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Speech by the MEC for Housing in Gauteng, Ms Nomvula Mokonyane, on the occasion of Annual Report Presentation, Legislature 27 August 2004 Speaker The 2003/2004 Financial Year has been a challenging as well as interesting period for the Gauteng Department of Housing. During this period, the Department faced enormous challenges, gained much experience and made progress with regards to meeting its constitutional mandate. In this report we are highlighting key strategies and interventions that we embarked upon in order to realise the provision of housing and human settlement. The road we have travelled has been a long and winding one. However, it has been a focused and well-defined journey largely guided, as its compass, by the peoples' aspirations and will. From the outset, when the African National Congress assumed control of the state organs, it became crystal clear to many of us that the transformation agenda will flounder if we spend our time entertaining the whining and whingeing of reactionary forces in our midst. Over the last ten years, the African National Congress (ANC) controlled government has ensured that we provide necessary essential services to advance the lives of ordinary people and address the dysfunctional nature of South African housing development patterns We have since then seen considerable effort from all stakeholders to ensure that there's provision of adequate shelter and enhancement of human settlement management through integrated service delivery and the promotion of land reform and land use planning. The ever-increasing number of people coming to our province to explore opportunities for better life has been one of the greatest challenges that we have to continue addressing. Over the past decade we have implemented various programmes to ensure that the homeless and those who live in squalor have decent houses built on well located land with access to basic services such as water, sanitation and electricity. We knew that attempts would be made to misdirect our journey towards total transformation of society. We knew that the journey was not going to be easy since the road was littered with all sorts of obstacles; one of those being the opposition, which has mastered the art of whining and whingeing in politics. Nevertheless, we have forged ahead with our agenda because it is the agenda not founded on narrow-political interests; but an agenda steeped in a long-held tradition of the National African Congress of mass-based political interaction as reflected in products such as the Freedom Charter and recently in our Manifesto document which has since become the policy framework for Gauteng . . The tradition I am alluding to permeates through all areas of our activities in government even today. If it was not for the unwavering commitment to this tradition we would not have registered unsurpassed success by way of providing our people in Gauteng since 1994/2003 with 326 659 serviced stands; 195 661 new houses; and transfer of 219 576 houses to their rightful owners. Currently, more than 90% of households in Gauteng have access to water, 80% provided with basic sanitation, 73% enjoys the wonders of electricity and 80% are beneficiaries of weekly refuse removal service. In our effort to reduce the housing backlog and build sustainable communities, we are continuing to seek new and innovative ways of engaging relevant role-players from all sectors of our society. It is through meaningful engagement with various organs of society that we will consistently register success in our work. In our mission to change the economic sphere, we are progressing without fear to implement the legislative imperatives that promote Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment. So far, we have allocated development projects to a significant number of black-owned enterprises and fostered partnership between these entities and funding institutions. If you are all honest and serious about fighting poverty and unemployment as we are, you are all supposed to give unequivocal support to government's initiatives that are focused on this struggle. However, we are the first to acknowledge that our work has not been a perfect work of art. We have had our own share of problems that we have to contend with. Chief amongst these is:
Speaker, in light of the above challenges we have realised that innovative methods in housing delivery need to be explored. As a result we are focusing on the following development pillars:
In order to deliver the above the department recognises the importance of maintaining healthy working relations with other spheres of government, communities and the private sector to provide much better co-ordinated and targeted development. Community empowerment will be achieved by enabling broad participation of communities through organised formations in the planning and development processes and by promoting equality in development projects that enable women in particular, and other marginalised sections of the community in general, to not only participate, but also to dictate the pace, rate and direction of the development processes. It is only through building these networks and enhancing real working relationships that the goal of achieving more sustainable human settlement can be realised. Furthermore, the capacity of municipalities to deliver houses has been, and is still of concern. The department will continue to capacitate municipalities through training and the Programme Management Office whose satellite offices are located in their vicinities to ensure the effective management of housing projects as well as capacity building and skills transfer. The concept of RPTs, a group of professionals appointed to provide technical assistance to the department and municipalities, has been embraced by municipalities and will continue to be the vehicle for the delivery of serviced stands through the Housing Development programme. Speaker, as a commitment towards building a non-racial South Africa, the Premier in his opening address to this House announced that government will be transferring property stock to the rightful owners who belonged to the former 'own affairs areas' under the apartheid system. I am happy to announce that this process is well underway and we expect to receive applications by the 1 November 2004. A detailed communication plan has been developed and extensive consultation with various municipalities and beneficiaries will form the corner stone of the project. The President and the Premier expects transfer of ownership of former "Own Affairs" residential properties to be expedited without delay and we will certainly do that. I therefore call upon residents in these areas to contact our Department without delay in order to get more information and check their readiness. As we engage in our work during the current financial year, we will continue to consolidate achievements registered in the past year. Above all, it is our expressed intention to reduce the Waiting List and change the face of informal settlements in Gauteng and thereby realising a notion of a better life for all. We are, however, conscious of the fact that in order to succeed we need to strengthen partnerships with our stakeholders - including beneficiaries of our housing services. Our housing programme will continue to be part of the broader delivery strategy of the Gauteng Government. Lastly, I would like to thank everyone including the Premier, my predecessor, MEC Paul Mashatile, Housing Standing Committee and Members of Legislature, Head of Department and all employees of the Department for support and encouragement. It is with your support that we can once more succeed in improving the quality of life of our people. Let us work together in pushing back the frontiers of poverty so that we can have a healthy and safe society. I thank you. Issued by: Department of Housing, Gauteng Provincial Government
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