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Compiled by the Government Communication and Information System --------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 09 Oct 2006 Title: Minister Sisulu calls for increased housing budget --------------------------------------------------------------- By Shaun Benton Cape Town - In order to address the country's housing needs, Minister Lindiwe Sisulu has called for increased spending on housing provision and for African governments to gain more insight into rural- urban migration. "It is critical for African governments to understand these phenomena in order to begin to grapple with the mass exodus from rural to urban areas," the minister said at a high-level housing conference entitled "Developing Sustainable Communities." The event is organised by the South African Housing Foundation. Ms Sisulu said budgetary allocations towards housing should be increased, explaining that the close to two million houses produced by South Africa's democratic government, were built with funds from 1.4 per cent of the national budget. National budgets should take into account the scale of the challenges being presented by urbanisation, she said, adding that African ministers of housing should lobby their finance ministries "to see if we cannot get five per cent of national budgets allocated to housing." Dr Sisulu is also chairperson of the African Ministerial Committee on Housing and Urban Development. Outlining the scale of coming challenges, the minister warned that by 2020 there could be as many as 3.8 million households in informal settlements that "would need to be attended to." This represents an increase of 153 per cent over the current number of households, Dr Sisulu said. Already, there are an estimated one million households in informal settlements within South Africa's large cities, she said, adding that projections had found informal settlements would grow by four per cent a year. "This backlog would need to be eliminated by the upgrading of approximately 255 431 households per annum." The minister said for the first time in 12 years, government had reached the production figure of 253 000 houses per annum. "That's just scraping the bare minimum and we would not even have factored in people in backyards and other accommodation." The increase in demand for housing comes at a time when global projections have put more than 60 per cent of the world's population in urban centres by 2030. This rapid urbanisation of the world's population will be even more visible in developing countries. "..we have to plan for it or we are in crisis," said Dr Sisulu. Another challenge facing South Africa is the increasing price of cement, which has shot up in line with demand, doubling in price over the past seven years. In 2005 alone, building costs accelerated by 17.5 per cent, said the housing minister. "For us this is a very worrying trend that is bound to have major implications on our ability to roll out low-cost housing and thereby create sustainable communities." In the meantime, the ministry's "innovation hub" in Pretoria is already working to test alternative building materials, along with several other strategies being developed to address the housing shortage. Another strategy has involved a paradigm shift, said the minister, from the provision of housing as a basic shelter to the provision of housing to the poor as a financial asset. This has involved "social contracts" with the financial services sector, which has agreed to provide about R42 billion to affordable housing over the coming years. Addressing the challenge of housing stock would involve a two-pronged approach, said the minister. This would involve the provision of "well-located land" that would encourage the private sector - mostly banks and building societies - to unlock capital for housing finance and to use it as bridging finance for developers, she said. Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool earlier told the delegates that in Cape Town alone, the housing backlog stood at about 360 000 units. Mr Rasool said bringing people closer to the city and places of work, would reverse the expensive spatial planning of apartheid, which placed workers far from employment and thus pushed up transport costs. This intervention would, however, require creative allocations of land. The Premier called for courageous decisions to be made by housing professionals, saying that the rapid urbanisation currently being experienced meant that "the timid have had their days." The three-day conference being held at the Cape Sun has attracted speakers including the Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry Lindiwe Hendricks, Deputy Minister of Finance Jabu Moleketi, Deputy Minister of Arts and Culture Ntombazana Botha and other professionals and academics in the housing sector from the United States, Britain, Hong Kong, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Botswana. - BuaNews |
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