Mr. Speaker, I move without notice—

Agreed to.

Mr. Chairman, at the start of this debate I want to refer briefly to the retirement of Mr. Louis Fouché, who was attached to this department for 22 years and was recently promoted to the post of member of the Commission for Administration. He therefore had to vacate his post in this department. Mr. Fouché entered the Public Service as far back as 1941, when he joined the Department of Justice, and he was later promoted to the post of private secretary to the then Minister of Justice, Mr. C. R. Swart. In November 1959 he was transferred to this department. Owing to his enthusiasm and efficiency as well as his administrative ability he became Secretary of the department in 1977. Due to the rationalization of the Public Service he became Director-General of the Department of Community Development in 1980. Since the beginning of this month he has been a member of the Commission for Administration.

Today I should like to place on record our appreciation for the very good work Mr. Fouché has done in this department. He was an official of the State with extensive experience in the field of housing, particularly low cost housing, urban renewal, projects such as shopping centres, etc. Not only because of the experience he gained over the years in the department, but also because of overseas studies, which he frequently undertook at his own expense, he was a very capable official. The knowledge he gained in this connection was used in this department to the considerable benefit of South Africa. It was always one of his ideals to house all people properly according to their capabilities, and when in 1975 this department became responsible for the implementation of the squatter legislation he took the lead, and within a very short time literally thousands of people were removed from squatter camps and given proper houses.

As chairman of various planning committees of the State he was also responsible for the redevelopment of many run-down areas in South Africa, for example South End in Port Elizabeth, Umgeni Park in Durban, and other areas. In 1975 he was appointed chairman of a very important committee of investigation into housing. The most important recommendation of that committee was the gradual phasing out of rent control—about which we shall have more to say later today—and the establishment of an advisory committee on housing matters. The rationalization process in this department has progressed to the stage where the department can in fact function as an orderly unit. This took place under his able guidance. I want to thank Mr. Fouché for his dedicated service to the State. He provided an unselfish service and also endured a great deal of criticism in the course of his work.

Projects like Mitchell’s Plain, Phoenix, Annandale, and others, will stand for all time as great projects he undertook during his time in the department. On behalf of the Government I want to thank him and express our appreciation for his services, particularly to this department, but also to the Public Service in general.

Then, too, I should just like to welcome Mr. P. C. van Blommestein as the new Director-General of the department. Mr. Van Blommestein has been in the service of the State since 1946. In 1966 he worked for the Commission of Administration—then still the Public Service Commission—and in later years he was also the Secretary of the former Department of Agricultural Credit and Land Tenure until, in the process of rationalization, he joined this department and became head of the Directorate of State Auxiliary Services and Land Affairs. Mr. Van Blommestein is kown as a pleasant and dedicated man and I believe he will be very happy in the team which he now heads.

At the same time I want to add that during the past year we have had two other high promotions in our department. These were the promotion of Mr. Willem Marais to Deputy Director-General: Building Services and the recent promotion of Mr. McEnery— a man our parliamentary friends know very well—to Deputy Director-General of the department. We want to welcome these two extremely capable officials and express the hope that they will be of great help to Mr. Van Blommestein, the hon. the Deputy Minister and myself in the task we have to perform.

Mr. Chairman, as the hon. the Minister has indicated, on 1 May we saw the changing of the guard at the top of the Department of Community Development. On behalf of this side of the House I want to welcome Mr. P. C. van Blommestein to the post of Director-General. I am sure that he realizes full well that he has taken on a tough assignment. It is a vast department, consisting as it does of a number of other departments and sub-departments that are now amalgamated. It is also an important and difficult department because it deals with tremendously sensitive issues. Unlike departments that deal with money and with commodities, this department has to deal with people and communities. We want to wish the new Director-General well. In the main I think he will find us tremendously supportive when he, on the direction of the hon. the Minister, carries out good policies, but he will also find us highly critical when he, on the direction of the hon. the Minister, occasionally goes off the right path onto a path that might do damage to people and communities. We will treat the new Director-General with consideration and we will try to be as co-operative as we can.

The hon. the Minister also referred to the retirement of Mr. Louis Fouché. This is an occasion on which Parliament as a whole should accord its farewell to the outgoing Director-General, who has now become member of the Commission for State Administration. As the hon. the Minister has indicated, Louis Fouché was a civil servant of the old school, of the old type. We found that he could be extremely tough. He certainly was determined and meticulous in his attention to matters of detail, and he was diligent and hardworking in the extreme. For all those things he deserves the credit and the thanks of this House. However, I do not believe that Mr. Louis Fouché would be pleased if we did not also say that he was controversial. He has carried with him the badge of controversiality over a whole range of issues, but while we might have differed strongly with him on various issues, we accept his integrity, and his motive behind whatever course of action he adopted. Rather than dwell on the areas of controversy that may have arisen in the past, we say let history judge the fruit of his achievements and his work while he was the Director-General of his department. We wish him well in his new assignment as a member of the Commission for State Administration. We thank a civil servant with whom we may have disagreed in the past, for his dedicated service in this department, and we wish him well for the future.

This department is an amalgam of a number of sub-departments and functions, and various hon. members on this side of the House will be dealing with these sub-departments, while I will only deal with one or two of them.

I want to start by referring to the report issued by the Director-General, the last report under the signature of Mr. Louis Fouché. It is a worthwhile report, but what impresses us of course is that, if one takes note of where they identify all the problems in the field of housing, one realizes that the department had read very carefully the speeches made by the official Opposition during the past few sessions of Parliament. [Interjections.] In fact, I cannot find a better précis of the speeches that my colleagues and I have made, identifying the problems in housing, than occur on the first three pages of this report. It is just a pity that the inhibitions that are placed on the department do not allow it to identify, as we did, the defects in Government policy that have led to the present situation. It is therefore going to be our responsibility to work on the paper as it is before us and then to identify the shortcomings in Government policy and the extent to which that policy has contributed to the very unhappy state that is revealed in the report of the department by the Director-General.

I want to devote some time to the question of housing and if there is enough time also to touch briefly on the question of group areas.

