31 May 2002
Programme Director, Ms Dombolo Masilela,
Minister of Housing, Ms Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele,
MEC of Housing, Mr Paul Mashatile,
Executive City Mayor of Johannesburg, Mr Amos Masondo,
Distinguished Guests,
People of Newtown, Fordsburg and Johannesburg:
Thank you very much for inviting me to the opening of the Tribunal Gardens Housing Project.
Together, step by step, we are moving ahead through practical programmes, to achieving our goal of pushing back the frontiers of poverty and opening access to a better life.
All of us will agree that since our freedom eight years ago, we have made far-reaching, important and visible progress in transforming many features of our country, ensuring that we move away from the racist reality that characterised our lives for so many years, towards a non-racial, non-sexist society that we all want.
Clearly, one of these important areas where we have and continue to make visible progress, is in the improvement of the lives of many of our people who, for many years were living in degrading and hopeless conditions.
These are the people whose homes were any place where they could lay their heads on; people whose reality informed them that only the few privileged amongst their fellow South Africans, were blessed with the magic light of electricity. To these people, to quench their thirst with clean water was a far-fetched dream. To suggest to them that they will one day own their own houses anywhere in South Africa, would have appeared like a fantastic hallucination.
Today, through this project and many others that we have implemented since our freedom, throughout the length and breadth of our country, we live a dream that only few years ago seemed fantastic and far-fetched.
There is no doubt that we are still faced with many challenges in terms of substantially improving the living conditions of millions of our people.
Yet, through the on-going delivery of much-needed infrastructure and provision and extension of basic services to our people, we are engaged in a struggle of creating a society free of poverty and underdevelopment. We are involved in a struggle of establishing the necessary conditions for a better life for all.
Having waged heroic struggles to defeat apartheit, we are in reality, involved in a new struggle. Participating in this struggle, is being engaged in a new revolution. A revolution that must transform our society. A revolution whose enemy is poverty and underdevelopment.
This is a revolution against ignorance, against disease, against homelessness, against social marginalisation and economic exclusion. It is a revolution that must build a non-racial and non-sexist society. A revolution that will build one South African nation.
Undoubtedly, this revolution cannot but succeed!
In this new struggle, of transforming the lives of our people for the better, the democratic government has and will continue to occupy the frontline. We are proud that the democratic government is able to lead, as it should, in large measure because of the important role that our social partners are playing.
Indeed, we would not have moved as fast as we did if the private sector as well as the mass of our people had not embraced this new struggle, this new revolution, as their own, and found a central and critical role that they are so effectively playing today.
Accordingly, we are happy that we have made great strides precisely because there has developed a united front characterised by the partnership of government, private sector and the people, working together as one, in the national effort for change.
Of course, we will all agree that, this united front for transformation should for-ever be strengthened by ensuring that we improve the participation and contribution of each organic component.
It is in this context of a united front for transformation and through these processes of acting together to effect change, that the completion of this housing project must be seen.
To people who have been homeless for most of their time, or who wished to have a house but could not access it, it is a revolution to finally own their own houses. We are therefore happy to be part of, and bear witness to this revolution at Tribunal Gardens.
Tribunal Gardens is one of three pilot projects of the Presidential Lead Job Summit House Project that aims to forge private-public partnerships in the delivery of rental housing and in job creation through housing.
As most of us know, the objectives of the Presidential Job Summit project on Rental housing include the creation of affordable housing to the lower-income housing market and bringing people closer to the city, effecting social integration and in the process creating jobs through construction, skills development and property management.
Therefore, Tribunal Gardens represents a major step forward in the provision of decent accommodation to many of our people who, in the past, had encountered difficulties in accessing housing.
I am pleased that through the Tribunal Gardens, we have not just built houses, but have ensured that we have created the basis for a good and strong community by building this settlement in such a manner that we encourage community activities, for children and adults to play and engage in sporting activities.
This project has also been designed in such a way as to maximise the number of employment opportunities, and I am told that the black economic component of the project is expected to exceed 40% of the total construction work.
Furthermore, I have heard that Shaft 17, a training organisation for many of our people who helped to liberate this country, conducted a training programme on site aimed at artisan skills, at Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET), and life skills in which a number of people have already benefited.
I believe therefore that, Tribunal Gardens has become one of the important model projects in empowering local people and improving the skills of newcomers in the building and construction industry. Clearly, all of these developments could not have been possible without a united front of various stakeholders working together and engaging in the new revolution to achieve a common goal.
In other words, we see here the results of an integrated development approach with the Department of Housing providing subsidies, Transnet providing land and the City of Johannesburg, local councillors and the Johannesburg Development Association working hard in facilitating community interaction and getting the required administrative work done efficiently and the developers ensuring that the actual construction takes place as agreed.
The successful completion of this project must be seen as a triumph for the urban regeneration programme and as another step towards social integration and the transformation of an erstwhile apartheid city.
As I have said earlier, through this housing initiative, we are giving concrete expression to our clarion call that all South Africans should lend a hand to push back the frontiers of poverty and broaden access to a better life. We can only defeat the scourge of homelessness through a united front of strong partnerships, and most importantly, we shall only truly succeed in these practical endeavours when we translate the call of Vuk'uzenzele, of volunteerism, into practical programmes of work.
Clearly, also by its very nature, the construction of houses requires participation by beneficiaries and communities at large. The programme of letsema is given real meaning when communities and neighbours come together to construct shelters for each and every one of us.
It has been proven in the past that when we collaborate for the collective good of our nation, when we volunteer our services and skills, we are able to build bigger and better housing units, in this way adding more value to the subsidy that government gives, so that we make a meaningful contribution of all our people to a better life.
Thus, we would like to encourage everyone to work together through letsema, so that we take forward the campaign of Houses for All.
At the same time, we must embark on a conscious and deliberate process of using housing to move away from apartheid settlement patterns that forced blacks to live on the outskirts of towns and cities.
All of us have a responsibility to use housing through patterns of development and construction of settlements, to bring about integration of our people and build non-racialism, so as to fully integrate the people of this country and build one nation.
As we know, nation-building cannot be brought about merely by grand statements and declarations, but by practical and implementable programmes that bring people together, that facilitate unity and create the conditions for people to begin to think of themselves as one people and work together to realise that dream of a common future.
Clearly therefore, all of us, as South Africans, must consider ourselves as actors, united in action and driven by a common vision to rid our country of the legacy of our unfortunate past.
It is the task of the new tenants of Tribunal Gardens to start embarking on programmes in which they work together to create a sense of pride in themselves, of unity of purpose and of unity in action to attain a better city, a new non-racial reality and a wholly unified and integrated country.
We wish you well in your new houses where, I am confident, you will enjoy and prosper in the comfort of your homes and where the children of Tribunal Gardens will learn and grow up as citizens of a free South Africa, free of racism, free of prejudice, free of intolerance - children that will be proud to be South Africans, proud to be Africans and work hard to develop, not only our country but the rest of our Continent.
I thank you.