I would nevertheless deny that I am deliberately or otherwise misleading this House, Chairperson.
Hon Kalyan, our information is that we had such a problem towards the end of last year. The Minister at the time, Minister Hogan, did go to the Free State to personally investigate the matter and verified that the report was true. She promptly went ahead to mobilise resources, financial and otherwise, to ensure that people were put back on treatment and that measures for sustaining the programme were put in place. If indeed the hon member is suggesting that there is a recurrence of the problem, we will be able to verify it by the end of this week, which is Friday, and we should be in a position to report to the House on our findings. Thank you very much.
Contingency measure to prevent large-scale repossession of houses
24. Ms B N Dambuza (ANC) asked the Minister of Human Settlements:
(1) Whether his department has engaged with the banking sector and home loan agencies to draw up contingency measures to prevent the large-scale repossession of houses due to the current economic recession and the consequent defaulting of bondholders on their payments; if not, why not; if so, what are the relevant details;
(2) (a) how many houses have been repossessed during the period 1 April 2009 up to the latest specified date for which information is available and (b) what is the total monetary value of houses repossessed during this period? NO1095E