When one considers the extent of South Africa’s housing crisis, and the personal trauma—which the hon. the Minister should know about—that goes hand in hand with the problems relating to housing, I think the hon. the Minister must, looking at himself, at his department and at his colleagues in the Department of Co-operation and Development, recognize the fact that the Government’s performance in this field is timid, unimaginative, ineffective—at times it even seems to be uncaring—and totally inadequate. If the Government carries on with this foot-dragging “more-is-nog-’n-dag” approach to the housing crisis, instead of achieving a housing success, they are going to cause a national disaster. Quite frankly, at times when we see the woolly statements that are issued and the claims about houses that are going to be built one day rather than the production of houses today, we would like figuratively to take the Government by the scruff of the neck, to shake them until they realize that there is a housing crisis in South Africa and that something must be done about it.

This problem affects vast sections of our population. It affects in particular young people who are wanting to purchase their first house, to start a family home. This is one group that can be clearly identified. It affects the middle-income group who are battling to maintain standards in the face of staggering inflation in the cities. More particularly we will concentrate on the housing crisis as it affects our senior citizens, retired people who live on fixed incomes or aged people living in our cities who need special care and assistance. The retired and aged people are a special category needing attention.

Secondly, it affects tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of Black and Brown families living on or below the poverty datum line, struggling desperately to make ends meet in the face of rising costs. I hope the hon. the Minister will take the message to the hon. the Minister of Finance. I am sorry the hon. the Deputy Minister of Finance is not present in the House because it would have been good for him to hear this.

He is present in the House.

Oh, he is here. I see he is talking with the hon. the Minister of Health and Welfare probably about a diet, although there is no need for him to go on a diet at this stage. All he must do is to provide more money. That is all we want from the hon. the Deputy Minister. The hon. the Minister of Finance says that compared with the amount originally allowed last year of R258 million, the new figure of R330 million represents an increase of 28%. The hon. the Minister knows that long after the announcement of the R258 million the Government announced an extra R40 million. The figure therefore is not R258 million for last year, but R298 million. If one takes this into account, the increase was not 28%, but only 11%, less than a third of the total rise in building costs. I repeat the increase allowed to the National Housing Fund is only one-third of the increase in building costs in the last year. Of that amount of R330 million, R150 million is going to be borrowed from the private sector through the building societies. One therefore finds that the amount provided for by the State is actually a reduction of R118 million, 40% less than what was provided in the previous year from resources of the State. I say that the Government is evading its responsibilities. We accept that the private sector has a role to play but the Government is now doing exactly what we prophesied it would do. It is starting to hide behind the private sector by saying to the private sector that they can carry the can and that they, the Government, are going to opt out of their responsibilities as far as the provision of certain housing is concerned. [Interjections.] That is happening. One only needs to look at the budget to see that that is happening.

I want to point directly to a classic example of the way in which the Government talks about the responsibility of the private sektor but does precious little to make it possible for the private sector to become involved. I can only refer to the question of the Viljoen Comittee. The Viljoen Committee said that there are certain basic principles, the second of which is the principle of an effective Government subsidy of the individual and the criteria for determining whether that individual qualifies. After a 13-item statement round about 25 January, there were banner headlines and it was carried for two days on television that two hon. Ministers and an hon. Deputy Minister issued a statement announcing a new strategy. What did they say in their new strategy? They said—

They announced this great leap forward but on the critical issue of the subsidy formula, they say they haven’t accepted it. They then said they were referring it “vir dringende ondersoek na die Steyn-komitee”. The Viljoen Committee reported in August last year and in January this year the matter was referred for “dringende ondersoek na die Steyn-komitee”. It is now May, and we want to know from the hon. the Minister when we are going to see a report, when is the Government going to announce the new subsidy formula and when is it going to make it possible for the private sector to enter into the housing field. It is no use saying the private sector can enter into the field of low-cost housing, then reject the recommendations of the Viljoen Committee and then wait for a year or more before they come up with a new proposal. This is a typical illustration of the Government evading its responsibility and not making it possible for the private sector to become involved.

The second area I want to touch on is the question of rentals for subsidized housing. A new formula was evolved late in 1980, a formula which involved a percentage of income paid up to R150 per month income and after that it became not a percentage of income, but a sliding scale increasing percentage on the cost of the accommodation. That was the formula which was introduced. It was an improvement on the old formula of either 1,5% or 9%. That sliding scale had some value. I want to draw the hon. the Minister’s attention to his stop-start approach on this matter. One need only look at what he did. He gets a request from the Cape Action Housing Co-Ordinating Committee of the Cape Flats. On 12 January they ask to see him; on 20 January he refuses to see them; on 3 February in Parliament he says why he refused and on 5 February he says that he will see them. He then says that he was going to appoint a committee which will take three months to deliberate, and on 21 April he says that he had appointed the committee and that it would now take six months to deliberate. While all that is happening, further representations were made. And this does not only apply to the Cape Flats. There have also been representations on behalf of Black communities, e.g. in Crossroads, in Nyanga, in Guguletu, from Port Elizabeth, from Johannesburg and from the Witwatersrand.

The question of subsidized rentals for the lower-income group amongst the Black and Brown people in our cities is becoming one of the most critical and volatile issues with which the Government is going to have to deal. It is absolutely critical. I believe the hon. the Minister must speed up the work of that committee. An interesting report is coming from the Cape Town city council—it was referred to in the Press—where they have done some work in this regard. There is an existing scale which involves the paying of a rental of 5% of income up to an income of R150. However, on incomes between R150 and R650 it does not relate to income; it relates to the cost of the premises.

And the income.

Well, it is a sliding scale upwards relating to that. But basically it is not geared to the income as the base, but to the cost of the premises. Now, what happens as a result of this? It results in hardships, inequities and inequalities. When a person moves out of the R150 group into the new formula basis, there is such an abnormally sharp increase in his rental that it far exceeds the value of his increased income. As more and more people are, as a result of inflation, moving out of the R150 into the R250 bracket, they are being affected by this. They experience this sharp differential.

