Date: 25/01/2008
Source: Eastern Cape Provincial
Title: SA: Balindlela: Rural Housing Summit

Address by the Honourable Premier of the Eastern Cape province, Mrs Nosimo Balindlela, at the Eastern Cape Rural Housing Summit held at Elliotdale

Programme director
MEC for Housing and Social Development, Ms Xasa
Members of the Executive Council
Members of the District Council
Honoured guests
Ladies and gentlemen

Thank you for the honour you allowed me to address you on this very important and critical topic of rural sustainable human settlements. I note with great interest that the theme is, "accelerating a social contract for integrated sustainable human settlements in rural housing delivery."

Acceleration of service delivery is critically important, more so in the rural areas and is a matter of urgency, as people cannot wait for services any
longer after 13 years of democracy. Rural people feel they are forgotten people and somehow feel services are only afforded people in towns. Through the Freedom Charter we promised that all people (rural, farm and urban) shall have decent shelters where they will raise future families. The anger shown by some communities for not receiving services is challenging government to accelerate
sustainable housing delivery as part of eradicating poverty. Housing is a basic need. Lack of housing is a sign of poverty. Without a house people are stripped off their dignity. Poverty is enemy number one for democracy. Democracy means one has a basic food and shelter.

Rural people suffer the same problems of poverty as other communities. However, they have additional problems such as long distances to schools and lack of other basic amenities. It is important that we understand that many people in the rural areas do not want to go to towns but are happy to be given houses where they are and where they can still have their stock, milk cows every morning and cultivate their land. This means developers, architectures and builders should consult with rural communities to determine the suitability of the shapes of houses and the like which will make their settlements sustainable.
At the beginning of 2003/04 financial year we embarked on a massive drive to improve the expenditure patterns in housing delivery, the R1,1 billion turn around strategy.

This strategy challenged the departments and municipalities to revisit and redesign their housing development processes with a view to streamlining them to fast track service delivery. Central to the strategy was the focus on Small, Medium, Micro-Enterprise (SMME) utilisation and empowerment. We are aware of the challenges small and emerging building contractors have in securing big loans from the bank. We seek to find solutions to these challenges that negatively affect the rapid delivery of houses in various municipalities.

Ladies and gentlemen, we also have to build sustainable housing for AIDS orphans and child headed communities. Although we have already started with buildings for these houses we need responsible families to look after the children so they can give them love and care, which all children need. Housing in rural areas is partly governed by traditional leadership because they are built in their land.

I am happy that in our province there is a very strong sense of co-operation between the government and the House of Traditional Leadership in order to achieve shared objectives. We are bound together and hence need to work together to afford our people houses and in the process eradicate poverty. It would therefore be an extreme folly for planners and developers not to respect traditional structures and, instead impose housing development without consulting with the leaders in their places.

Sustainable human settlements also means an all encompassing settlement plan that includes thinking about where children of the new settlement would go to school; where such facilities such as the clinic and the shops and even police station are going to be located. It is sad to see an old lady or gentleman who has a new house having to walk very long distances just to get basic services, which other people in other areas take for granted.

This contributes to poverty and is a travesty of justice as this person has to travel far just to get what he deserves. Settlements built during a democratic rule should not add to the poverty we are passionately pushing away, but should be a place where social cohesion, justice and strong and healthy communities thrive. The issue of the farm tenants continue to bedevil the process of housing our people. We need to sit down with land owners to find a way to this problem. We cannot turn a blind eye to the problems in certain places nor can we turn a blind eye to the people who are thrown out on the streets with bare belongings after 30 to 40 years in the farm. They have to start a new life, with nothing.

It should be borne in mind that we will support our farmers because together we share the objectives of the Provincial Growth and Development Plan to eradicate poverty, reduce illiteracy and grow employment so that crime would decrease. While we are not yet suffering a high rate of street families of people who come from the farms, rural areas and even in urban areas, statistics show that in growing cities such as Port Elizabeth, Durban and Cape Town street families are growing.

There is a need to pre-empt how we will deal with this issue before it explodes into a big problem. Living on the street may result in glue smoking, rape, crime and other criminal acts such as pick pocketing. Developers should work closely with meteorologists who will be able to forecast the rainy season so that we can warn our people in time about the impending floods. This will assist people not to build in the flood areas. We can also fast track our massive housing strategies during the dry season so that the housing structures would remain firm on the ground for some time before the next rainy season. Low cost housing remains the best option for low income groups for rural and urban dwellers.

However, we need to up-skill our builders and ensure the credibility of the building contractors so that we avoid a situation where no sooner we finish building the house than it falls. I hope one of the spin offs of the conference would be participation of major stakeholders involved in housing development which would enable effective, efficient and holistic housing delivery in the rural areas of the province. It is also my hope that this conference has emerged with renewed strategies for implementation of rural housing that will ensure sustainable human settlements and address various issues that the province has been grappling with in the past so that we look in the future with hope and pride.

I thank you.