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SPEECH BY LN SISULU MINISTER OF HOUSING AT THE BANQUET OF THE NATIONAL URBAN AND RECONSTRUCTION HOUSING AGENCY (NURCHA) IN CELEBRATION OF TEN YEARS OF DEMOCRACY 6 October 2004 Birchwood Hotel, Johannesburg
Chairperson Recently we attended a UN-Habitat conference whose main emphasis was to trace the road we have traveled since the World Summit on Sustainable Development, and to pick up and learn from international best practices. As in most of these international for a – one thing did become clear: as the developing countries grapple with poverty, diseases, wars and debt relief and all those other things that plagues that are forever our burden; the other side of the railway line in this global village has a different preoccupation which is the threat of international terrorism. This indeed is a real threat, and coming from the environment of security – I can attest to that. This has become of such a major importance to the other side that very little else can find its way to the real agenda. Making a mockery of all those lofty ideal that we had all committed ourselves to that we now call the Millennium Development Goals, as all funding diverted by this sector to fighting wars that are unlikely to end terror. And we sit through this amazing irony in the history of modern times. This which plagues us now as terror cannot be eliminated by brute force, or else history has not taught us anything. As South Africa we have taken a position that wherever we are, we will raise these issues, if only to prick the conscience of the rich, if only to ensure that the agenda of the poor, those who are dehumanized and live out their lives in conditions of extreme deprivation and indignity can be brought to the fore. This we do because we remain convinced that poverty is as great a threat to our security and that we ignore it at our collective peril. But apart from this conscience pricking exercise we have determined that we will meet our Millennium Development Goals and provide the people of the continent with lessons on what is possible. As we celebrate our ten years of democracy, we are proud of our successes, convinced that indeed we are the beacon of hope we should be, because in South Africa it is possible. The history of our struggle has created a unique people, a people with a social conscience, a people who understand deprivation, hunger, homelessness and despair. A people who have pulled themselves from the edge of the cliff. We have no choice but to succeed, for our sake, for Africa’s sake. As a government we are happy with the progress we have made because it has laid a solid basis for us to do better and faster. And we are here today celebrating an auspicious day – the tenth year of a precocious child. NURCHA is her strange name. It has to be female, because given a choice; no one now would choose any other gender. Her birth and early years are the stuff of irony and contradiction. A billionaire from the United States and a politician from South Africa were very content to share paternity and not contest it. The mid-wife we are lucky to have here with us today. Both fathers were sold a dream: a million houses for people who could not afford them, in settled communities who did not want them, to be built by ‘emerging’ builders who could not build them, supported by banks that would not bank them. Neither of the fathers had ever built a house in their lives, lived in a poor community, nor tried to borrow money without collateral. But they believed in the dream child. And this NURCHA child was only given five years to live – so those who joined the team, the best most experienced and most committed people who could be recruited – gave up secure jobs to work in an NGO that had a planned life of only five year! No future, no pension, no guarantees, no golden handshakes – lots of risks, very little monetary reward. Now NURCHA is nearly ten years old and she is vibrant and healthy; proof of the unlikely that dreams can come dream, that the greatest risk is to do nothing, and the most meaningful reward is knowing that you have done your best to make a difference. NURCHA could only have survived and thrived in the new South Africa with its remarkable determination to do things differently. We celebrate both. Since it was established in 1995 to provide guarantees for small contractors it fulfilled its mandate in the first term of its existence. Between 1995 and 1999 it mobilized capital for 45 318 houses. It provided guarantees for 543 areas that had been denied investment by financial institutions mobilized R77 million for women contractors. Today Chairperson I feel very happy that NURCHA has been part of this countries achievement. Indeed, it rarely happens in the life of any nation that celebrations such as these are matched by an actual record of achievement. In our lifespan, in the ten years of our democracy in other words we have something tangible to show. We close the first two terms of democratic government having laid a form foundation for even greater achievements in the next five years. Against this backdrop, I would like to introduce you to what a recently (in August) conducted research by Monitor Group has to say about these achievements. Basing itself on a synopsis of views of some key stakeholders, and opinion leaders on housing the research says: ‘Government finds itself confronted with the difficult challenge of having made considerable progress (by one measure at least having exceeded) against its own defined targets for housing delivery, yet the number of people living in informal housing structures is larger today than it was in 1994. This challenge represents, in some respects, a critical insight into how success in policy can be measured. At one level, the level of outputs, government has made significant impact on the lives of 1,6 million households. These 1,6 million families today live in a formal structure which they previously did not. However, in terms of the overall impact on society, this success has not been enough. At the level of ‘outcomes” – the broader impact on quality of life – there remain 2,2 million households who live informal housing. And this number is growing.’ It proceeds to say: ‘The growth in households who are inadequately housed is a function of growth and the demographic structure of South African society. At one level, the population is growing, and new households are being formed every day. At another, families are moving – primarily from rural to urban centres. And so, demand for housing is growing in a context where economic growth and households incomes and prosperity are not growing as quickly.’ We have now moved on to the comprehensive Plan as approved by Cabinet. The comprehensive Plan is a vehicle through which we will deliver this critical challenge in housing. It seeks; amongst other thing, to eradicate informal settlements by 2014. Alongside the positive response we got from the public and the private sector about the plan were however also responses that even as we complete ten years of reconstructing a society by engendering a national consensus were responses that showed an inability to both understand and empathize. The Citizen; for example, writes in its editorial of 6 September that whilst it welcomed the announcement of the comprehensive Plan the poor needed to ‘be accommodated in a reasonable manner’. But what does it mean to be accommodated ‘in a reasonable manner’? The editorial continues, ‘only sustained economic growth will bring them into the mainstream.’ Others of course, have been quick to point out that a ‘new theoretical approach and a new set of targets will not create sustainable settlements’. But if the record of the NURCHA assisted projects is anything to go by to those who are cynical it is possible to answer these questions that given the resources that government is ploughing in, it should be possible. The difficulty that government has consistently been experiencing since 1994 concerns the extent to which the private sector is able to match the investment that government makes into communities in light in particular of the fact that as a result of peace and stability since 1994 business conditions were improved in the country. It is relevant to ask now, therefore, with what kind of consciousness will private sector enter the next five years? Over the past ten years, NURCHA played a critical role in attempting to address the investment concerns of the private sector in terms of risks. In this regard it has achieved the kind of progress we have talked about. In doing so NURCHA also made certain businesses more profitable, and there has indeed not been any research which indicated that some companies pulled out because the risks that they had feared materialized and resulted in those companies losing large sums of money. In wanting to eradicate informal settlements by 2014, and in wanting to increase access to housing finance to all South Africans we envisage the role that NURCHA is playing would need to be supported by private sector funding. We will need to harness this sector as a matter of urgency for NURCHA to align itself to the new Plan and deliver in the way they have done over the past ten years, and to increase speed. Once again, I would like to congratulate NURCHA on the achievements it has made. Let us now get down to envisioning ourselves in the next five years. Our people look up to us to deliver them out of squalor. To conclude, I want to borrow the words of the great Chief Albert Luthuli when he says: ‘You dare not fail them for failing them is failing the best in life - LIBERTY, for which they and others throughout the ages everywhere have sacrificed all to secure it and preserve it. We young fighters for freedom in this age stand between these heroes of freedom and posterity and our bounden duty is to defend and preserve this divine heritage – liberty, and all it stands for - and hand it unimpaired to generations’. I thank you.
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