Secondly, the inflation factor is not taken into account. If two years ago it was accepted that somebody with an income of R150 per month should be helped on the basis of a certain formula, that same person is now earning R250 in money terms. Therefore, if R150 two years ago was the correct income level in real terms the correct income level in new terms should be closer to R250. Secondly, because the formula is geared to the value of the house which that person is occupying, it means that there is a differential rental payment whether one is living in a house of old stock or a house of new stock. A new-stock house is valued much higher than an old-stock house. Therefore, within the community there is a vast difference in the rental which is paid, irrespective of the person’s income, but depending upon whether one is able to rent a relatively new house or whether one has to rent a relatively old house. I believe that this whole rental formula must be reassessed and that basically the principle of the assessment will have to be a rental paid on the gross income of the family which occupies those premises. The difference between what that family can afford to pay and an economic rental will have to be the amount of the subsidy. But the rental in the main will have to be geared to the family income rather than to the specific value of the accommodation concerned.

The family income?

Yes, the income of the family. I believe that it is reasonable to take into account not only the formal tenant, but also the other people who are gainfully using that particular piece of real estate. I have no problems with that. One must see it in terms of the total income of the people who are living in that particular rented accommodation. I believe that rentals is one of the most volatile and sensitive issues that face us today. The hon. the Minister must tell the Van der Vyver Committee not to wait until September. They must get on with the job now. They must get a new subsidy formula going before there is another explosion in the Cape flats or in Soweto. We put this matter with all the urgency at our command.

From there I want to deal with the question of the aged, those people living in the cities whom we believe are in need of special assistance or protection. What I will have to say here complements two debates that have already taken place. Firstly, there was the debate on a private member’s motion which I introduced, where I asked the Government to investigate a number of changes. Unfortunately the hon. the Minister was not here. The hon. the Deputy Minister tried his best, but I think I would prefer to hear a reply from the hon. the Minister in due course. I say this with all respect to the hon. the Deputy Minister. Secondly, there was a motion in the name of the hon. member for Newtown Park where we dealt with this matter further. We also dealt with this issue during the discussion of the Second Reading of the Appropriation Bill. Nevertheless I want to come again to certain cardinal issues relating to this category of people. I want to suggest to the hon. the Minister, as the person primarily responsible, that he should initiate an urgent summit meeting to consider a course of positive action to meet the housing crisis that faces thousands of senior citizens living in our cities. I am talking about the senior citizens in our cities. These senior citizens include retired people who live on relatively fixed incomes. I also want to refer to aged citizens who require assistance both in regard to accommodation and in regard to care. Those are the two categories of people to whom I want to refer now.

We believe that this summit conference to design a course of action must include the Government which has a prime responsibility, the local authorities which will be the agents of the Government within each local authority area, and welfare and service organizations as well as the private sector as represented by commerce and industry. These four elements should get together to consider the seriousness of this crisis in respect of the senior citizens and the aged in South Africa. The object of this new action programme should be to ensure that adequate accommodation is available for these people; that accommodation is available at prices that they can afford; that the State will provide direct assistance, where necessary; that there will be protection against the exploitation of senior citizens; and that there will be some form of guarantee in respect of tenure—that they will always have a roof over their heads. These are the five aspects which I think have to be considered in terms of a course of action to deal with the problem of the aged living in our cities. It is not longer economically viable for the private sector to provide accommodation on a letting basis for this category of people living in our cities. The hon. the Minister will know that, in round figures, taking a profit of only 10% which in today’s financial climate is not all that high, for each R10 000 investment in property, one has to charge a rental of R100 per month. If one wants a return of 15%, which is the going rate, one has to charge R150 per month for each R10 000 invested. Where then can one build new flats in a densely populated or heavily built up area for less than R30 000 today? We are talking now of a rental of R450 per month if an investor is to receive a 15% return, or a rental of R300 per month if we are talking of a 10% return. It is no longer a viable proposition for the private sector to build for that category of person.

There has to be a completely new approach in this regard. I should like to suggest that the hon. the Minister see to it that this new approach is adopted by the State working through local authorities. I think that local authorities are going to have to play a much more important role than they have hitherto by acting as agents for the State in providing accommodation for the aged. I believe that there has to be greater assistance to and liaison with welfare organizations which are already geared towards assisting the aged. In the third instance, I think that the State can in much more positive way encourage the establishment of public utility companies—in other words, non-profit-making organizations—in order to make this possible. Finally, I believe that the State itself has to accept a much greater responsibility in providing the capital on the one hand and, on the other hand, subsidizing rentals, where necessary.

I do not wish to exclude the private sector in this. I do not think that those who are not part of the State can simply wash their hands in this regard and say that they have no responsibility. The private sector must become involved and must be encouraged to become part of these utility companies. I believe that the private sector should itself set up its own code of practice and behaviour as far as the letting of property to senior citizens is concerned. As far as that code of behaviour is concerned, I think we should liaise with Sapoa and the large insurance companies and ask them whether they will not as part of a code in respect of the aged people of South Africa, guarantee in their buildings that there will be a certain percentage of the accommodation that will be made available to older people. Cannot we have a code to see to it that older people will be given greater permanency, a greater guarantee of tenure than, say, younger people? I think too that there should also be some degree of voluntary restraint by means of a code of practice in respect of the increase of rentals as far as this applies to older people in South Africa.

As far as the older people living in the cities are concerned, their accommodation position is becoming desperate. I do not have time to read it to the House but I ask the hon. the Minister to take note once again of the statement of the Director of the National Council for the Aged, Mrs. Zerilda Droskie, who said that the position is becoming desperate. She also outlined the problems of the aged; I do not believe it is any use the Government’s passing the buck to the private sector and the private sector’s passing the buck back to the Government. We must get them all together and have a “spitsberaad” or whatever we want to call it. We must get them all together and impress upon them that there is a problem, a national problem in this regard, that the State will play its part but that the private sector must be motivated to play its part as well.

I appeal urgently to the hon. the Minister especially in this Year of the Aged to take this matter seriously. Let him go down in history as the man who at least did something concrete to change the whole strategy of housing for the aged in South Africa. I believe that if he does so he will be doing something very worthwhile during this session of Parliament.

There are a number of other matters that we will raise during the course of this debate in regard to the whole question of rent control; sectional title and group areas. However, for the purpose of initiating the discussion , I shall leave my comments at that for the moment.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Sea Point touched on various matters relating to the activities of the department. In the time at my disposal I cannot go into all the matters which the hon. member touched on, but there are one or two matters which we cannot allow to go unanswered.

