Hon Chair, hon Minister and Deputy Minister, I must say to the Deputy Minister that I think she probably feels very lonely when she looks at the gender composition of the delegation. She must be very lonely. Nevertheless, I must also say that I find it very interesting for the hon Gunda to have spoken in the manner that he did. Being from the same province, I know that the hon Gunda's construction company has been declared insolvent precisely because of the issues he raised. So that is very interesting, Chair.
I also find quite interesting the way in which the DA and Cope in particular approached the debate. It reminded me of the Nationalist Party. The Nationalist Party, in fact, adopted the Freedom Charter as not only their living, but guiding document.
Immediately after the Freedom Charter, the Nationalist Party went to their general council and declared that there was no sense in their existence, because the Freedom Charter and the ANC were the most relevant vehicles to follow. So, they are probably trying to say to us that, yes, of course, the ANC ... [Interjections.] Of course it is; it is.
I pity the MEC from the Western Cape, if he is still the MEC, and Helen Zille has not dismissed him already, because he agreed with the Minister's speech, and the Minister premised his entire speech on the Freedom Charter which Helen Zille does not agree with. That is why I wonder if he has not already been dismissed.
Yes, of course, hon Lees, the ANC will always be the first organisation to accept critique, precisely because the ANC is guided by a very fundamental principle of self-criticism. We don't wait for the opposition to criticise us, but instead are upfront. Where we are doing well, we'll say we are doing well. Where we don't do well, we'll say we don't do well - and that's exactly what our hon Minister did.
He made an assessment and he accepted that, yes, of course, there are certain things that did not go well and that there are certain things that did go well. There are areas the ANC-led government needs to improve in order to ensure that the lives of our people improve for the better in this particular dispensation.
The chairperson of the select committee also emphasised this issue, because it's a matter that really did not go well with us as a committee. One of the challenges facing the country, as we move towards achieving the Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty, and that the ANC has identified, is the question of the aggressive creation of employment through infrastructure development.
We are faced with global economic challenges. Yes, of course, we are seeing unscrupulous behavioural patterns emerging not only in South Africa, but in the world, and these patterns are also right on the doorstep of South Africa, on its borders. As a result, you will see that the infrastructure instruments we are going to need in order to advance or expand our programme of ensuring that we create employment for our people are going to be compromised. It is, therefore, important that the department be very sharp in ensuring that, as we deal with this particular issue, we do not do anything wrong.
For us as the committee there is the issue of rural housing development. We have seen a particular pattern, of course. We want to develop or change the structure and fibre of rural areas in the townships - change the kind of house we are building in these particular areas.
I would like to give examples of a number of areas, but, in this instance, let's take the North West where you will find a village with four-roomed RDP-structured houses. Our people in these particular areas do not want to move into these houses, because these are not the type of houses they want. They believe that the rural or village nature of their areas must be preserved. So, we think, as a committee, that it is important to look very carefully into this particular area or we'll end up with a situation in which we are left with houses that are not occupied by people who qualify to occupy these houses.
We have also realised as a committee - Chair and hon Minister - that the bulk of the budget of the department goes to provinces through transfers and that there is a decline in your budget - even after your annual report or the previous department's annual report. The difficulties the department experienced through intergovernmental relations in housing provision are acknowledged. We still find a decrease in the subprogramme as allocated. We would have expected that, having identified this as a problem, the department would have increased the budget in order to increase the capacity of provinces to improve the capacity of municipalities in the provision of houses.
So, I think this is an issue that the department needs to look at seriously, because that particular subprogramme dealing with intergovernmental relations needs to be beefed up to ensure that your provinces are capacitated and that your municipalities are capacitated. Also, this will give the necessary support to your contractors in our provinces and so forth.
Linked to that is the question of the President's statement committing the administration to the creation of 500 000 jobs by December through the Expanded Public Works Programme. We are saying that the department is not really telling us exactly what the buy-in is. What exactly is the department going to do to ensure that it contributes towards the creation of these 500 000 jobs?
We need to strengthen our capacity or involvement in building co-operatives to ensure that young people form themselves into co-operatives, for example, in brick-making, in plumbing or in whatever activity has to do with the process of building or the building environment. Thank you very much, Chairperson. As the ANC we support the Vote and hope that the department will do well. [Time expired.] [Applause.]