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Chairperson, Honourable Minister & Deputy Minister, Honourable Members and distinguished guests.

When I offered my congratulations to the Minister & deputy Minister during the debate on the President's State of the Nation Address, they were both, at that time, absent from the House. I would therefore like to, once again, congratulate Minister Sexwale and Deputy Minister Zoe Kota on their appointments to lead this important ministry.

Deputy Minister Kota, as Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee over the last 10 years, comes with political knowledge from the side that must hold cabinet to account and in-depth knowledge about the needs of the communities and beneficiary's perspective, whilst Minister Sexwale brings political, and importantly, shrewd business savvy to the department.

The Housing ministry has never had a deputy minister before, and it is my sincere wish that the combination of these two individuals will finally lead to the creation of sustainable communities.

Chairperson, in 2004, a critical review of the housing policy was undertaken. What emerged from the situational analysis offered a lens for self-reflection by the government on issues contributing to housing delivery, or perhaps more correctly, the non-delivery. For example, access to available opportunities, the product supply value chain, policy review and its implementation. The outcome of this critical review was the launch of the much publicised "Breaking New Ground" plan, commonly referred to as BNG, by the then Minister of Housing, the honourable Minister Lindiwe Sisulu.

One, and perhaps the most prominent flagship project under this new plan, was announced on September 2004, the now infamous N2 Gateway Project! In December of that year, the honourable Nomaindia Mfeketo, the then mayor of the City of Cape Town said, and I quote: "the first 22,000 homes are scheduled to be completed by July 2005 and the R3 billion N2 gateway project aims to transform the informal settlements of about 100,000 people along the N2. It is a gateway to finding a solution to sustainable human settlement in South Africa and ... toward a sustainable, productive and inclusive city".

By January 2005, the headlines read: "Demands of N2 Gateway project impossible". After a technical briefing in that same month, an unnamed engineer said a number of major listed contractors considered the requirements to be crazy, in fact "gobbledygook", he said. He continued, and said: "Attempting to complete the project in such a short timeframe can only result in reduced efficiency, loss of control and increased cost. And hasty design and construction will result in errors which we will have to live with because there will be no time to change or fine tune it". The current estimate is that the project is three years behind schedule and R700 mill over budget!

It was said at the time that the Business Plan for this project was being generated through close co-operation and collaboration between the three spheres of government, but guided by the inputs gathered from wider stakeholder consultations.

Honourable Minister, I raise this because a lot of what is said today about creating sustainable human settlements was encapsulated in the N2 Gateway project. The same buzzwords that was used then, is being used now. However, the N2 Gateway has to date, unfortunately, not delivered to the lofty ideals of a sustainable human settlement.

In the latest Strategic Plans of the Department (2008 to 2011) it is acknowledged that the service delivery environment of the department was not strategically aligned for optimal delivery of the mandate! It continues and says that there was a lack of a common understanding of the shift in focus and emphasis in the interpretation of the department's mandate.

However, it also says that this shift is clearly articulated in Breaking New Ground, but was not fully reflected, nor did it cascade into the department's operational delivery focus, and therefore a department-wide strategic alignment became necessary. Sounds like a bit of a contradiction honourable Minister, doesn't it!

The question that begs to be answered now is whether this "department-wide strategic alignment" resulted in the re-naming of the ministry, from Housing, to Human Settlements, and what exactly it is going to achieve?? Is it meant to align the service delivery environment for optimal delivery? Do we even know at this stage what impact this "name-change" is going to have on the human resources within the department over the next year or two whilst this "shift" is cascaded into the department's operational delivery focus?? Has the impact on the department's financial resources been quantified? Should we not be identifying the shortcomings in the implementation of the BNG, address the identifiedshortcomings, and then get on with the job of delivering sustainable human settlements within a Housing ministry, rather than thinking if we actually call it the ministry of Human Settlements it will automatically "deliver" human settlements.

Honourable Chairperson, I was privileged to witness the handing over of some houses in KZN last Friday by invitation of the Minister. I say "houses" because even though the honourable minister is at pains to stress that the department is no longer building houses but rather building homes, the handover I witnessed cannot be called homes just yet. Yes, the quality certainly appears to have improved and with additional contributions by the province, the houses are slightly bigger, they are plastered and painted and are covered with roof tiles instead of the conventional corrugated roof sheeting. It consisted of two rooms, a tiny passage-like bathroom which contained an open shower, wash basin and toilet. Leading off this "bathroom" is an open-plan lounge/kitchen. There was even, at the few that was handed over, an attempt to plant grass and some isolated trees!

The sad thing Chairperson, that differentiates these houses from homes, is that the KZN Department, the local municipality and NHBRC, all failed to notice that not a single house in this project had a water tap or sink in the kitchen. The resident would have to use the tap in the wash basin for all other needs, i.e. water for cooking or washing up of utensils etc.

This omission, I believe, is a violation of the minimum norms and standards agreed to. When this was pointed out to officials, they were quick to indicate that it would be rectified later. However, honourable Minister, at what cost?? Probably twice, or even three times what it would have cost to install it in the first place! Do we honestly have the time or the resources to keep on coming back to repair or rectify houses that was already built? Surely it must be at the expense of additional new homes that could have been constructed! Perhaps, honourable Minister, your senior managers should be treated like apprentices, and when they do stuff up like this - somebody should be FIRED!

I thank you.