The first is the hon. member’s accusation that this side of the House had been derelict in its duty as far as housing was concerned. The hon. member launched his attack on the basis of the statement that the State was not doing enough for housing. I do not have the detailed figures at hand, but I want to remind the hon. member that since the establishment of the National Housing Commission, and since 1959 when the commission took over the consolidated funds of the provinces, the State has spent more than R2 000 million on the provision of housing. Out of this amount of R2 000 million, almost 800 000 dwelling units were provided for all the population groups of South Africa. Please note that 92% of the housing provided out of the funds of the National Housing Commission was made available to Coloureds and Blacks. If a monument has to be erected to this Government, it will be owing to the fact that it provided housing as a matter of the highest priority and in order to improve the qualify of life of all the population groups in South Africa.

As far as this aspect is concerned, I accept that the hon. member tried to turn it into a political debating point, but if one considers the facts, one realizes that this side of the House has absolutely nothing to be ashamed of when it comes to housing, what it has achieved over the years and the degree of stabilization of people which has been achieved as a result. One need only think of the slum conditions in the former Sophia-towns and Windermeres, residential areas which have in the meantime, on the initiative of the Government been transformed into model townships in which an orderly community life has developed. This is truly a remarkable achievement.

The hon. member also referred to the Viljoen report and had a great deal to say about the fact that the proposed subsidy formula had not been accepted by the Government. The committee is aware that the entire matter has been referred to the hon. the Deputy Minister of Finance for investigation. This is a very complicated matter. In the present financial situation in South Africa the subsidizing of a host of people who have to be economically and sub-economically housed, requires a tremendous contribution on the part of the State. Such a contribution cannot simply be snatched out of thin air. To my knowledge the Government is investigating this question, because it realizes how serious the matter is, as will appear from a later section of my speech. I have a good reason to believe that the Steyn Committee will shortly be submitting its report, and will put forward a feasible and acceptable formula in terms of which a partnership involving the State, the private sector and the individual in the housing process will emerge in order to cope with the housing crisis.

I want to refer to a few other matters. This is the last occasion on which the departmental report will be tabled under the signature of the former Director-General, and I want to declare from this side of the House that there is great appreciation for the services which Mr. Louis Fouché rendered as the Director-General of the Department of Community Development. He proved himself to be a dedicated and loyal official. Since 1 May he has been a member of the Commission for Administration, and this side of the House wishes him everything of the best in this new capacity. In the same breath we also want to welcome Mr. Van Blommestein as the new Director-General, and congratulate him sincerely on his promotion to that position and wish him the strength to deal with the increased responsibilities which will rest upon his shoulders in future.

I cannot omit to refer to the hon. the Minister as well. Since he took the responsibility of this portfolio, of Community Development, upon his shoulders two years ago there are two matters in particular which have emerged into prominence. The first is his approach to the entire process of housing. There is even talk of a new housing policy which is being initiated and formulated by the hon. the Minister, based on the idea that housing should be provided within the means of the persons who have to be housed. However, it is not this matter to which I wish to refer, but to the exceptional style of the hon. the Minister. It is a style in which goodwill and reasonableness are displayed by the hon. the Minister in this very sensitive matter of community plannings which he has to deal with. As an example of his exceptional style, I quote from Die Burger of 25 May 1981

Of the same nature is a statement made by the hon. the Minister in which he declared that Kalk Bay had in the past always accommodated a Coloured community which was involved mainly in the fishing industry, and I quote from the statement—

The same applies to Heldersig, a Coloured area in Somerset West. It is this expectional style and understanding and humanity which the hon. the Minister displays in dealing with his portfolio which holds out a promise of the Coloureds and the Whites at least having a hope of survival here at the southermost point of Africa.

I want to join the hon. member for Sea Point in referring to the financial position and the contribution by the State in regard to low cost housing, I say with the greatest responsibility from this side of the House that the gravest social problem of the day in Africa is that of low cost housing. At present there is a shortage of 250 000 units in this country and the greatest problem of the Department of Community Development is the fact that it does not have sufficient funds at its disposal to deal effectively with this housing situation …

Order! The hon. member’s time has expired.

Mr. Chairman, I am merely rising to afford the hon. member an opportunity of completing his speech.

I thank the hon. Whip. The department’s greatest problem is that it does not have the funds at its disposal to deal with the housing crisis effectively. There is great interest in the proposals of the President’s Council for a process of orderly political accommodation. Hon. members must pardon me if I draw this parallel, but any process of political accommodation, any new constitutional formula which might be negotiated and found, will only hold out a hope of success if, it is, so to speak, rooted in an orderly and stable community life. The shortage of 250 000 units is a destabilizing factor in an orderly community life. I do not want to scale down the question of a process of political accommodation for all the population groups, but the problem of South Africa today is just as much a social problem and housing according to the need is an important aspect of the dual process of a political-constitutional formula and the establishment of an orderly, stable community. I want to say that a housing formula for everyone in South Africa today is just as important as a political formula for everyone in South Africa.

Mention has been made of the possibility that the private sector will become involved in the housing process. I wish them every success on that score. However, that does not detract from the enormous responsibility of the State to play its part in the provision of funds for low cost housing. I must honestly say that the present parliamentary appropriation is inadequate. Everyone admits that. That is why it places a greater responsibility on the Committee to find new formulas to cope with the housing crisis.

But where do we find the money?

No other department in the State hierarchy is affected to the same extent by the erosion of the value of money. I want to give an example. The increase in costs of services and labour have placed housing beyond the reach of the average person today. I am quoting from a document which I received in this connection to indicate how difficult it is for the individual to acquire his own home. At the end of 1966 the interests rates on building society bonds for residential dwellings was 8,5% and at the end of 1981 it was 14,25% for bonds in excess of R40 000. Between 1966 and 1981 building costs rose by approximately 430%. This gives an average increase of approximately 11,8% per annum over this period of 15 years. This means that whereas a house cost, say, R10 000 to build in 1966, one has to pay almost R53 000 for a similar house today. The monthly interest and capital redemption would have amounted to only R80 in 1966, while the instalment on the R53 000 house in 1981 amounts to approximately R648. When one takes into consideration that 25% of a person’s monthly income may be spent on accommodation, it means that that person has to earn R32 000 per annum to acquire a house of more or less the same standard as that of a house which cost R10 000 in 1966. Monetary erosion has a tremendously prejudicial effect on the efforts of this department to provide housing.

