Oukasie, Brits, 10 August 2001
Minister Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele,
Premier Popo Molefe,
The Mayor of Brits,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Thank you for inviting me to share with you the joy and fulfillment of realising our dreams through working together for change.
We are happy and always ready to work in partnership with Habitat for Humanity and many of its volunteers, including Mr. Jimmy Carter, former president of the United States of America. We have worked together with Mr. Carter in our struggle for change and I trust we will continue to collaborate to improve the lives of the poor.
I will like to congratulate Habitat for Humanity on their 25th anniversary year. We appreciate your efforts to engage leaders across the world to participate in the building and construction of houses, because it is through joint efforts of all the people that we will ensure that access to shelter is not just for the privileged few, but for all the people.
Your mobilisation of volunteers is commendable, because we need constantly to instill in all of us the consciousness that is informed by selflessness towards and solidarity with our fellow humans. Helping others to construct better houses, and live in a clean and healthier environment assist in ensuring a better life for all of us.
I should say to our colleagues from Habitat for Humanity that you will find amongst South Africans, a dedicated army of workers that has laboured tirelessly for the past seven years to house millions of our people, thus contributing, in their own humble way, to the improved living conditions of these people.
This dedicated team of women and men has ensured that we deliver to all our people and the country more than one million houses in a space of six years and in the process providing many millions of our people with shelter.
This team is of course part a bigger team that has worked hard to ensure that 8 million more of our people who happen to be at the bottom rung of poor people, have for the first time access to clean water.
They have made sure that there is a gradual increase in the access to and usage of electricity amongst the poor.
Better infrastructure of roads and sanitation system where they were non-existent have meant that our people do not just have access to shelter but they also enjoy the availability of basic amenities that improve the living conditions of their lives.
We therefore meet, here in Oukasie, united by our commitment to build houses and settlements for humanity.
We have also come together here, in a sense, to celebrate and be witness to the extraordinary work that the government and our people have been doing for the past seven years.
Oukasie represents in many ways both our achievements and challenges. This place, like many across the length and breadth of our country was racked by violence perpetrated by forces of apartheid, killing many who could be playing a leading role in the transformation of our country today.
Fortunately, through our determination we defeated these forces, so that they could no longer take from us some of our finest brothers and sisters. We had to overcome these forces of destruction so that we can begin to reconstruct both our lives and our settlements and make every part of our country a real home for our people.
Again, Oukasie like hundreds of other places in our country, is a place that was for a long time threatened by forced removals, because it was seen as being too close to a white town. Through our joint efforts we have ensured that the land that people occupy here in Oukasie, belongs to them and consequently there is now security of tenure.
Today, millions of our people who in the past were regarded as sojourners, particularly in many urban areas and as a result lived a life of perpetual uncertainty, now know that a place such as Oukasie is their permanent home.
An important lesson that all us should learn from these masses of our people, is that they engaged in genuine, principled struggle for land, housing, security and comfort, and were never misled by any unscrupulous opportunist elements in society.
We are meeting today in a place that demonstrates clearly that the government is determined to ensure that our people have access to land, housing and basic services. No matter where these people are, there will be an orderly programme that we should all follow and in the end we will also be proud beneficiaries of our joint development work.
Of course, not everyone will benefit at the same time. Yet, in time, we must achieve our objective of a better life for all.
Furthermore, government has been encouraging our people to be active participants in the process of development, rather than being docile recipients of government's benevolent delivery.
In many parts of our country we have seen an encouraging number of our people participating in some of the People's Housing Process initiatives. Of particular importance is that most members of these initiatives are women.
These dedicated South Africans, do not just rely on government's subsidy and complain about what it can or cannot do. They have and continue to mobilise themselves into savings schemes and then participate in the actual construction of the houses.
The result is that they are able to build houses of their choice and because of the savings that they make by contributing their own labour, they build bigger and better houses.
Some of these women have built their own houses here in Oukasie. We salute all these women as well as men in all our provinces who participate in these initiatives. We need more of this kind of people. We need people who see government as a partner in their own development, rather than as a god-father that brings manna, as from heaven.
>From government we need to increase our pace and involvement in the People's Housing Process initiatives.
We need to urge provinces to give these initiatives the necessary support and ensure that the enthusiasm and preparedness of many of our people who are willing to participate in these programmes is not discouraged by insufficient or non-existent support.
Accordingly, we should do all we can, including increasing capacity within the People's Housing Process initiatives so that we are able to build better houses and do so in a cost effective manner. There are still many challenges ahead of us, including the refusal by the banks to assist government in our work to provide housing to the poor.
We have overcome many formidable obstacles in the past, I believe that we will also defeat the legacy of homelessness and landlessness as we continue the struggle for the creation of a humane and people-centred society.
I thank you.