Chairperson, it is a catch-22 situation. Firstly, all South Africans, and all of us, have equal rights. Secondly, as government, and with resources passed by this House, we allocate housing to the poor. The objective or the intention is not to imprison them into that asset forever. They should not just be owners of an asset but must also participate in the property market; be able to have a house and to sell it.
There are strict rules that apply to Reconstruction and Development Programme, RDP, houses. They can only be sold after a certain period of time. I agree with you, hon member, that in some instances we find people selling those houses and getting rid of these government-provided assets before the allocated timelines. That is what we have to prevent. They sell these houses to unscrupulous elements within business, law firms, certain banking officials and, in certain situations, to immigrants coming from as far afield as Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and so on.
Nothing is wrong with people coming here. But there is something wrong with people coming to this country and robbing the poor, taking away those important assets that have been given by government in the form of subsidies. So we want to act within that. But, as we do so, we should not be disempowering ordinary people from being just like all of us here: having an asset and being able to trade that asset at a given moment so that they can materialise it and move on. But I'm saying that we are going to look very carefully at how we prescribe and proscribe these timelines, to prevent abuse of the system. Thank you. [Applause.]