However, this does not apply only to the individual, but also to the State. In 1978-’79 the State appropriated R350 million for housing, and 42 000 housing units were built with that amount. During the past financial year R365 million was appropriated for the provision of housing, and only 25 000 housing units were built with that money, i.e. approximately 18 000 housing units less, and that with almost the same capital investment. I want to bring the serious nature of this matter to the attention of the hon. the Minister and ask him to negotiate with the Treasury, not to obtain more money, but to make the Treasury aware that it is the function of this department to build houses, that 40 000 housing units have to be built per annum and that the necessary funds must be made available for that purpose.

We are living in the shadow of a social revolution, and State funds, as the only long term solution to the housing crisis, will determine whether this shadow is going to be changed into darkness or light.

I now wish to refer to the question of rent control, sectional title sales and the pressure on rentals. For a long time now the Government has been aware of the fact that there is tremendous pressure on rentals, particularly those paid by flat dwellers, and this gives rise to serious concern. The fact of the matter is that rentals have during the past few years increased by 80% or more, and that this places a tremendous burden on young married couples, pensioners and older people in particular who are already weighed down by the ever-increasing cost of living. There is a complex set of economic factors which give rise to this situation. In the present unstable leasing market, where the demand is far greater than the supply, the question arises whether there is still any question of the free market mechanism applying in this sector. The question also arises whether certain irresponsible lessors are not using the free market mechanism as a pretext for drastically increasing the rentals. There is a situation in the leasing market today in which the lessee has no alternative but to pay the increased rental or buy the flat unit. There is indeed no other choice. In these circumstances the lessee has a relatively strong voice which has to be heard in one forum or another. The Rents Control Act, for example, provides protection in regard to security of occupation. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the hon. the Minister very sincerely for the way in which he has recently been making information available to us. I also want to express my concurrence in what the hon. member for Bellville said, namely that a great problem exists in regard to the provision of funds for housing. The hon. member also referred to the problem in connection with a further 250 000 housing units. The hon. member for Bellville then went on to refer to the political instability and to the shadow of a social revolution in South Africa.

Mr. Chairman, I almost forgot. I should like to request the privilege of the second half hour. [Interjections.]

Oh, what do you want to do with half an hour? You cannot even discuss this matter for two minutes!

Mr. Chairman, I also wish to thank Mr. Fouché today, who accomplished an exceptional task as head of this department. Mr. Fouché is one of those people who, even though one does not always agree with him, is always able to justify his case because he really believes in what he is doing. He went into every task of his with conviction, and got a housing programme going for South Africa which would be very difficult to surpass. Mr. Van Blommestein, too, has a very difficult task. I want to point out that last year in the Standing Committee I referred to the grave problem awaiting South Africa in the sphere of housing. We cannot get away from the fact that housing is an exceptionally grave problem. The hon. member for Bellville said that he did not think I would be able to discuss this matter for as long as two minutes. However, it is undoubtedly the case that if a person approaches the problem of housing in a serious way, one does not really wish to disclose the situation in which we find ourselves to its full extent. Of course, the hon. member for Bellville has the problem that he has been placed in a position which he does not understand much about. [Interjections.] That is why, almost every time when he reads out something on housing here in the House, he makes it quite apparent that he does not really understand what he is reading out to us. That is why he makes such remarks as the one he has just made about me. [Interjections.]

South Africa has a grave problem as far as housing is concerned. In this respect I need only refer to the housing scheme in my own constituency. I am now referring to Crown Gardens. In 1976 the then Minister announced that the houses in Crown Gardens would be sold to the people there. This is the year 1982, and those houses have still not been sold to those people. What is the reason for this? There are reasons for this. At the time when that housing scheme was established, it did not come into existence as a full-scale township. Certain protective measures, for example the construction of fireproof walls, also gave rise to great problems. My request is now that this process should please be expedited. There is nothing so problematical for a person as when one has to wait four or five years before one can buy a house. I am not laying the blame for this at the door of the hon. the Minister. Nor am I blaming the department for this. I am not alleging that there was any oversight on the part of the department. My request is, however, that the department should exert pressure on the City Council of Johannesburg as far as this matter is concerned. We cannot carry on like this.

Then there is another very sore point which I now wish to touch upon. It is also in connection with the Langlaagte constituency. The block of flats called Paarlshoop, directly opposite the Abraham Kriel Children’s Home, is now going to be sold, and tenders for the purchase of the entire block of flats have been invited. I want to suggest that we should rather sell flats of that nature to the inhabitants of the flats. Surely it is not necessary that one tender for that property should be approved. A petition was drawn up at the time and presented to the mayor, and he in his turn was to have presented it to the hon. the Minister. I do not know whether it ever reached him. But such a petition was also sent to me. I want to request the hon. the Minister please to give very serious attention to this matter. If one considers the shortage of housing, and particularly the shortage of residential units in urban areas, for example, Johannesburg and Pretoria, we realize that something drastic will have to be done. It is calculated that in the Transvaal alone there is a shortage of 13 000 residential units for Whites, and that represents only emergency cases. The hon. the Minister receives such inadequate funds for housing that he cannot be expected to make good all these shortages. The building societies alone receive 12 000 applications every month for housing loans, to an aggregate value of R300 million. If a person compares this figure with the funds which are made available to the hon. the Minister, one must ask oneself how the department is able to meet the overall housing needs. Flat rentals have risen to such an extent that people earning less than R650 per month cannot find accommodation anywhere else, except from the department itself. As hon. members know, there are at present no funds available to meet these housing needs. If the income of people who live in State accommodation in this way were to rise by R100 for example, they could be evicted from those houses, while it is not possible to find other houses anywhere. For that reason I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether it is not possible to raise this limit to approximately R950 per month, so that people who are at present living in State-owned houses, need not necessarily be evicted, for those people will not be able to acquire houses again in any other way. The amount of R950 per month is more or less a qualifying limit. The problem is that it is usually young people with children who fall into this income bracket, although many older people with children, in many cases as many as six, also fall into this income bracket. There is a great housing need in this income bracket. If such a person has to move out of a house, there is also the additional problem that his children have to have other school uniforms, and he has many other problems as well. Therefore I want to ask the hon. the Minister please to give serious attention to this matter.

