Date: 09/09/2004
Source: Mpumalanga Provincial Government
Title: T Makwetla: African Union for Housing Finance Conference Dinner


REMARKS BY PREMIER OF MPUMALANGA, TSP MAKWETLA, AT THE AFRICAN UNION FOR HOUSING FINANCE CONFERENCE DINNER, Hazyview, 9 September 2004

Programme Director
Mpumalanga Local Government and Housing MEC, Jabu Mahlangu
Chairperson of the African Union for Housing Finance, Mr Cas Coovadia
Distinguished conference delegates from the African continent
Traditional Leaders
Mayors and councillors from municipalities in the province
Leaders of organised business and labour
Senior managers from the housing departments of all the nine provinces of our country Ladies and gentlemen.

It is indeed an honour and a privilege for me to bid you farewell as you come to the end of this auspicious occasion that brought together men and women from the continent to look at the challenges and constraints in the provision of sustainable housing finance in African countries.

I know it is late in the day and most of you have been up since the crack of dawn in order to wind up what has undoubtedly been a very important conference. That is why I am not going to keep you long. I can't afford to.

As South Africans, and as people of Mpumalanga, we hope that all our guests, especially those who come from outside our province and country, have had an enjoyable and productive three days with us.

I hope the warmth of our organisers and the tranquillity of our countryside energised all of you so that you can now return back to your respective countries invigorated to advance the cause of this conference.

We believe you have made further advances in making decent housing affordable to all, particularly the marginalised in our societies.

I am told you also touched on the impact of HIV and AIDS on client and risk issues for housing finance institutions and how to ensure non-discrimination against people living with and affected by the HIV virus.

These are important matters that need to be debated openly as we ensure that this is indeed Africa's century and a decade during which we must build a better South Africa, a better Africa and a better World. I know that you came to this conference because you were inspired by your commitment to serve the masses of the people in our respective countries.

The work done by patriots like yourselves, both among African countries and within the international community is contributing to the unification of the peoples of the world to act as partners in the struggle to achieve the developmental that our continent has set for itself.

The New Partnership for Africa's Development has and continues to assist our countries, individually and collectively, to create the conditions for us to achieve sustained economic growth and development, mobilising the resources to end poverty and underdevelopment.

As Africans we must continue to demonstrate confidence in ourselves to tackle our challenges head on, including the challenge of decently housing our people, especially the most vulnerable in our societies. We made a determination that we would identify these problems ourselves, and find the solutions. We decided that we would determine our destiny and take responsibility for our failures and successes, refusing that others should decide our agenda and programme of action.

Programme Director, in South Africa we endorse the principle that all citizens have a right to a secure place in which to live in peace and dignity. According to the Reconstruction and Development Programme, which has guided us in the past decade, housing is a human right.

The provision of decent housing is particularly important for urban renewal and tackling poverty. In South Africa social housing has the potential to correct the skewed spatial planning of the past and to create the very non-racial society we seek to achieve for our country.

We also believe that the provision of housing, infrastructure and services must involve the empowerment of communities. It must be affordable and developmental. It must take account of funding and resource constraints, and support gender equality.

That is why I hope that in your deliberations you found a place to work out how end-user finance and credit could be made available for diverse tenure forms, community designs, and housing construction methods. After all commercial banks must continuously be encouraged, through legislation and incentives, to make credit and other services available, in low-income areas. Redlining and other forms of discrimination by banks must be resisted.

Recently our government unveiled the New Housing Plan. The plan will go some way towards overcoming the racial and class geography of settlements of the past. We believe the plan is a demonstrable commitment by government that housing for the workers and the poor is a basic human right, and not a commodity.

It is important that financial institutions, together with government and other stakeholders, develop a new model of financing low-cost housing, for the workers and the poor, away from compound interest on mortgage bonds, towards a shorter repayment period.

Ladies and gentlemen, as we break bread together this evening, let us remember that we all have a pressing duty to eradicate poverty and to place our province and our country and the continent on a path of sustainable growth and development. Our responsibility to our people now is to make it happen. Together, I believe that real advance is possible.

Remember: The future belongs to those who give the next generation reasons to hope.

I thank you.

Issued by: Office of the Premier, Mpumalanga Provincial Government
9 September 2004