Minister of Human settlements Connie September today met, for the first time, with human settlements MECs from all the nine provinces to find ways of strengthening the performance of the sector.

The meeting agreed that the speeding up of housing delivery is a non-negotiable when millions of South Africans are still living under inhumane conditions without adequate access to housing and basic services.

"The time to talk must come to an end. We need to focus on real deliverables that our communities are expecting of us,” September told MINMEC and senior officials.

Minister September told the meeting that key priorities for the remainder of the current term of government were:

1. The speeding up of sanitation rollout programme before the end of the current term of government;
2. Mitigating on underperformance issues by reallocation of unspent funds by provinces to other performing projects;
3. To intensify the handing over of tittle deeds, an
4. The handing over of government houses built before 1994.

In celebrating the 20 years of democracy the minister has challenged all those in attendance to review the role played by human settlements in promoting issues of social cohesion. Human settlements practitioners were told to clearly present their case in issues of security of tenure and how people’s lives were improved during this term of government.

Issued by Ministry of Human Settlements:

Media enquiries: Vusi Tshose | Ministry of Human Settlements | Cell: 083 581 5265