Another matter which I want to touch upon is the huge increase in rentals in general. Rentals in the private sector in Johannesburg have during the past two to three years gone up by 40 to 50%. Even the rent boards are granting increases of 40% and even 50%. These rent increases are therefore not entirely groundless, because the rent boards work according to a formula, on the basis of which they then make their recommendations. Consequently these increases might have some justification. The major problem is that we find ourselves in an inflationary spiral in the housing sphere, and one must probably give serious attention to the housing situation. I want to request the hon. the Minister to appoint a commission to investigate the phasing out of rent control and to establish what problems have been created by this phasing out process. Apparently no one in South Africa is opposed to this phasing out of rent control. However, there are certain times when the phasing out …

Are you opposed to it?

I do not speak to uninformed people. I am not saying that the phasing out of rent control is wrong, but when one has to deal with inflation, there are problems. Let us simply reverse the position, let us assume that there was great shortage of money at present. With the principle of the phasing out of rent control, one could say that people have been living almost for nothing because they would have tried to let their residential units. When there is a shortage of money families move into one flat or house together and then flats stand empty. However, as inflation drops, families move back into the cheap vacant flats. That is why I am also requesting that we should give serious consideration to the utilization of residential units, to who is occupying what. Why cannot we appoint some kind of commissioner or other to look into the position of what the utilization of floor space for housing in South Africa is? This is an extremely important factor.

Another thing that strikes me is that we in this House even make provision for young people who work in the various departments. I agree with that, but are we co-ordinating housing in South Africa? Is it right for example that Escom should spend several thousand rands out of its budget on housing, while the Minister who has to provide all the State housing is limited to a budget which is subject to constant cut-backs? Since we have a Minister of Community Development in South Africa, with his department of trained people, which has existed since 1928, is it right that certain housing should fall under the Minister of Co-operation and Development? I do not want to criticize when we are dealing with housing, because I think it is a sore point, but let us just consider the R160 million which was borrowed for the improvement of living conditions in a place such as Soweto. By applying the correct principles of township development, by beginning with the correct groundwork, there is immediately a total improvement, and in addition there is housing. The R160 million is therefore yielding a return. These are matters to which one should give serious consideration. Now I am asking: Should we not go into these matters more deeply? Must a time not come when all housing funds appropriated by the State should be channelled by the department of this hon. Minister? Surely they are the people who are competent to do these things. Surely we cannot expect other departments to do these things in a similar way to which the Department of Community Development is doing them.

You do not know what you are talking about.

I have heard it said already that one should not open a tap if there is no water in the pipes. I want to tell that hon. member that this is something he must learn. The problem of housing in South Africa is very often, as I have already said, the utilization of space. Let us take Mitchell’s Plain as an example. What kind of example of housing is it today? Before I forget, I want to point out to the hon. the Minister that the large cities of Johannesburg and Pretoria should receive similar projects of 2 000 to 3 000 units. These must be units which can be easily erected and can be cluster housing, ordinary residential units or flats. When such large-scale community units are constructed, they must be situated in such a way that the services can be provided at a nominal cost. I think that Mitchell’s Plain is an example to the world of what can be done in establishing housing. So many people who see Mitchell’s Plain on television also express the hope that they will also be able to avail themselves of such an opportunity. That is what they ask you for. They would like to live in a community where the children can play with one another, where there are theatres, where there are housing units for younger and older people and facilities for the entire community. This is something which all of us would like to have. There are people in the department such as Messrs. McEnery and Marela, with whom I have worked very closely, and one can only have appreciation for the work these people are doing and the sacrifices they are making. They really make a study of housing. I maintain that it is the duty of the Government to afford the hon. the Minister of Finance and the hon. the Minister of Community Development the opportunity of investigating the entire housing position in South Africa to see whether it is necessary for institutions such as Escom and others to initiate housing schemes for their own employees. We know that the standards differ. Certain officials are given preferential treatment over others, which I think is wrong. I say that the entire position should be reconsidered.

When we look at the housing situation of our older people in South Africa, we know that there is a case to be made out for more attention to be given to this matter. I do not think the Government can be reproached with having done nothing in this connection. The world situation as far as elderly people is concerned is such that owing to improved medical treatment and modern drugs the life expectancy of these people has now been extended. We know that our elderly people are living in the cities in circumstances which leave a great deal to be desired. I do not think that we ought to allow this to happen. I think that our community should give serious attention to this matter, in order to play its part as well. For example, where two elderly people are living in a certain area in separate accommodation, an effort should be made to bring those two people together. An effort should be made to introduce those two old people—possibly two elderly ladies—to one another so that they may then share one residential unit. Of course nobody can force them to do so, but if they become friends and decide to share one residential unit, they are of course able to share their other expenses as well. In this way the community can also play its part in attempting to solve the housing problem. We know that there are problems in regard to these elderly people in the urban areas. We are all concerned about the fact that there are people who live in remote areas and people who live alone in such places as Grassmere and other places. We are concerned about the safety of these people. When husband and wife are still together of course they share their expenses. In the end, however, if the woman is left alone, she has the problem that she does not know how to make ends meet because she cannot afford to pay the rental. I want to ask the hon. the Minister to give his attention to this matter.

Mr. Chairman, I want to congratulate the hon. member for Bellville in particular on the very good speech he made here this afternoon. Having said this, hon. members will understand that it does not give me much pleasure to follow the hon. member for Langlaagte. I say this in the sense that he found it necessary to drag an element of personal insult into this debate.

Who attacked me first?

He tried to denigrate the hon. member for Bellville personally by suggesting that he was not capable of making his own speech in this House. I should like to give the hon. member for Langlaagte a bit of good advice, because he is so fond of giving advice about taps which should not be turned on. He should now forget that personal jealousy he felt towards the hon. member in the former dispensation; the hon. member is no longer a threat to him in the new situation in which he now finds himself.

No hon. member is a threat to me.

The hon. member came up with a very popular idea—that is if one does not analyze it—when he told the hon. the Minister that the R650 ceiling for lessees is much too low in the present dispensation and should be increased to R950. Popular as this suggestion may be, the hon. member knows just as well as I do—I know very little, and therefore he ought also to know this—that low cost housing is a problem in South Africa today, whether it be existing low cost housing or the provision of low cost housing. Because there is a restriction on low cost housing, an easing of that restriction will mean that one will place many more people in the market to complete for that limited low cost housing. This will of course have a further depressive effect on the lower income group.

