SPEECH BY LN SISULU MINISTER OF HOUSING AT THE CONFERENCE OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN HOUSING FOUNDATION 

9 October 2006
Cape Sun
Cape Town

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The Premier, Mr. Ebrahim Rasool
Hon. Minister David Chapfika (Finance from Zimbabwe)
Hon. Minister Ramadeluka Seretsi - (Lands and Housing from Botswana)
Ministers and Deputy Minister of the Republic of South Africa
MEC Richard Dyantyi
Executive Mayor Helen Zille
Friends
Ladies and Gentlemen: 

Please allow me first and foremost to express my gratitude for the invitation extended to my office to attend this Conference. Also, it is with deep satisfaction that I address this august audience and share the platform with my colleagues both from here locally, and regionally.  

Here, we meet to say that the creation of a solid foundation for a prosperous and a stable future for our countries lies in the provision of housing. Our shared fate, is that we are seen by countries that over decades succeeded in overcoming the challenge to be centres of underdevelopment where hopelessness consistently describes our condition. And so we meet to indicate the contrary.  

In our context, housing is intricaly bound up with the human dignity of our people that we seek to preserve. It is bound up with the dignity of bringing up a family within the confines and the security of home. It is the foundation upon which sustainable communities are built: the essential element without which social cohesion becomes an elusive idea.  

It is in the recognition of the need to provide housing that we make emphatic the statement that people matter. Thus, as we put housing at the top of our agenda, housing becomes the rallying point for the creation of sustainable communities. It becomes the rallying point for the democratization of the economy to lay the foundation for savings.  

Democracy provides no guarantees that wealth will be shared to help fight poverty. Instead, in the event of achievements in economic growth the most result to see is of wealth being siphoned up the ladder to enrich those that are already rich. Only a balanced distribution of decent housing can stop this result thus enabling democracy to work to the advantage of everyone.  

Housing, therefore, has a critical role to play within communities.  

In the context of migration, where housing has been securely and decently developed it help retain important skills for communities.

For this reason, last year, we invited our communities, the private sector, academics and other role players to join government in a Social Contract to towards the creation of sustainable communities.  

We had taken regard that urbanization in the developing world was growing at an alarming rate increasing the number of people in slums and thereby increasing risks related to the non-delivery of basic services. Against the background, and against an appreciation of the resilience of the apartheid space economy with its dualistic character of deep-seated inequalities and inefficiencies along affluence we committed ourselves to collectively focusing on the development of sustainable communities.  

The position we took was in line with the adoption in 2000 by the world of the Millennium Declaration wherein the goal of achieving sustainable community found revitalization after years of non-achievements. What the Millenium Declaration achieved was to place for the first time the global community on a platform of co-ordinated action in the hands of the United Nations to achieve the goal of sustainable communities. In these actions, meeting the basic needs of people to alleviate poverty became the core driving motive as we noted collectively that despite the world’s achievement of extra-ordinary economic progress in the 1990s nearly half of its population lived still lived on less than $2 per day.  

We noted too that an estimated 1.2 billion people – 500 million in South Asia and 300 million in Africa – struggled on less than $1 a day.  

No other period in history has seen more political commitment to the attainment of this objective by both Africa and developing countries. Yet, at the same time, no other period has seen developed countries more failing and less obliging in partnership. They have, instead been more ready and willing to participate in relief efforts in humanitarian crisises whose roots themselves lie in the non-achievement of sustainable communities.  

At the global level, the challenge to create sustainable communities lies indeed here. For no other time in history has required of developing countries including Africa to incessantly negotiate a favorite climate from the international community that would make delivery possible. On account of limited state resources due to unequal power relations our Century is thus one that is being characterized by efforts to have the developed world reduce barriers to trade, increased official development assistance, increase foreign direct investment and scrap international debts.  

As South Africa, we accented to the achievement of a united global action after the attainment of political freedom in 1994. Our subsequent changing of the legislative and policy frameworks to enable the achievement of sustainable communities possible was in part the implementation of the provision within the Preamble of our Constitution guiding the state to effect improvements in the quality of all its citizens. On the other hand, it was a demonstration of our commitment to carrying out our international obligations thus helping the international community to progress in achieving an end to world poverty.  

I dare say that within a ten year period the changing of the legislative framework and policies in accordance with both the prescripts of our Constitution and international obligations has made the achievement of some important results possible. Social grants that are aimed against poverty alleviation have increased more than three fold since 1994. Between 1994 and 2004 for the 10 percent of the poorest households access to water was increased by 187 percent. Access to electricity grew by 578 percent and access to housing by 42 percent. Since 2000, in addition, there has been recorded a marked decline in poverty, from approximately 18,5 million to approximately 15,4 million by 2004.  

But whilst these may be seen as important results, and indeed they have tempted many to conclude that South Africa was on the way to achieving the Millennium Development Goals, the reality of urbanization is exerting tremendous challenges. The phenomenon is drastically changing the spatial characteristics of our cities and towns as demonstrated by the decline in some and growth in others that in the past had been smaller.  

From the lessons of apartheid however we have learned that the growth of urban areas cannot be stopped and can only be managed through a set of correct policies and the requisite collaboration amongst all the stakeholders. These lessons have showed that indeed it is only through the creation of sustainable communities that a sustainable growth path for any country becomes possible. More so when you consider that small towns that in some cases have quite meager economic bases are increasingly becoming receivers of migrants, mainly made up of women, from the rural areas. 

The challenge is at the scale that the movement of people from the rural areas urban residents will reach 5 billion by 2030. This growth is highest in Sub-Saharan Africa (4,58%), followed by South-Eastern Asia (3,82%), Eastern Asia (3,39%), Western Asia (2,96%), Southern Asia (2,89%) and Northern Africa (2,48%). And because it is highest in Sub-Saharan Africa there is therefore more urgency here on our part to take the necessary steps.  

Hence, the idea of the Innovation Hub that we have developed and have begun to implement in Gauteng. Through it we hope to generate cheaper and alternative building materials that are energy efficiency and quicker to put up to help address the housing backlog. Already, in this project, the initial 20 houses have been built by the National Home Builders' Registration Council in association with ABSA. A second project in Johannesburg is also being put up whilst other provinces are also putting up theirs.  

It is our hope that the availability of cheaper and alternative building material, once it has been found to be efficient, will also help us address the challenges relating to the rising cost of the material needed including its shortage. We would know; for instance, that from the data collected by the Bureau for Economic Research the price of cement has in the past seven years more than doubled and that in 2005 alone building costs accelerated by 17,5% and in the first half of 2006 by 6,2%. For us this is indeed a worrying trend that is bound to have major implications on our ability to roll out low cost housing and thereby create sustainable communities.  

It is also worrying in view of the programme to meet the demand caused by expectations flowing from the 2010 World Cup. For here it will not only be the development of low-cost housing that will require an adequate supply of building material, particularly cement, but also the provision of social housing that is key in the integration of different income groupings.  

I fully trust that the suppliers would be able to take the necessary steps to ensure an increase in supply and that prices are accordingly moderated. Through the Task Team on the Social Contract we would also be discussing these matters to ensure that in accordance with the Social Contract agreements are indeed kept by all parties to the Contract.   

Housing is the most visible indicator of the economic health of any country. It is a clear indicator of the distribution of wealth and in our case the clearest indicator of the extent of exclusion of the poor from the economy. Let us all work together consistently to attain the sustainability of our communities.  

I thank you.