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SPEECH BY LN SISULU MINISTER OF
HOUSING AT THE
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF THE BLACK
CONVEYANCERS ASSOCIATION
12
August 2006
Durban
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Ladies and
Gentlemen:
Allow me to
congratulate and commend you on the
decision, last year, to form the
association.
It was timely that
such a decision be taken
The period, as you
know, in which you took this
decision is one of incredible
importance not only to ourselves but
to future generation too. Thus, in
an age where black leadership has
been unleashed in various fronts of
the continuing struggle for equality
it can only be correct to affirm
your decision as black conveyancers
in this transformation.
It’s a period where
transformation is taking place in
the entire spectrum of our society,
you could not have been left outside
of this.
Significantly it is
also a period where we in government
are taking a step back to assess the
impact of our policies on the lives
of our people. As we take stock, we
have found a great many things we
should have done, or should have
done better. We have recognised too
a fact that is emphasised by
yourselves that never before in the
history of democracy that any ruling
party enjoyed such a majority and
that unless we utilise it
effectively now to completely
transform this country we might live
to regret it. We are glad that
there are entities such as
yourselves who will ensure that we
are assisted in delivering this
common goal. As a representative of
government, I confirm our support
for you.
A year after your
successful launch you have showed
real commitment to issues that are
our core concerns. I am impressed in
particular by the balance you strike
between seeking and working towards
a transformed legal profession and
issues connected with the
transformation of land ownership
patterns and property relations. The
key challenge of leadership within
black institutions is precisely
this: narrowly to address and end
the marginalization of black
professionals like yourselves whilst
broadly looking at the whole of
society with a view to effecting its
restructuring and ensuring the
broadening of the benefits that
should accrue to the disadvantaged.
It is not very often
in the life of an individual that
there is a convergence of timeliness
and luck resulting in a happy
outcome. At least I can confess it
doesn’t happen to me very often,
But it did last year September when
the Black Conveyancers responded to
my call for housing stakeholders to
become part of the Social Contract.
You would not have known this, but I
had been looking for you for
sometime with quite a different
intention. I had wanted to
understand the conveyancing world as
that one missing link in our value
chain. In my own narrow mind this
was an elusive group that fell
outside of my own grasp.
In the course of my
search for yourselves, I know there
needed to have been some recognized
entity I should have been able to
get in touch even if as a reference
point, I couldn’t find one. I don’t
know even as I sit here now how it
would have been possible to ensure
compliance with our BEE regulations,
what is the reference point for
government to monitor compliance or
even to check up on the pace of
transformation. Now that I have
finally linked up with you, I am
certain we will jointly attend to
that which we jointly need to do to
ensure your goals are achieved.
There is thus no
question or doubt that your
association has a huge task to
fulfill in the building of this
country. I have noted that in your
first year after formation in May
2005, you have entered into a number
of agreements in line with your
mandate and vision. I commend you
for recognizing and claiming a role
for yourselves.
With the
understanding that we have of the
limited participation of black
people especially African people in
property markets, coupled with they
disservice there has been. The need
to transform the industry that it
addresses the needs of the emerging
or should I call it reemergence or
development of “black property
markets”, is a clear and present
need.
We cannot address or
understand the drive of the
institution such as yourselves and
other similar institutions without
reference to our past.
Nowhere, has the raw
impact of apartheid been felt as
acutely as in the property
relations. As we fought apartheid
we pointed out the fact that blacks
only owned 13% of the land. I was
intrigued to find in your
documentation, that this has only
gone up to 15%. Intrigued is the
only word I could find that is
palatable enough to express myself
in genteel society.
We can only
understand land and property
ownership patterns within this
historical context. Being the
Minister of Housing, I am as
concerned about land ownership and
the implications this has for
home-ownership by our people. For
land is the primary asset and tool
to fight poverty. Yet, in our case,
85 percent of it still lies in the
hands of a few. This is made even
more complicated when we consider
the impact this monopoly has on the
functioning of land markets.
In order to build a
well functioning South Africa there
needs to be transformation in all
spheres of society. How can we be a
democratic society and still live in
an unequal environment where 11
percent of the population enjoy more
than half of the country’s wealth
and the remainder living with less
than half of the country’s wealth?
We can only talk of
democracy when all industries and
professions have been transformed to
a point that where the ground is
leveled and no member of society is
prejudiced on the basis of their
colour, or be denied access to
services on the same basis; be it
consciously or unconsciously.
I am glad that the
Black Conveyancers Association has
already identified the need of this
programme and has committed to the
South African people that they will
pioneer property rights awareness,
culture and would serve to protect
housing consumers or beneficiaries
against many odds in the property
markets.
In this regard I
would like to think that we can work
on this in partnership. I know a
partnership with yourselves bodes
well with me, especially when I read
the following goal from your
constitution:
Strategy 8
- Develop a community outreach
program aimed at educating community
members about property ownership and
financial responsibility.
This is at the heart
of my concern on the broader scale.
How to normalize the market
sufficiently to convince the
Financial Institutions that their
risk assessment of previously
disadvantaged communities is
exaggerated.