I wish to say a few words about rent control. The hon. member for Sea Point touched on this matter and I am sure he will discuss it in greater detail later. I want to say here and now that I should hate to be classified with him in the spirit in which he discussed this very sensitive matter of rent control and the provision of rented housing. Listening to the eloquence of the hon. member one does not gain the impression that the Government has ever really achieved anything in the field of housing. In saying this I do not want to suggest that the hon. member and his party are not concerned about the housing crisis, if one could call it that, particularly with regard to the avail ability of low cost housing for the lower income group. However, there is a strong element of political opportunism in his arguments on this matter and this is the case because one feels very strongly about the roof over one’s head. This goes without saying because one returns home every evening, and this is the matter which most affects one’s daily weal and woe. It goes without saying that this emotion is much more exploitable, politically as well. I do not believe that a debate of this calibre and on this subject should be one in which we become embroiled in a political argument with one another, because the problems facing us in this connection are too challenging.

Most hon. members are acquainted with the history of rent control. There is no doubt that it was an emergency measure resorted to in near crisis conditions and is essentially in conflict with the economic law that supply and demand must determine price. However, a specific socio-economic problem had to be dealt with at that stage and as the years passed it had to be dealt with in this way. As a result of the effect of rent control over the years the developers used the well-known argument that further units for leasing could not be erected while this sword of rent control hung over them, or while they knew that rent control could be introduced.

It is significant that the development of most units for lease in fact took place in the period after rent control was initially introduced. It is only in recent years, after a number of other factors arose, that developers began to raise the cry that rent control discouraged the development of property. One need not analyse these conditions—higher building costs, higher costs of money, etc.—at this stage. The result of this was that the State had to accept virtually full responsibility, and there is no doubt that the State did accept that responsibility. One need only look around one to realize this. I also believe that the Government had no choice— not as a short-term measure—but to experiment with the systematic phasing out of rent control. It wanted to see if it could not in this way eventually achieve the ideal situation where demand and supply would determine price. However, experience over the past few years has shown that the opposite has happened. The drop in the supply of units has assumed serious proportions. Very little new housing has been created. On the contrary, a great deal of the housing that used to be available for leasing was gradually converted into sectional title units for sale. That is why I want to say today that that honest attempt by the Government to stimulate the development of units for lease by abolishing rent control measures does not seem to have been successful. It was not successful in the sense that the number of units for lease simply decreased.

I think a case can be made out for the private sector as to why it is not practicable, or economically viable, to provide inexpensive housing for lease and this act of faith by the Government in phasing out rent control has not, unfortunately, changed this situation. Rent control has now to a great extent been phased out, but there are still tenants today who qualify for rent protection in terms of the provisions of the Housing Act, because they have not a monthly income exceeding R650 for married couples or R350 for single people. Even in blocks of flats where rent control has already been phased out those tenants still have this protection, provided they were living in that specific residential unit at the time of the phasing out and are still living there. However, under current conditions it is, I fear, a myth to suggest that those protected tenants are indeed still protected today, because the rent paid by these tenants is determined not on the basis of their income, but on factors whereby the rent of a unit is determined in terms of the Rent Control Act. In most cases a protected tenant in a block of flats where rent control has been phased out does not pay a lower rent than the other tenants pay under the free market system, because rent boards consider the current rents of other flats in that block as one of the primary factors for determining the rent. I gain the impression that rent boards are indeed sometimes inclined to draw a slight distinction in this regard, but in cases where an applicant applies to the Rent control board for higher rents under those conditions, such appeals are usually upheld. The only privilege and protection these statutory tenants still enjoy is security of occupation. It is this security of occupation, or rather the lack of it in many cases which I want to discuss with the hon. the Minister. When rent control is phased out there is no other legal provision which can protect the existing lessee’s occupation of that specific dwelling unit. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, it is of course a privilege for me to follow the hon. Chief Whip. However, it also causes certain problems. After such a good speech my contribution will necessarily seem very mediocre.

I, too, wish to focus on a few aspects of the Rents Act. I want to associate myself with the statement by the hon. member for Bellville that under the conditions prevailing today, in which there is, on the one hand, a shortage of supply, and on the other, a tremendous demand for housing, the lessee’s voice must be heard. I also want to agree with the hon. member for Langlaagte—he must not faint now—in asking that the hon. the Minister appoint a commission of inquiry to investigate the functioning of the Rent Control Act.

In South Africa the history of rent control goes back to 1921. In 1921 for the first time an Act was placed on the Statute Book controlling rent. That Act, like the present Act, had two basic aims, namely to establish rent boards vested with the authority to determine rents and to protect lessees in their occupation of premises. In respect of these two aspects the common law principle with regard to lessees and lessors was tampered with to a considerable extent. If one reads the original Act of 1921, one sees that in terms of the formula for the determining of rents there was an allowance of 10% on the construction costs of the building and 6% on the cost of the land for the owner. Then, too, there was of course the ordinary expenditure. In terms of the present legislation the allowance is also a percentage but it is based on the value of the building and the value of the land. I shall return to this aspect in a moment.

I just wish to draw special attention to a speech made by the hon. member for Oudtshoorn in 1921 when the original legislation was being considered in Parliament. He was of course a predecessor of the present hon. member for Oudtshoorn, the hon. the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs. In 1921 the hon. member for Oudtshoorn was Mr. C. J. Langenhoven, and he admitted that this legislation was necessary. However, at the same time he warned that the legislation would lead to the private sector no longer providing housing. Today one wonders whether those were not prophetic words.

