in some of these protests, as well as the destruction of property. While we are all working hard to find solutions, such protests must be based on the needs of our people, not violence. The reality is that we are currently only able to clear the housing backlog at a rate of 10% per annum. With the current pace of delivery and resources at our disposal, mindful of continued economic and population growth and the rapid pace of urbanisation, it could take us many decades just to break the backlog. In real terms, as a country, we have hardly moved.
Ka Sepedi bare ke go fatela morago bjale ka kgogo. [In Sepedi they say that it is more like wading through treacle.]
Nevertheless, we can never turn our backs on the poor. It is not their fault, nor should poverty be used as a political football. The scale of the problem, from a Human Settlements point of view, has already been brought to the attention of government colleagues in a presentation to the extended Cabinet lekgotla recently.
Of significance are the Human Settlements presentations that were made during the Presidential Co-ordinating Council last month. Ministers, as well as premiers and members of Salga were present, and we were led in discussion by President Zuma himself. In respect of Human Settlements, it was recognised during this Presidential Co-ordinating Council that the current fiscal allocations from this House are inadequate - with the potential unintended consequence that budget allocations do not match the expanded mandate of Human Settlements.
Also captured in the discussion was the fact that, although budgets were important, our work also required thorough co-ordination with government stakeholders in all three spheres, as well as with the private sector and civil society.
Consequently, we hereby announce to members of the House and the public at large that the President, who has taken a keen interest in poverty alleviation and service delivery, has instructed that a special Presidential Co-ordinating Council be held on 18 May to focus all the efforts of government and other stakeholders, including experts, on only one topic on the agenda: Human Settlements. The Presidency and the Ministry have already held one meeting so that we go into this special Presidential Co-ordinating Council adequately prepared.
Regarding "Towards Human Settlements 2030", questions are being asked about what will continue to propel the South African economy beyond the current infrastructural developments which are also associated with the 2010 Fifa World Cup starting 50 days from now. Undoubtedly, the World Cup will be a resounding success. South Africa has constructed massive highways, iconic stadia, world-class airports and state- of-the-art technology platforms.
The target for Human Settlements ought to be nothing less than an enhanced vision, driven by a similar energy and passion to the World Cup 2010, but this time around it is Human Settlements 2030. It is important that we think creatively about large-scale human settlements as the stadia, airports and highways of our people.
To that end, we, as South Africans, must explore the possibility of marshalling resources in a similar fashion to the way we impressed the world, and correctly so, with preparations for the World Cup. Many South Africans who live in depressed conditions should and need to be impressed as well.
The current large-scale mobilisation of human, capital, financial, logistical, construction, project management and other resources should not be allowed to dissipate after the final World Cup whistle. The potential exists for the whole country to be turned into one large construction site as we build sustainable human settlements in various localities.
In this regard, the role of the National Planning Commission led by Trevor Manuel, whose responsibility it is to develop an overarching national strategic development plan, becomes crucial because our planning tasks as Human Settlements can only succeed within such a broad framework. To an extent, the same applies to the participation of other departments associated with macroeconomic development issues.
In crafting our vision, we are mindful that a child born today will be 20 years old by 2030 and will need somewhere to live. We should be planning for the needs of that future adult.
In order to succeed, Human Settlements 2030 must be for and by the youth because it is about their future homes, whether they be apartments, bachelor flats and so on; in rural settlements or urban cities and towns. This also contributes to economic growth and job creation. This campaign should be owned by the youth.
Housing construction and manufacturing are some of the key drivers of the economy. They stimulate every sector, be it mining, agriculture, manufacturing, construction, wholesale, retail and finance, which is the lifeblood of any economy. There is no successful industrialised nation today which has human settlements on the back burner, or merely for social welfare purposes. In this context, the department is forging stronger relationships with the financial sector, which plays a central role in providing credit and housing finance, and in driving the economy.
During recent engagements with the country's major banks - all of them - we came away satisfied at the positive outcomes, and we can confirm to the House that we agreed to form a joint working team to look into various aspects of housing finance, including how to generate innovative ideas around the R1 billion government guarantee fund referred to earlier. Those who stand to benefit from such a financial platform include, inter alia, nurses, teachers, police officers, prison warders, government officials, certain categories of management, blue-collar workers and other workers.
We emphasised to the institutions that in putting the floor under their operations in this "gap market" to mitigate the risks, while also providing an opportunity to beneficiaries, financial prudence should remain paramount in accordance with the regulatory requirements of the country. In no way can there be recklessness in lending practices, which may lead to flippant calls upon the government guarantee fund. Similarly, beneficiaries are well- advised to exercise responsibility by adhering to the terms and conditions under which credit is made available.
Furthermore, in our discussions with financial institutions we raised concerns about their compliance with the Home Loan and Mortgage Disclosure Act under whose prescript institutions are required to provide the Minister of Human Settlements with information in their annual financial statements on lending patterns. As we said to them, such information has to be accurate, timeous and comprehensive to allow for its consolidation and analysis by the department. This enables us to assess the performance of these institutions in providing credit to all South Africans who qualify beyond the "gap market".
The Ministry is committed to playing an activist role in monitoring the banks' performance, in the interests of regulating the homeowners' property market, while being alive to the complexity and sensitivity of the operations of financial institutions.
We also assured financial institutions of our commitment to strengthening our own disclosure office and - to the extent where Human Settlements is concerned - to examine and, where possible, to ease any onerous reporting procedures without diminishing their compliance in respect of the Home Loan and Mortgage Disclosure Act.
With regard to the current budget, which is allocated to Human Settlements for the provision of housing subsidies to the bottom-most end of the market - the poorest of the poor, who largely earn anything between R0 and R3 500 a month - the total budget from this House is R16,2 billion for the 2010-11 financial year. Over the 2010 MTEF period the conditional grant to provinces grows from R15 billion in 2010-11 to R17,9 billion in 2012-13. A large percentage of this is allocated to provinces in the form of housing development grants.
In addition, starting from this financial year, we have an allocation of R1,2 billion for the sanitation programme to contribute to easing rural infrastructure backlogs for the MTEF period.
A total of R377,2 million has been allocated to human settlements institutions. An amount of R151,8 million is allocated to the new Social Housing Regulatory Authority; R49,5 million to the Rural Housing Loan Fund; and R69,3 million to the Housing Development Agency. In the 2009-10 financial year, R12,4 billion was transferred to provinces, which had spent R12,2 billion, or 98% of their funds, by 21 April.
As we plan and implement our expenditure, it is appropriate that we emphasise several positive developments taking place within Human Settlements, which are already contributing towards us achieving the targets set in Outcome 8 and towards our vision of Human Settlements 2030. These include the following: first, the increased roll-out of sanitation infrastructure programmes in rural areas. The second week of May 2010 has been declared Sanitation and Hygiene Week. We must emphasise that sanitation is not only about health and hygiene, but also about human dignity. People should be able to conduct their sanitary functions in private, as opposed recent scandalous to reports of toilets in the veld. [Interjections.]