Issued by: Gauteng Provincial Government
BUDGET SPEECH BY THE MEC IN CHARGE OF HOUSING AND LAND AFFAIRS TO THE GAUTENG LEGISLATURE ON THURSDAY, 7th MAY 1998
The Honourable Speaker of the House, the Premier, MECs, and colleagues,
INTRODUCTION
Budget speeches are about looking at past and planning for the future. At times like this one looks at achievements, but what do we compare ourselves to?
COMPARISONS
In the first instance with the coming into power of the African National Congress, the adoption of the first comprehensive housing policy framework. May Department played a major role in influencing the policy. Paul Hendler, a housig analyst working for the South African Institute of Race Relations, a neutral research body, commented that `the period under National Party rule was characterised by the absence of a formal national policy on housing for black people'. They could not even design a policy never mind implement it.
He goes on to say that `the four separate systems of legislation, administration, financing, and the supply of housing for the different racial groups was absurd and a strain on resources'. Those are his words not mine. The truth is that the situation was even worse. There were fourteen ministers and departments of housing. No wonder the country was almost bankrupt when we took over. I know first hand what we inherited. I inherited a department that consisted of own affairs departments and provincial administration. It was racially fragmented, inefficient, functions were duplicated, and the staff was demoralised.
The debtors system was in disarray. People were not being billed properly. The arrears figures were staggering. There has been a major outcry that African people are not paying their accounts and this has racist overtones. What the National Party will not tell you is that people who were living in own affairs properties have not paid for years and no attempt was made to collect arrears. There was no National Party Masakhane campaign or arrears policy. Party of the reason is because they did not know. They had messed the system up so badly. To add insult to injury there was no reliable assets register so that they did not even know what properties they owned. I have to now fix up this mess. At the moment we are fixing 500 accounts a month. We have updated the assets register of the province and we are now finalising the housing assets register. Within the next two months we will finalise our arrears policy now that assets are the responsibility of the Province since the 1st April this year.
We have transformed the Department and, as reflected by our delivery statistics and the Ncholo report, we have done a great job. To change and fix 48 years of waste and neglect is not going to be easy. As I reported in my last report we introduced a provincial guarantee system to protect subsidies. We are now going further in that the national Department of Housing has accepted our proposal for a bank guarantee system to cover further loopholes. We have had four investigations by the Auditor General's Office which I am sure will uncover areas where systems and performance have to improve. We welcome this because this is the job of the Auditor General's Office. We expressed grave concerns over the way the Auditor General has managed the investigations. We approached the Audit Commission because we were unhappy with the mandate and nature of the investigations. We reached an agreement on what mechanisms to establish and what liaison is required for proper auditing procedures.
As a further example of the waste of taxpayers money, the National Party had a rental policy where people paid 75 cents rent and could end up owning a R35 000 house. The collection of this rent is more expensive then the rental itself.
Figures quoted below are sourced from various Race Relations Surveys.
The National Party had made a change of heart when they decided in 1980 to have a Great Sale so that the poor Africans can have ownership. In the then PWV area between 1980 and 1986 they sold a grand total of 10 200 houses. That is 1700 a year. Our transfer of houses process has had 222 533 claims and 28 892 houses have been transferred.
When it comes to legislation, the National Party's waste knew no bounds. To correct this, the new national Housing Act of 1997 had to repeal 35 pieces of defunct legislation. Our new Residential Landlord Tenant Act was promulgated because the Rent Control Act was seen to be outmoded and outdated. We have received over 100 complaints, which we are resolving.
Let us look at the statistics. I am concentrating on delivery to African people because they were most discriminated against.
Between 1987 and 1992 only 47 320 houses were built, 43 700 sites were serviced and 27 000 home loans were issued nationally. In the then PWV region in 1991 15 709 houses were built, in 1992 it dropped to 12 942, and dropped further in 1993 to 12 072. Now compared that with the 124 000 serviced sites and 64 000 houses built in Gauteng since April 1994 alone.
CORRUPTION
Much has been made of corruption in the Department. I want to be clear that corruption knows no colour, however, I want to share an analysis of corruption in the Department with you. Of the eight cases we have investigated or which are under investigation, six cases involve officials who were working under the previous government. In one case we established that fraud had started even before we were in government. It was only under a democratic government that we uncovered the fraud and dealt decisively with it. But I want also to make the point that we have acted against people who had belonged to my party. A further point I want to make is that I am deeply disappointed with the media's reporting. More than three months ago we provided the actual documentation at a press conference on what and where we spent the R6,1 million that allegedly went missing. Yet, the press continues to refer to the allegedly missing R6,1 million.
The list of what the National Party did wrong goes on and on. Building human settlements on the periphery resulting in dysfunctional and inefficient cities will be a heritage that we will have to live with for generations. Influx control so distorted cities that we had to introduce a range of land programmes. One of the main problems is that people have no tenure. Large areas like Orange Farm did not have township registers. Eight years after the establishment of Orange Farm there was no township registers. We achieved this in less than two years.
Again, because of the National Party's bankrupt policies, land invasions were widespread. We introduced land settlement programmes, which have significantly reduced invasions. We settle an average of 50 families a day. In addition, our upgrading of informal settlements has gone ahead smoothly.
NATIONAL HOUSING BUDGET
The important issue I want to raise is the national housing budget allocation. I want to provide the honorable members with a brief history of what happened:
The implications for this are huge:
The Department of Housing and Land Affairs has prepared a number of scenarios to lobby6 at the national level. We have already addressed the Standing Committee in the NCOP and we will be meeting the national Minister of Housing. Parliamentary Standing Committee on housing yesterday unanimously rejected the housing budget as being inadequate.
Two things strike me about this untenable situation:
You cannot hold the provinces accountable to deliver given the inadequate management of the budget at national.
We will lobby whoever we have to increase the budget. In the mean time, we will do our utmost to manage the budget in accordance with the MTEF Framework.
A related issue is the lack of financing provided by financial institutions. We have recently discussed the draft Housing Finance Disclosure Bill that will compel financial institutions to provide information to who and where they make finances available. This will ensure transparency. We fully support the draft bill and will be making further proposals in this regard soon.
DELIVERY
In my budget last year I gave you details of the programmes and projects approved. I want to highlight certain salient points in terms of progress up until the end of the previous financial - 31 March 1998.
The sub programmes in terms of the project linked are:
CONCLUSION
You may wonder why I have raised the catalogue of National Party disasters in comparison to our achievements. There are two reasons: one is to provide a context and I still have my memory as my weapon.
We have been gracious in our victory. We have provided many opportunities and mechanisms for reconciliation and forgiveness. But what we must not do is to forget the past, to forget the wrongs and injustices, to forget that the National Party squandered the wealth of this nation. Our memories must be retained to avoid this situation happening again. We must also remind our critics in the other opposition parties and the media that they must not have short memories and forget what the National Party did not only to us but to them as well. Finally what they did is not only in the past but their poised heritage lives with us today. I see it daily in my work when visiting informal settlements and other areas.
Thank You.