SPEECH BY LN SISULU MINISTER OF HOUSING AT THE OPENING OF THE XXXIII IAHS WORLD CONGRESS ON HOUSING 2005

 27 September 2005
University of Pretoria
Tshwane

                           Read by Mr. Thozamile Botha Special Advisor 

Master of Ceremonies,
Invited guests
Ladies and Gentlemen:

I need to thank the organizers of the Congress, in particular the University of Pretoria, for having extended the invitation for us to be here with you. This is a Congress that correctly does not hide its ambitions to want to influence government policies on various topical matters in housing covering areas that are wide and varied such as those that are being proposed in the themes of the Congress.  

I also note that pre-congress workshops were arranged to give some focused attention on these areas thus signifying the intent to produce quality outcomes.

Because the Congress brings together international experience and expertise I am very hopeful that our practitioners, academics and researchers would greatly benefit from these interactions. I am hopeful that they will learn how the matters we are dealing with in South Africa pertaining, in particular, to how to achieve rapid housing delivery had been dealt with internationally in order to continue to enrich the debates within our context.

Presently, three critical areas of housing policy which are not covered in your themes form part of a national dialogue in South Africa. These concern the ways and means in which to address a housing backlog that is being impacted upon by the process of urbanization and population growth; how to increase access to finance; and how to roll out an effective consumer education strategy. Being a middle income country with high levels of income inequality that are being affected by high rates of unemployment these are matters that naturally are in the public domain for debate and the formulation of solutions. In other words, these are matters that are at the centre of the immense housing challenge that presently is confronting the country.

Having devised policies in these policy areas since 1994, which policies were enhanced through the adoption of a new strategy in September 2005, namely; the Comprehensive Plan for Sustainable Human Settlements, as government we now have been directed to seeking partnerships domestically, continentally and internationally to help us address the challenges.  

Last week, for example, we concluded a social contract with 46 of our countries large and influential institutions and companies including trade unions and community organizations and civil society to help us achieve the vision of eradicating all informal settlements or slums by 2014. The contract provides for all of us a vehicle through which we collectively determine the challenges including the solutions to the challenge.  

Apart from the 46 institutions that have signed the document we expect some even more institutions to indicate their readiness to sign. We have made provision for this since we believe that the potential is still greater. At national, provincial and local levels governments has, as part of the contract, committed itself to removing obstacles that stand in the way of the rapid delivery of housing for the poor.

This moment in the history of our country is particularly exciting. For perhaps for the first time since we began the transition very clear signs are being given by all South Africans, black and white, rich and poor, that the burden to sustain and increase the political stability we have achieved collectively in the last ten years fully rests on all of us.

 As South Africa, this is undoubtedly the best practice we would like to share with the world. It has given confidence that we all share equally the solutions to our housing challenge. Hence, my fervent hope that this Congress will help us benefit more from international experiences.  

Further, when we as African Ministers dealing with housing and urban development met in February to form the African Ministerial Conference on Housing and Urban Development we had been pinning our hopes on increased international and continental interactions and partnerships to help confront the prevailing housing challenge in Africa as a whole. A few weeks, indeed, after the formation of the structure of the African Ministerial Conference on Housing and Urban Development the Commission for Africa (otherwise known to some of you as the Blair Commission) favourably looked at some of the proposals that we had given as African Ministers to solve the housing challenge within the continent. These related to increased financial resources and aid including matters related to debt cancellation within the context of partnerships.  

Against this background, as Chair of the African Ministerial Conference on Housing and Urban Development, therefore, as South Africa we were given the opportunity to advance these positions to various international fora that included the 20^th Session of the Governing Council of the United Nations Human Settlement Programme (UN-HABITAT) and the 13^th Session of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development. The recently concluded workshop in New York that was convened by India, Brazil and ourselves on mobilising resources for human settlements in middle-income had these same intentions of mobilising partnerships and creating possibilities for effective co-operation within the international community in helping us better the lives of all our people.  

The achievement of the creation of sustainable human settlements through innovative designs that make for rapid implementation is our priority. These, however, must not sacrifice quality for indeed it is this aspect that is key in the factors responsible for failures to achieve decent and secure human settlements.  

To indicate just how serious this is a problem for us I would like to quote from a research that we conducted in May 2003 on the reactions, attitudes, concerns and preferences of beneficiaries of subsidy housing which revealed widespread dissatisfaction with the quality of housing as we began the process of developing a new housing strategy for the next ten years. According to the report: 

‘Numerous anecdotes signify shoddy and weak construction.  This was raised as a major issue in 25 out of the 28 focus group discussions.  Many respondents feel their structures will not last into the future. Key complaints pertain to flimsy roofs, cracks in walls, weak doors, as well as the generally ‘unfinished’ nature of the house – such as unplastered walls and no floors. The issue of weak and leaking roofs was highlighted in almost every settlement. People mentioned roofs being blown off by wind, leaking roofs, roofs being fastened inadequately, holes in roofs and poor quality sheeting. 'Thin walls' or walls through which damp and water seeps present problems of cold and weakening walls in many areas. In addition, foundations that do not withstand water seepage are frequent complaints. The anecdotes surrounding cracks in walls suggest that there are often extremely large cracks, causing wind to blow into houses.  

Doors coming off their frames or frames separating form the walls are mentioned in several settlements as are perceived poor quality doors that expand in wet weather. In some cases identical door locks are used throughout a settlement with the result that beneficiaries have identical sets of keys and can access each other's houses. 

It concludes to say: 

‘There are a number of issues that can be grouped under the broad heading of ‘dignity’. Firstly there is clear indignation where people have the perception that they have been fobbed off with poor quality products just because they are poor.’ 

As government we are committed to enhancing the standard of living of our people by providing them with decent and secure living spaces. Thus, through our national regulator of norms and standards we have worked to improve on the specifications and the quality of housing we need. We believe this would also us achieve one of the cornerstone of our policy of creating real assets in the hands of the people.  

A further priority for us is to achieve integrated communities. One of the ways in which we would want to achieve integrated communities is to optimally utilise available resources and infrastructure and where these do not exist establish new ones. As the three key pilot projects (that is, the N2 Gateway, Cosmo City and Brickfields Housing Development) we have implemented this year for the new strategy demonstrate we aim to achieve this through innovative planning and design that will densify our residential areas to ensure we are catering for the diverse housing needs that exist. We are contemplating higher density development interventions in partnership with the private sector and communities. Social/rental housing has been prioritised as well as programmes that will create opportunities for individual households to own higher density units that will enhance income generating opportunities.

We recognize housing as a basic human right. Hence, against the background of redressing past practices we need innovative thinking, innovative design and planning, taking into account the diversity of needs.  Also important in our case are the needs of the disabled members of our communities including pensioners. 

Our interest as government in the deliberations and outcomes of this Congress stem from the key elements of our new strategy that I have outlined to you and the promise of a partnership it holds. Critically, therefore, for us the Congress would greatly assist if it were to present measures that enhance the current policy direction basing this on international experiences and achievements. Of critical importance in this regard would be policy proposals emerging from the experiences of countries, some of whom are found in East Asia and Europe, that fundamentally underwent reconstruction and needed to provide solutions for rapid housing delivery as a result. We would like to see how in these experiences massive resources were mobilized as well as how technology was put to effective use to stem a housing backlog and prevent new slums formation by governments in collaboration with the private sector and the rest of society and how best practices were developed in the areas of planning and designing including architecture and financing.  

As government therefore we will be looking forward to a full report of the Congress on the deliberations and discussions that will be formulated over the next three days.  

May you enjoy some very fruitful discussions.