Mthembi-Mahanyele: Limpopo Housing Conference

8 Oct 2002
Opening address by Housing Minister Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele, at the Limpopo Annual Housing Conference, Eiland

Programme Director
MEC Maswanganyi
Distinguished guests 
Ladies and gentlemen

Housing is a complicated field that needs undivided attention at all times. This implies that for a housing programme to optimally fulfil its objectives, it has to be continually reviewed and enhanced in order to meet the challenges that are associated with human settlements. This is the reason why I feel the forum of this nature is important on regular basis. I therefore welcome the initiative by the province to convene a gathering of this nature to give our stakeholders opportunity to make input to the housing strategy while also allowing for the review of the housing delivery programme. 

The World Summit on Sustainable Development that our country hosted a few weeks ago deliberated on a number of issues that relate to developmental programmes. But you will agree with me that it has also reminded us of important challenges that we are faced with in our effort to create sustainable human settlements. I must say that South Africas problems are peculiar in nature due to the legacy that we inherited. 

Despite these challenges, we have committed ourselves to achieving the internationally agreed development goals, which include those contained in the United Nations Millennium Declaration and in the outcomes of the major United Nations conferences and international agreements since 1992. 

Among these is the mammoth task of ensuring a significant improvement in the lives of slum dwellers, as proposed in the Cities without slums initiative? About 7,35 million South Africans are currently homeless but will benefit from this effort, which will include actions at all, levels to do the following:

  • To improve access to land and property, and to adequate shelter and basic services for the urban and rural poor, with special attention to female-headed households;

  • To use low-cost and sustainable materials and appropriate technologies for the construction of adequate and secure housing for the poor, taking into account their culture, climate, specific social conditions and vulnerability to natural disasters;

  • To increase decent employment, credit and income for the urban poor, through appropriate national policies, promoting equal opportunities for women and men;

  • To remove unnecessary regulatory and other obstacles for micro-enterprises and the informal sector;

  • To support local authorities in elaborating slum upgrading programmes within the framework of urban development plans and facilitate access, particularly for the poor, to information on housing legislation.

Another challenge to which our country has committed itself is the provision of clean drinking water and adequate sanitation, which is necessary to protect human health and the environment. In this respect, countries of the world have agreed to halve, by the year 2015, the proportion of people who are unable to reach or to afford safe drinking water and the proportion of people who do not have access to basic sanitation. Among the steps that need to be undertaken are:

  • To develop and implement efficient household sanitation systems;

  • To promote affordable and socially and culturally acceptable technologies and practices;

  • To develop innovative financing and partnership mechanisms; and 

  • To integrate sanitation into water resources management strategies (e.g. Enviro-loos)

     

The housing policy has, over the past eight years, evolved as a major instrument to tackle homelessness, insecure tenure, and the lack of access to basic services such as electricity, running water and sanitation. The housing package, under the current governments housing subsidy system, allows for these challenges to be met. Through our programme we have managed to deliver to the people not only the houses, but linked housing to these basic aspects in order to address the basic needs of our people; roads, community centres, clinics and schools to balance the housing delivery process. 

We still have a long way to go in meeting the task of wiping out the housing backlog and creating meaningful human settlements - but we believe that constant reinforcement of our strategy will shift gears towards the quality of programme we believe our people expect. It will also help us deal with the challenges faced by the provincial and local spheres of government, which include management of budgets in an efficient manner, and ensuring co-operation at all levels.

The National Housing Subsidy Programme has proved to be very effective in serving as an instrument of social upliftment. On the other hand, it has become a demand-side market intervention to increase the effective demand for housing goods and services. The subsidy has provided an equity base against which to gear private resources in the form of sweat equity, savings and loans. 

There is no doubt that the aims of providing subsidy assistance have, within the available resources, largely been met. The National Housing Subsidy Programme, introduced in 1994 on a project linked subsidy basis only, has evolved into a comprehensive instrument providing a wide range of housing subsidies to a broad spectrum of eligible beneficiaries. 

The Limpopo province, having scrutinised the needs of its people, has creatively realigned the programme to allow for construction to take place on the existing homesteads as opposed to the initial approach of creating new settlements. This has certainly begun to improve the landscape of the old settlements and engendered a sense of pride on the housing programme to the rural beneficiaries. But where new settlements are required, construction of that nature will continue. 

A number of questions are being asked and statements made around our rural development programmes:

  • Should we rather look at maintaining the rondavel homes as an aspect of maintaining the rural ambience?

  • Shouldnt we be assisting rural housing by providing a stronger roofing to protect the environment against its continuous destruction through grass-cutting and contributing to soil erosion?

  • Shouldnt we be concentrating on information and education programmes to teach our people in rural areas issues of effective construction of housing and adherence to engineering and construction norms and standards as stipulated in the Housing Code and the Red Book? When there are natural disasters, those who suffer most are the people in weakly constructed housing.