Secondly, to begin
the impact on the process of asset
creation for the poorest. We are
currently facing serious problems
with thousands of our people who saw
the opportunity of home ownership
grabbed it and now stand to lose
everything they have ever had
because they either didn’t
understand their financial
responsibility or have been taken
advantage of by the system that is
not sensitive to their circumstance
or problems. They have lost their
properties most of these sold for a
song at an auction whose workings
the poor do not understand.
One final point, we
have to fight discrimination and
racism wherever it manifests itself.
We took up arms against an
oppressive system of racism. Don’t
let the sun go down on that fight
which seems ever so gently to have
been pushed to the back of our
consciousness. It seems more
acceptable to fight against gender
discrimination than against racial
discrimination. It seems much more
fashionable to fight against
corruption than racism. You have
your sums right or else our struggle
would have been in vain.
I would appreciate
your partnership. It would take an
enormous load and would provide our
people with the kind of solid
foundation we need to make of the
responsible property owners. I
believe also that with this
foundation we could change the
culture of our people and thereby
achieve a level of transformation
never dreamed of.
Again I cannot over
emphasize my gratitude for your
support of our Social Contract. I
would like to emphasize some of the
issues we jointly committed
ourselves to:
1.
Assist
government and relevant role-players
to review and re-align policy,
legislative and institutional
frameworks to ensure speedy and
affordable conveyancing/property
registration processes.
2.
facilitate the simplification or
processes and systems to enable
potential beneficiaries of the
Breaking New Ground (BNG) programme
to fully understand and comprehend
the benefits and obligations of the
envisaged property transfer and
mortgage bond transactions. This
would include to offer our services
to our communities on their doorstep
at that are convenient for them,
even after hours and weekends.
Further to offer our services in
their language of choice and to
offer advice, training and education
where necessary.
3.
Pioneer
a property rights awareness/culture
and serve as a buffer between
beneficiaries of (BNG) and
unscrupulous role-players in the
industry.
4.
Offer
our services in projects for the
poorest of the poor for free.
5.
Offer
the services of our members on
national, provincial, regional and
local level to all the role players
and stakeholders in policy
formulation, research,
investigations in respect of any
land or property related issue.
6.
Ensure
the continuous commitment by our
membership with the ethos, aims and
objectives of the
Social Contract
for Rapid Housing Delivery.
Additionally, I would
like to confirm that the government
commits itself to ensuring that all
conveyancing work of the National
Department of Housing will be
reserved for members accredited to
BCA and that this commitment will be
encoded in the Financial Services
Memorandum.
As the Black
Conveyancers Association celebrates
and marks its first year of official
existence, I do think I should urge
you not too loose sight of the
issues of concern, and that it
should always be about the people.
The mission of the BCA should be to
uphold the framework of
understanding that any “revolution
which seeks to replace one social
order with another is in essence
concerned with the improvement of
the human condition”, to quote the
words of our President. It is not
self-enrichment that drives
revolutionaries.
We should know that
those who invest in the public good
are forever remembered for their
legacy.
Together with the
Department of Finance we contracted
Finmark to do some elementary
research for us, to ascertain the
level of ignorance among our
previously disadvantaged communities
about the value of the property they
have. That which the Peruvian
economist, De Soto calls “dead
assets”. We were amazed that from
the old townships alone we could
find close to 164 billion rand worth
of property some registered and some
unregistered, but essentially
untapped as assets because our
people are ignorant of the value
they have and therefore unable to
turn it into productive capital.
Thus the secondary property market
in this country remains dead. With
your help, your professional
expertise and your outreach
programme we will unleash this
potential and we could begin to see
the beginnings of an economic growth
that impacts on the very poor.
I am excited about
the prospect of your work and
basically I am excited about you. To
give me hope that this country can
achieve a great deal. Another study
we commissioned on the spending
patterns of black people came up
with interesting yet very disturbing
results. In short, it was found that
the following are spending
priorities of our people per
household:
·
Cell phones
·
Payment of debts for
Mashonisa
·
Furniture accounts (
Bears, Triangle)
·
Clothing account
(Jet, Edgars, Foschini)
·
Groceries
·
School Fees
·
Funerals, weddings or
bother functions
·
Transport
·
House (Bond
repayment, rates, etc.)
That which in most
societies would rank first, to do
with an asset, among our people is
beaten hands down by cellphones and
Foschini. T hat should be a
worrying trend for us as a society.
But we can change that and when we
do, we will have gotten our people
out of then spiral of poverty.
So I do wish to also
thank all those who have made it
possible to establish your
association and were key in
operationalising it.
Given the number of
challenges you have such as
financing I think that it would be
necessary to consider a close
alliance with different institutions
with similar mandates such as
yourselves, institutions concerned
with property markets and land
ownership.
As a country we need
to realize that Government is but
one institution with the
responsibility to reconstruct South
Africa and that all of us from
different spheres; with different
talents and expertise, have to
utilize those expertise in ways that
combine efforts in this regard. It
is only in that way that we can end
the legacy of apartheid and honour
the prescript of our Preamble
of our Constitution when it enjoins
all of us to ‘recognize the
injustices of our past’.
I thank you.
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