Date: 21/11/2002
Source: The Presidency
Title: J Zuma: Title deeds hand over ceremony


ADDRESS BY DEPUTY PRESIDENT JACOB ZUMA, AT THE TITLE DEEDS HAND OVER CEREMONY, Soshanguve, Pretoria, 21 November 2002

The MEC for Housing, Paul Mashatile
Representatives of the Tshwane Metro
Residents of Soshanguve
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen

I am delighted to be part of this happy occasion of transferring property ownership to the people of Soshanguve. Like all townships in this country, Soshanguve has gone through a sad history, having been formed as a result of forced removals by the apartheid regime.

This community is made up of 44 704 households and none of them possessed property rights or ownership in the form of a title deed. Apartheid laws also required a person to reside in a property for more than 99 years, before getting what they called 99 year lease certificates.

The 25 homeowners receiving their title deeds today are part of the much bigger sample of 12 158 residents of Soshanguve whose pride and dignity has been restored through home ownership.

The issuing of title deeds is part of the broader government programme of eradicating homelessness, insecure tenure, and the lack of access to basic services such as electricity, running water and sanitation. Government has, through its comprehensive housing programme, managed to deliver to most communities not only housing, but linked housing to delivering basic services such as roads, community centres, clinics and schools.

Working in partnership with communities and other role-players, we have almost halved the number of homeless people within a period of eight years since the inception of democracy in our country.

Government has invested more than R19, 9 billion since 1994 in the National Housing Subsidy Programme. The returns are visible. About 1.4 million new housing units have been constructed, creating housing opportunities for 6 million people.

This achievement, coupled with that of the transfer of 400 000 old municipal houses for ownership by those who have been renting them has allowed us to empower eight million people with secure homes. We admit this is not enough given the challenges that we still face, due to the backlog we inherited, but it is surely a good and promising start.

We regard property ownership and the provision of housing as being part of the process of development and economic growth in our country. Home ownership ensures stability and security, and we appreciate the partnerships with the business community, labour and other sectors in boosting home ownership in the country.

We are aware of the challenges that still remain, such as problems with access to finance by many potential homeowners, especially low-income groups.

It is important that as business, government and communities we continue to interact and discuss these matters, to ensure that this so-called "unbankable" sector is also able to access finance.

It is possible that many of the new home owners here today would want to improve their homes one day and will need funding to do so.

Programme director; allow me to congratulate our proud new homeowners. It has been a long wait over many decades, but finally, you can now safely and proudly say you own the homes you occupy.

I thank you.

Issued by The Presidency
21 November 2002