  • This therefore implies that for those who wish to go the Peoples Housing Process route will benefit from the updated documentation of norms and standards. But those who continue to build outside the collective PHP family should be assisted. We must find the way. The CSIR has proposed a standard package for us to use and this was adopted by our February 2001 MinMec and endorsed by Cabinet. 

  • The housing programme has, over the years, allowed for a range of tenure options on an individual or group basis in urban areas and was later enhanced to include families in rural areas who have functional security of tenure in terms of the Interim Protection of Informal Land Rights Act, 1996.

  • We are still affected by the R28 Certificates in terms of the Interim Procedures Governing Land Development that require the consent of the Minister of Land Affairs be granted. This has been facilitated to assist us in continuing with development where it is needed.

  • Highlights of the National Housing Subsidy Programme since its inception up to date include:

  • The construction of about 1.4 million new housing units, and the creation of housing opportunities for 6 million people; and

  • The governments investment of more than R19,9 billion, since 1994

     

This achievement, coupled with that of the transfer of 400 000 old municipal houses for ownership by those who have been renting them has allowed us to empower 8 million people with secure homes. During my budget vote to the National Council of Provinces earlier this year, I actually expressed my gratitude to the fact that we have almost halved the number of homeless people within a period of eight years since the inception of democracy in our country.

Our change of focus from quantity to quality has managed to produce better housing in many provinces, especially through the peoples housing projects. The increase in the budget this year and in the next two financial years should help us to further improve on the quality of the houses that we build with the poor. 

It is important that as we meet in a forum of this nature, we offer ourselves an opportunity to reflect on our successes and weaknesses as well as an effective, focussed programme of action aimed at tackling the challenges that we still face. In your last housing conference, you identified three areas through which you wanted to enhance housing delivery in the province while at the same time ensuring the effective use of the resources you have. These were:

  • A procurement system that would encourage the participation of the youth, women and the disabled in the housing delivery process

  • The pivotal role of local government in housing development, and

  • The need for active community participation in the housing development process

It will be important for you to review the progress you have made on these issues and honestly identify failures in these areas in order to come up with improved strategies to address these. 

Our main challenge remains that of assisting the emerging sector to develop further as an effort of dismantling past disparities in the construction sector. The government is making strides towards the development of women and youth and it has been proven that the partnerships that we are forging with the private sector, coupled with our capacity programme and procurement systems that put more emphasis on the vulnerable can enhance the abilities of the sector in terms of helping the historically disadvantaged groups.

In addition to the challenges that I have mentioned, I want to add another one that I have identified specifically for this province: that of houses that we have built, but are unoccupied. I know pretty well that among the reasons that the MEC has identified, was the preference by the beneficiaries to have these houses built on their existing homesteads, instead of the establishment of the new settlements. For this, the province has correctly responded to the needs of the people by focussing much on what the people prefer. 

I want to propose to the Provincial Department to offer these houses to the people next on their list to ensure that government investment does not go down the drain. Maybe Honourable MEC, the applicants were not desperate, they didnt really need the shelter or maybe these houses are now holiday homes for absentee owners. 

 

It would be good for the Department to conduct an audit of this state of affairs to determine how many of these houses are still not occupied and the exact reasons for non-occupancy. Perhaps the alternative would be to allocate the unoccupied houses to the next beneficiaries on the list. All these, however, will need us to first gather all the relevant information. 

The National Department will continue to support the provinces in order to enhance their performance in housing delivery. The main focus of our provincial capacity building programmes this year is to ensure that they are aligned to both provincial and national housing priorities. 

We are currently doing training on both strategic and operational interventions to meet the needs at each level. It is therefore our feeling that the main emphasis of this kind of intervention should remain at the local government level. We still need to empower this sphere of government in areas such as waiting list compilation and management, project management, good development planning and financial management.

Each province has been allocated an amount of R1,1 million with the exception of Northern Cape, which has been allocated an amount of R1,2 million. The total amount allocated to all provinces for housing capacity building in this financial year is therefore R10 million. It is important that the programme is structured in a manner that addresses the needs of the communities. 

Lastly, let me congratulate the MEC and the provincial government for their prompt response to the urgent housing need of the Ramoshaba family of Lekgoareng who have been living in an old mini-bus for close to four years. Few days after the matter was brought to the governments attention, the provincial government facilitated the urgent construction of their house and Im happy that few weeks after I participated in the laying of the foundation of the house, it is now ready to be handed over to the family. This is also an indication that the province is gradually equipping itself in rapid response measures to housing development. 

Allow me, Programme Director, to extend my gratitude to e-tv for bringing the plight of this family to the attention of the government. It was the responsible journalism that was displayed by Jack Mokoma and his crew that has today changed the lives of this rural family. I hope this partnership that has manifested itself between us and the media will help us further development objectives we have come to review in this summit.

I wish success in all your endeavours.

I thank you.

Issued by Ministry of Housing