The Honourable mayor of the City of Cape Town
The Local Councillors present here today
The Chairman and members of the Board of Housing Association of Blaawberg
The CEO of the Housing Association of Blaawberg
The CEO of National Housing Finance Corporation and distinguished guests, I greet you all.

Atlantis is one of the areas that is characterised by bad apartheid spatial planning and development. The area was developed by the former government to drive the poor away from the centres of viable economic and social opportunities and thus perpetuating the vicious cycle of abject poverty. The Extention-12 Atlantis Housing project was therefore born out of this unfortunate and disadvantageous historical situation.

In an attempt to redress the spatial imprints of apartheid planning and development, the community of Atlantis with their municipality, the former Blaawberg Municipality initiated the extension 12 housing project as one of the Social Housing project implemented countrywide within the National housing policy framework

The project was established in February 1999 to initially provide 802 housing units of 30 to 52 square metres. The final number of units delivered was 676. This project was targeting beneficiaries from low-income categories earning between R1500 to R3500 per month.

The implementation of the project was riddled with a series of problems ranging between poor workmanship, political squabbles, budgetary constraints, theft and vandalism. This resulted, amongst other things, to social unrest and further resulting in the boycotts of rentals and poor maintenance of the units by the tenants. This also led to the project facing the threat of total collapse.

The government has recently adopted major policy and strategic shifts in line with its vision to develop habitable and sustainable human settlements. One of the shifts is that of promoting a demand-led housing delivery strategy (as opposed to a supply-driven or top-down development approach). One of the objectives of the demand-led strategy is to promote rental housing and medium density housing. Social housing is therefore one of national housing priorities aimed at promoting and facilitating the development of quality and well-located medium density housing apartments. The Extension 12 Atlantis housing project was conceptualised and developed within this context.

With this in mind, government could not allow this project to die. At this juncture, I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to the management of the Housing Association of Blaawberg for their courage and initiative in rescuing this project.

They demonstrated total commitment and support to the government's constitutional obligation of providing access to adequate housing. Through their ingenuity and tireless intervention, they brought together the key stakeholders of the project to find a solution to this project which was on the verge of total collapse.

In the spirit of corporate governance and partnership the initiative by the Housing Association of Blaawberg was received positively by the key stakeholders namely, Unicity, National Housing Finance Corporation and Provincial department of housing. This commitment was demonstrated by a financial contribution of approximately R9 million to resuscitate the project.

To the National Housing Finance Corporation, your work was truly amazing. As you might know that most financial institutions fear the word 'risk', with regard to this project there were so many risks involved, but you never walked away from the problem. You have fulfilled your mandate given to you by national department of housing to assist government find solutions to housing problems. You dug this project right from its grave and brought back to life. For that, I am truly grateful to you.

In addition, I would like to acknowledge and commend the Ubuntu Construction Company for the pivotal role they played in making sure that this project was completed and new homes provided to 676 families. I am told that Ubuntu Company really lived up to their name. They bend the rules of private sector companies of being motivated by profit making only.

They demonstrated this by working within very tight budgetary constraints, expediting the delivery of houses against the pressing deadlines whilst at the same time not compromising the quality of houses built. To this, I can truly say they showed some social responsibility towards this project.

As an empowerment company from previously disadvantaged sector you have demystified the myth that the emerging companies cannot deliver big and complex projects

What lessons can we learn from the problems that this project experienced?

• The lack of capacity and expertise in the housing institutions contributed towards the problems that this project experienced. This is evident from the request that the institution made to the Local Authority for support. While it is important for municipalities to provide support to housing institutions, it is essential that adequate capacity to the institutions is provided to avoid the problems of implementation, monitoring and management.
• It is also important that the principles of good corporate governance be inculcated in our housing institutions in line with King's report on corporate governance.
• The contractors that were initially appointed to construct the houses also contributed towards the problems experienced. This is evident from the poor workmanship of the houses that resulted in rent boycotts.

To address this problem, it is essential that the building specifications and standards as set out by the National Home Builders Registration Council be adhered to in our projects. My department will not tolerate construction companies building shoddy houses, and measures are in the process of being developed to blacklist these companies.

• The lack of communication between the major parties involved, i.e. tenants and landlord and the municipality seems to have had a negative impacts on this project. The rent boycotts and the delays in addressing tenants complaints could be attributed to the lack of effective communication.
• To improve communication, it is important that the principles of Batho Pele should be strictly adhered to, that way you wont go wrong. In addition, it should be ensured that the staffs of housing institutions and municipalities receive adequate training on communication skills.
• To ensure the sustainability of the project, it is critical that management systems and procedures be developed for the effective management of the units and rental collection. This should also include the education of tenants to understand their roles and responsibilities.

Rent boycotts was used by the liberation movements because they were fighting against an illegitimate government that only saw the minority group as the only people who mattered in the society. But such tactics are no longer relevant in the present political despensation. Nobody stands to benefit if people boycott their rents.

I hope this project is a good case study of how to do and how not to do things. I am so delighted at the fact that this project has survived against all odds. Let us all strive to be a winning nation.

I would like to also thank all those who worked hard to see this project pull through, especially the professional team-the Developer, Contractors, Project Managers, Consulting Engineers as well as Civil Engineers.