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September 2015
sisulu cracks the whip
A
year later, the Minister’s spirit
is heavy, she admits that al-
though there has been a down-
ward spiral in housing delivery, she
had not anticipated that despite all
the goodwill and effort – statistics
remained dismally low.
The Minister is a workaholic and
expects that same level of drive, com-
mitment andpassion fromher human
settlement departments, develop-
ment finance institutions, regulatory
bodies and key sector stakeholders.
Sisulu had reasoned that when
all the delivery building blocks had
firmly been put in place that she
couldmatch the housing delivery that
she rolled out during her last stint as
Minister of Housing. Sadly, this did
not happen.
Although, the annual
Govan Mbeki Awards
acknowledge excellence
at local, provincial and
national government
levels and the Minister
congratulated the win-
ners, she lashed out at
those who had failed
to work harder in order to improve
housing delivery.
“It is shocking and unbelievable
that over the past six years, one of
those years during my term, we have
delivered almost half the number of
houses compared to at the height of
our delivery.” There has been some
soul searching, she says, “And we
have taken some steps to rectify the
situation. All government depart-
ments and institutions will be asked
to recommit themselves to work
harder in order to roll out housing
delivery. We want to send a strong
message, especially to our officials
and contractors, that there needs to
be a change of attitude in order to fast
track housing delivery.”
Government’s aim to provide fully
subsidised housing for the poor cre-
ates opportunities for beneficiaries to
gain a foothold in the economy and
acquire an asset that can be retained
or upgraded. Owning property can
change the lives of the poor from
dependency on the state to self-
sustainability and home ownership.
“The asset value of a house can
take the poorest out of destitution in
a country that boasts a residential
property market worth R3 trillion.
We are ranked number one in the
world, our people were the victims
of forced removals, evictions and
influx control.”
“We achieved so much in the
past and we should not be in
this position now. We have taken
steps to get to grips with the core
challenges so that we can resolve
it. But as long as we continue to
work at this pace, it will lie heavily
on our conscience that the radical
economic transformation for the
indigent will not be realised, be-
cause of our lack of commitment.
We have made promises and the
least we can do is to live up to those
promises!”
Sisulu continues, “If there is
anyone who does not love their
job, then they are in thewrong one.
Despite our lacklustre delivery over
the past few years, there are some
who have distinguished them-
selves by their hard work, commit-
ment and passion for the rights of
the poor. We want to honour and
At the Govan Mbeki Awards last year, Minister of Human
Settlements, Lindiwe Sisulu was enthusiastic and
exuberant about the housing sector’s prospects. The
future was full of promise and the sector was willing to
workwith the Minister to achieve the Human Settlements
target of 1,5 million housing opportunities
.
‘We want to send a strong
message, especially to our officials
and contractors, that there needs to
be a change of attitude in order to
fast track housing delivery.’