L Sisulu: Housing Dept Budget Vote 2006/07: "24 May 2006
Madame Speaker,
Honourable members of parliament,
Invited guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
And so we come, Madam Speaker, to the beginning of this, the �autumn� of our lives, the season of mellow fruitfulness, full of promise, full of hope, �conspiring with the sun how to load and bless.� We have come full cycle and as we stand here we can account for a remarkable year and one that also tested us to our limit.
For the last two or three days the media have carried gruesome stories of the plight of those who would otherwise be dependent on us for shelter. As the mercury plummets we know fires follow shortly thereafter and tragedy once again plays itself out on our front pages and on our screens and as though by some vengeance the gods have decided to open up the skies in the Eastern Cape and North West. And again it is the poorest of us in informal settlements that bear the brunt of this. We don�t need these tragedies to emphasise the urgency of the challenges that we face. In a country such as ours it should not be like this. It is at times like these that I am convinced we took the right decision to set a target to rid ourselves of homelessness, to ensure for the future that it will not always be like this.
We gather here knowing that due to policies that this government is implementing, we are experiencing the economy�s longest period of expansion and growth, enabling us to respond to increasing urbanisation and increasing homelessness. The amount of resources the government has been appropriating and spending on the housing vote in the last three years and what is estimated for spending in the next three financial years is an indication of our commitment to deal with this. Our expenditure has doubled from R4,2 billion in 2003 to R9,5 billion in the 2008/09 fina"