The following speech was delivered by GOOD MP Shaun August during the debate on Human Settlements in Parliament today.
18 May 2021
Honourable Chairperson
Twenty seven years after our liberation from apartheid, the State has built and given away millions of fully subsidised homes. This is truly an achievement but despite all this housing delivery, we are still not keeping pace with the needs of expanding urban populations. And we have not used the opportunity to integrate our communities.
We have failed to unstitch the Group Areas Act.
Wherever you go in South Africa, you can’t escape the poisonous relationship between space and race.
This is particularly pronounced in Cape Town, where in nearly three decades the municipality has not delivered a single affordable or fully subsidised home to enable people of colour to return to inner city areas and thus restore their non-racial character.
But Cape Town is sadly not an anomaly. You see the same pattern in rural towns. As if zombie town planners just continuously hit the Group Areas Act repeat button. New homes for people of colour are developed on the fringes, across the highway, on the other side of the railway tracks, or just plain far away, from downtown areas and economic opportunities.
We tend to keep it simple and speak delivery numbers in this chamber. It actually isn’t just about our numbers. Our work outside, where we are involved in such things as peoples’ daily struggles for roofs over their families’ heads, and assisting new homeowners to acquire title deeds, is considerably more complex.
As is, lobbying for justice. Spatial justice is one of the GOOD movement’s core policy positions. We don’t believe that living in colour-coded neighbourhoods is sustainable. Nor is it in the interests of integrating our people and developing common purpose.
Chairperson…
With an election on the horizon, we must resist using peoples’ desperation for homes as political tools. Our people are hungry, but they’re not so naïve. They’ve seen grand pre-election human settlements plans and heard about inclusive housing frameworks before.
Vote-catching exercises calculated to manipulate the emotions of citizens must be avoided in this era of uncertainty, desperation and extreme need.
The truth is that many of the housing issues plaguing the nation could have been substantially reduced if there was real political will from politicians backed up by uncorruptible administrations.
As we continue fighting the Covid pandemic, housing requires urgent reprioritisation to get delivery moving so that more people are empowered, live with dignity, comfort and security in homes they can call their own – that become realisable assets.
Honourable Chair.
Our democracy is currently going through a major litmus test with senior politicians and public servants in and out of court on corruption charges.
It is our duty to ensure that the funds that are allocated in this mid-term budget are kept well away from looters, and don’t become the subject of court cases or commissions of inquiry in future.
I thank you.