Programme Director,
Minister of Provincial and Local Government, Sydney Mufamadi
Honourable Chairperson of SALGA, Councillor Amos Masondo,
MECs for Housing
MECs for Local Government
The new Chairperson of the Local Government Portfolio Committee,  Mr Lechesa Tsenoli
Chairperson of the Select Committee on Social Services, Mr. JR Tau
Members of the SALGA National Executive Committee,
Honourable Executive Mayors, Mayors and Councilors present,
My Acting Director-General,
Provincial Housing HODs
Officials from the Public Sector,
Municipal Managers and other municipal officials
Ladies and Gentlemen: 
I am glad we have finally come to this point where we can come together to discuss matters that are central to our delivery system and our ability to meet the urgent needs of our people. Never before has the need to come together been as compelling as it is today. For while great strides in housing delivery have been achieved in the past decade, we now find ourselves challenged in our ability to deliver by an unprecedented exponential growth of housing needs compounded by rapid urbanization and migration, and an increasing anger from beneficiaries about the pace of our delivery.  

Hosting this Indaba in the context of seeking ways to break new ground in housing delivery, we have to consciously use as our backdrop the deep rooted history of dispossession in this country as we discuss the housing challenge facing us. We have to be concerned about the eradication of the basis of the contradictions that presently characterize our country which is manifest across all our areas. We must, in addition, be concerned about the widespread difficulties in the form of blockages and inefficiencies that continue to plague our housing delivery chain for us to rise to the challenge of breaking new ground in housing delivery.

In declaring itself against everything that the previous government stood for, our new government has put in place policies for the eradication of all impediments standing against access to housing by everyone. Because of the scale of the housing challenge faced by this country we now however need more bolder interventions to bring about rapid delivery of sustainable human settlements.

Thus, building on the achievements of the first ten years of our democracy we now have a new Plan – the Comprehensive Plan on Sustainable Human Settlements, that my Deputy Director General will later present in greater detail, with which we aim to break new ground in the housing delivery. We are determined, in terms of the Plan, to achieve integrated communities where the poor will not continue to be marginalized through even the failure to plan in an integrated fashion by the three spheres of government.

The Plan is a clear expression of government’s intent to, on the basis of social, economical and spatial integration, achieve sustainable communities. It consolidates our housing delivery strategies to date to give effect to the building of communities that reflect our hard won democracy and the spirit of the Constitution. It envisions communities that are enabled to create a better life for themselves.  

We have recognized that urbanization is rapidly changing our spatial landscape - thus presenting us with both threats and opportunities to sustainable development. To counter the threat amongst other things, therefore, we need to create a beneficial relation between the urban and the rural parts of our country instead of maintaining a superficial and unsustainable dichotomy between the two. The National Spatial Development Perspective is instructive in this regard.

Therefore to both counter the threat and create opportunities we collectively need a deeper understanding of the inter-governmental context within which all the housing development must take place. This would be to ensure that indeed, and in the spirit and vision of the Freedom Charter, the integration of communities would bring forth the kind of society we have fought for, where there are decent houses for all, as well as security and comfort.  

The Plan is meant to tackle our problems at the most fundamental level – the level that you are responsible for. You will understand therefore why this is so important. Perhaps all of us here should have done everything possible to have had this consultation earlier.

It conceptualizes informal settlements upgrading that is designed to progressively improve the tenure rights and living conditions of people living in informal settlements. It not only provides for improved governance but also creates the conditions that are necessary for the creation of a People’s Contract between government, at all spheres, with communities.

The Plan also gives scope for the active participation of private sector construction and finance organizations in the construction of human settlements. Given our concerns about the needs of the poorest of the poor including those who can relatively afford to pay for a house we want to strengthen sectoral interventions that address the creation of a broader range of housing options. We believe that in this manner would be able to also address the needs of people with higher incomes, who are key to creating the necessary market conditions for a healthy, wealth-creating residential sector.

You would know that on 30^th March we concluded a landmark Memorandum of Understanding with the Banking Council of South Africa as part of the work on the Financial Services Charter. Through the Memorandum of Understanding the Banks pledged to invest a target of R42 billion by 2008 in the form of various options of housing finance for the lower middle income sector. This will allow for increased home ownership among the medium income group and also go a long way in ensuring a single functional residential market – including our townships, which continue in some cases to reflect the ugly legacy of apartheid including red-lining.

Furthermore, on the 23^rd of September 2005 we concluded yet another landmark by signing a “Social Contract for Rapid Housing Delivery” between Government and the Private sector and NGO partners. This is one of several efforts to cement the partnership between government and the industry players in the housing delivery chain. The Social Contract for Rapid Housing Delivery includes commitments towards a common goal by government as expressed in the Comprehensive Plan for Sustainable Human Settlements and commitments, among others, of the construction sector, materials suppliers, property developers, banking sector, financial sector, and research institutions.

We believe that the improved partnerships environment, the specifications for housing and settlements as well as the options of accessing well located land and the assembling of a wider set of financial instruments with the involvement of the private sector, will mean that it is possible to achieve integrated human settlements and increase the delivery of qualitatively better housing opportunities. 

