Lindiwe Sisulu’s 10-point strategy to deliver 1.5 million houses in the next five years

Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu has announced a 10-point strategy to boost housing delivery in the next five years. She intends to deliver 1.5 million “housing opportunities” to reverse the 25 percent decline in the past five years. Here they are in her own words.

Number one.  We will appoint an audit company to audit some of the entities where we feel their output and management of finances are cause for concern.

Number two: We will restructure the Department to make it more adept to deal with the challenges we face. We will establish a unit headed by a DDG that is dedicated to Military Veterans and the vulnerable in our country, such as child headed households. The then Department of Housing  adopted a policy for housing for Military Veterans in 2007 and up to now  there is not a single house to show for our responsibility towards people  who fought a war for this country to be liberated from oppression.

We owe it to them to prioritise them and it seems we have been bogged down by red tape for the last seven years, which is a completely unacceptable state of affairs. This DDG unit will ensure that we can, within the next 12 months have provided a roof over the head of all 5 854 indigent military veterans. These will be housing units with a top-up from the Department of Military Veterans to make it more suitable for people as deserving as these. The Military Veterans will be drawn in to build their own houses in every province where they reside. This will be under the direct responsibility of the Deputy Minister as Builder-in-Chief.

We will also consult with the Department of Social Development to identify child-headed households, so that we can provide them with shelter on an urgent basis. And also as part of the concept of Human Settlements, we will identify those areas where women are extremely vulnerable and provide shelter for abused women, which can be used by Social Workers of Social Development. Again, this will be under the direct responsibility of the Deputy Minister as caregiver-in-Chief. I must add, Chairperson, that the Deputy Minister has already started this work by providing a house for a woman with special needs in the Western Cape.

Number three: We will encourage employer assisted housing. We believe employers, especially big employers have a responsibility to ensure their employees are housed in decent conditions. We, as government will take the lead in this by establishing a Government Employee Housing Scheme. We hope that mining companies will follow suit and so too will many others.

Number four: Derelict buildings in the inner city are a safety and health hazard and prone to being hijacked. Once occupied, the responsibility on the municipalities is onerous. We will be looking into this matter and seeking legal advice on the possibility of expropriation where we find absentee landlords. These can then be productively turned into rental stock  after they have been refurbished. In reviewing the Prevention of Illegal Evictions from and Unlawful Occupation of Land Act, 1998 we will  consider options to confiscate property from absentee landlords.

Number five: There is a great demand for affordable rental  accommodation in cities and centres of economic development for low  income earners. Rental stock at reasonable rates, that which we call Social Housing, is the way we will find sustainable provision of affordable housing.

Number six: The subsidy quantum will be reviewed because MinMec has found it is unacceptably high. It is clear that the use of brick and mortar has become too expensive and we would need to look into innovative ways of building better, but cheaper houses.

Number seven: As you are aware, on Monday we returned the 402  families to the site they originally occupied in Lwandle. I established an Inquiry and we hope to learn from this what needs to be done about the vexing question of illegal occupants of land facing us on a daily basis, and as  urbanisation grows, will increase. It is also very clear to us that we need to send a message to landowners to understand that the value of their land is an asset only for as long as it is protected and safe. By the time it has been  invaded, it loses value almost immediately. What we must all understand is that the law that we have, is intended to protect the rights of people who establish their homes and protects them in the same way as it protects the owners of private property. When removing illegal occupiers from land, due processes have to be followed.

We remain very concerned about the issue of evictions, especially as it  is happening all over the country and invariably happens outside the  prescripts of the law. The Prevention of Illegal Evictions from and Unlawful  Occupation of Land Act, 1998 was specifically crafted in response to the  large scale evictions, especially of farm workers, which was reminiscent of  Apartheid’s forced removals and was passed in recognition of the fact that  many of those who occupy land was most affected by Apartheid.

Communities living in informal settlements, even on unlawfully occupied  land, deserve and must be afforded the equal protection of the law. In the same way that private property is protected by the Constitution. The balance  is worked out in due process.

There is therefore a need to look at how the processes laid out in the Act can be improved and strengthened in order to give protections to the vulnerable of our society. The experiences that we have witnessed and that we continue to see, suggest that the requirements of the Act are not adequate enough to give affected individuals the protection that is provided in the Constitution. Accordingly, we will review the provisions of the PIE Act.

We await the outcome of the Inquiry I established to understand the circumstances of Lwandle to assist us to understand where we have gone wrong, how far we have gone wrong and learn from it, so that we are better equipped to review the PIE Act. We have to find a way of dealing with both the scourge of illegal invasions and the callous way in which evictions occur, as was the case at Lwandle.

Number eight: We want to encourage our social partners to join us in building social housing for affordable rental. This is one of the biggest shortages in our country. We do not have enough stock for people to rent affordably and because of the shortage of land, our rental stock will have to take density into account. We will have to build upwards.

Number nine: Land shortage is a dire problem for us. As you know, the HDA was established to buy and bank well located land, near work opportunities, so that we would be able to build human settlements near work opportunities. Happily the Minister of Public Works, Mr Thulas Nxesi has acceded to our request and released land for our purposes. My sincerest gratitude to him.

Number ten: The President has instructed us to form part of the revitalisation of mining towns. These are, as you know Motlosana, Emalahleni, Sekhukhune, Lephalale, West Rand and Matjhabeng. I will be meeting with the Chamber of Mines next week to discuss this matter. We already have the required experience as we worked closely with some of the Mining Houses in 2008. Where these towns are, we look forward to the involvement of Members of the NCOP, because our experience in the past has been that the most difficult part in mining towns is stakeholder relations.