The alignment of resources and co-ordination of efforts continue to surface as areas for continued improvement in our collective work. Within government at the national sphere, cabinet sought to ensure that we can work smatter and closer together in an Inter-Ministerial Committee that was established when the new Plan was adopted. This Inter-Ministerial Committee allows us to collectively address issues of resource alignment and co-ordination of delivery instruments within a focused environment. And given the scope of work and the bold instruments entailed in the plan, we have opted for increased inter-governmental co-operation requiring a unique commitment of the three spheres of government to work in a collaborative and co-operative manner to effect immediate, meaningful and sustainable improvements in the living conditions of our people. I am very optimistic that we will leave this Indaba having worked out how this co-operation will be realized around the responsibility to housing.

This Indaba is important specifically for us within government - across the three spheres - to pay attention to issues that impact on our collective ability to realize sustainable human settlements. Through the Indaba, we must come out with a compact, consistent with sound inter-governmental relations principles that my Cabinet colleague, Minister Mufamadi will later reflect on, that will channel all our collective energies and respective mandates as national, provincial and local government towards the realization of sustainable human settlements and heighten the urgency in the delivery of housing opportunities.

Together with my colleagues in the Housing MINMEC, Housing MECs and the SALGA leadership, we realized that municipalities have not been given a clear mandate for housing delivery. We also noted that not enough capacity exists in municipalities to carry housing delivery – simply because we did not specifically build nor fund such capacity. As such we came to a conclusion that in cases where municipalities have an acute lack of capacity to perform housing functions we need to urgently attend to that matter.

We also know that international best practice indicates that efficiency in delivery is best achieved at the sphere of government closest to the communities. However the precondition for that is a properly funded and an adequately capacitated sphere of government with the appropriate constitutional mandate to deliver on those functions or responsibilities.

In terms of the Comprehensive Plan for Sustainable Human Settlements we envisage that municipalities will play a much more substantial role in the delivery of sustainable human settlements. In this regard, and through the accreditation of selected municipalities, we are seeking to devolve and assign the housing functions on the basis of sound funding arrangements and accountability, appropriate governance arrangements, as well as systematic capacity development of the provinces and municipalities. Such accreditation will be structured in a manner that enables accelerated delivery on key housing priorities manifesting in our local areas.

The simple reality that faces all of us is that – rightly so - our communities are interested in the ultimate delivery of housing opportunities to them. They are less interested in knowing which sphere of government is responsible for delivering housing; nor are they interested in hearing about the convoluted processes within government that seem to fail in realizing housing opportunities for all.

The recent protests across the municipalities have highlighted these realities. Situations arose where because of failures to perform in respect of housing delivery communities then decide to simply march to the municipality and knock on the Mayor’s door demanding speedy delivery. Invariably the Mayors were then placed in some very awkward positions where they were required to account for responsibilities that did not belong to their spheres of governance. In other cases, the delivery failures of municipalities were blamed on both the national and provincial governments. And worse still, frustrations boiled over on account of some lengthy processes that needed to be followed in all the three spheres of governments to address certain complaints and grievances.

The fundamental issue to realize therefore is that government needs to be a single seamless entity whose local face and presence within communities comes through municipalities. In this context together we must seek to commit to a compact that will enable us to impact fundamentally on both inequality and poverty within municipalities to help integrate society. The additional role that the metropolitan and city municipalities will possess through the accreditation process will mean that spatial and economic development can more easily be directly managed at local government to help us achieve this goal.  

The proposed compact will also serve as a basis for a plan that will ensure that municipalities, the provinces, national government including parastatals can prioritize land in favor of housing before selling it away. It means that we must be in agreement on prioritizing prime land for sustainable human settlements – this with a view to integrating communities. In this regard it may be necessary to consider a moratorium on the sale of public and state land until such time that across the three spheres of government, we are clear on processes and priorities for alienating land.

An additional element of the compact would be to ensure that in fighting poverty we create employment.

The compact must guarantee a three-tier intervention whenever it is necessary. It must be instructive in how we structure our relationships in manner that allow us to govern co-operatively across spheres of government, recognizing that in effect we are a single government, albeit, being constituted as national, provincial and local spheres, which are distinctive, interdependent and interrelated.

Realizing this will, among other things, mean that the necessary permits for construction can be obtained much faster. It also means that the constructors will be paid on time to situations where contractors are not paid in time. We must, in other words, through this Indaba put in place practical measures that will boost our collective performance in housing delivery. Our collective task today is to shape this necessary consensus that will guide us forward, working together.

Furthermore, the Indaba gives us the rare opportunity to analyze and interpret the Comprehensive Plan in a common manner and to internalize what it means for each sphere of government. In doing so, however, my appeal is that we avoid re-stating the known problems. I would like that we focus our efforts towards enhancing the solutions that are emerging so we can move forward rapidly. Solutions abound and let us shape them in the commissions after lunch.

Finally, this Indaba allows us to craft a common commitment to deliver to our people and relieve them from their misery, because together we can. Together we share a common inspiration to serve this country, the political will and commitment to lead government’s assault on poverty, squalor and spatial segregation. I am confident that today we can deliberate on these issues and come to a common agreement that binds all of us.

I thank you.