As far as the present legislation is concerned, it was first submitted in 1940 as a war measure. In 1942 a consolidated Act was placed on the Statute Book. As I mentioned earlier, according to the formula the percentage allowed was based on value. Value therefore played a decisive role in the determining of the rental. When one speaks of value it is usually market value. However, as far as rent boards are concerned the position is different. In 1946 there was an Appeal Court judgement on this matter. People who deal with the Rent Control Act consider this judgement to be the locus classicus. It is the most important judgement in this field. This judgement was delivered by Chief Justice Watermeyer, and in his judgement he stated that if the term “value” meant “market value”, rent boards would find themselves in the position of “a cat chasing its own tail”. Those were his exact words. He argued that rental was one of the factors by means of which value was determined, and that if the rent board were to continue determining rental according to values, it would find that the rental it decided on today would lead to a higher property value tomorrow, which in its turn would lead to higher rentals. What actually happened in that case was very interesting. The facts of this case clearly illustrate what the position was like at that stage. I suspect that this is till the position today. The case involved a block of flats in Durban, erected in the previous year, 1945, at a cost of approximately R70 000. The municipal valuation was approximately R60 000. The building was insured against loss by fire for approximately R66 000, and the argument of the attorneys on behalf of the owner was that the market value was considerably higher than the construction costs of R70 000. That was the evidence placed before the board. The board then determined the value of that property at R48 000. As far as I know there was no evidence before the board that R48 000 was a fair reflection of the value of the property. However, it was this decision that was confirmed by the Appeal Court. This, then, is the position—and I am now speaking as a lawyer who has frequently appeared before rent boards. A rent board actually had unlimited power to deter mine value. The rent was based on that value.

We are aware that the Rent Control Board, and the aforementioned Appeal Court decision, refer to a just relationship between lessor and lessee. However, if one considers the facts of the matter, it appears that the position is that if the lessor in the said case had not held a mortgage he would only have received a return of about 5% on his investment. If he had held a mortgage— and I do not know what the mortgage rate was in those days—I should imagine that the owner would have been compelled to make a monthly payment merely to cover the interest. Unfortunately I am aware of such cases. I know of cases where rent boards determined rents on a basis which led to the lessor having to make payments merely to cover his interest. What this actually means is that a lessor is being asked to subsidize a specific lessee.

I am sure hon. members will concede that this is not fair. A lessor cannot be expected to subsidize his lessees.

I notice that reference is also made in the annual report to the effect of the Rent Control Act. As I have already mentioned I also agree with what the hon. member for Lang-laagte said when he asked that a commission be appointed to investigate the functioning of the Rent Control Act.

Mr. Chairman, I trust that the hon. member for Port Elizabeth North will excuse me if I do not react directly to what he has said. I do know, however, about the case to which he has referred, the case in connection with the block of flats in Durban. I propose to touch on a similar matter at a later stage.

Mr. Chairman, allow me also to add my good wishes to those already expressed to Mr. Fouché, former Director-General of Community Development, who has departed. I have known him for quite a long time. I have worked well with him. We have had our differences, of course, as has been mentioned by other hon. members. There is no doubt, however, that Mr. Fouché is an idealist, a very, very hard working and conscientious man. I believe it is a good thing that the Government has not lost the services of a man of this calibre, and that he is now engaged elsewhere in Government service.

In so far as Mr. Van Blommestein is concerned, I believe it is already very clear to him that he has an almost impossible task to carry out when it comes to providing housing. Housing, it appears to me, is the main thrust of the debate here today. I believe that it can be an extremely rewarding task, but I also believe that it is one that has to be looked at from a number of new angles.

Some of us are given to understand that our political problems are likely to start being resolved with the report of the President’s Council that will be coming out tomorrow, but after resolving those problems, the next serious problem that we shall have to face is, in my view, the housing problem. As I mentioned earlier, many people have already spoken on this subject today, but it is so important that I feel that one must nonetheless continue on the same theme.

A man who, under the present circumstances, does not actually have a house to rent, or who does not own one, is in an impossible situation when it comes to finding a house at a rental or at a price that he can afford, and this applies to virtually all races. If one is extremely wealthy in any community, one does not have too much of a problem, but unfortunately the economics of the country are such that there are only a very limited number of wealthy people.

In so far as the non-White communities are concerned, the situation is chronic. I have discussed this on previous occasions and therefore do not propose to go into it to any great extent, except to say that we will never resolve that problem by following orthodox methods. I do not believe that that is possible, but I am convinced that we can alleviate the problem if there are joint efforts by the local authorities, the Government and the private sector, and they will have to bring into effect orthodox, unorthodox and self-help systems. I have, however, debated this fairly recently and therefore do not propose to go into it in detail again.

The White housing problem is, however, also becoming very, very serious indeed, and I am sorry to say that much of Government action, or Government inaction in some instances, is aggravating this particular problem, and I should like to give a few examples to illustrate what I mean. I know that rent control is a controversial subject. Some people believe it should be applied, while others feel that it should be abolished, but I firmly believe that much of the present White housing problem is caused by rent control being enforced and being enforced for far too long. When it was originally introduced it served a useful purpose, but I believe that it must be abolished. The situation is that those people that we are trying to protect by the retention of rent control are, in fact, not being protected, because the owners of those rent-controlled blocks of flats and buildings find that their properties do not yield a reasonable return these days and are therefore doing their utmost to dispose of those flats by individual sale and all sorts of other means. In some instances they are even allowing the properties to go to wrack and ruin so that they can be demolished and new premises erected on those sites. As I have said, these buildings are not yielding a reasonable return, and as a consequence others have been discouraged from building new blocks of flats. I know that the hon. the Minister will say that in so far as new projects are concerned, rent control does not apply, and of course this is so. In fact, rent control has been removed on buildings erected after a certain date. Unfortunately, however, rent control was removed some years ago and then reintroduced on certain buildings, and as a consequence the entrepreneur has become very suspicious indeed. Because no new flats have been built, even those which are not rent-controlled are at a much higher rental than they need be if there had been normal growth and development. The Government has again aggravated the issue by buying blocks of flats for State departments. In my own constituency just recently the Post Office—I know it is technically not a Government department, but in fact is—bought a very substantial block consisting of probably 50 or 60 flats. So far as I can see the Government should not be buying these blocks of flats when there is a shortage. They should rather be building blocks of flats. This is another contributory factor to the shortage of accommodation. I know these people have to have accommodation, but the State is the only organization that really can collect sufficient money to erect these blocks of flats and let them to their employees at a reasonably economical rental.

Another contributory factor is the urban renewal plan which has been going on for years. I realize, as every sensible person does, that urban renewal is essential from time to time, but I know it has to be done in an area which has deteriorated, for one reason or another and therefore has to be cleaned up and generally redeveloped. I am sorry to say that there has been overmuch enthusiasm in the urban renewal projects that have been embarked upon. In a previous address to the House I have mentioned…

Mr. Chairman, is the hon. member prepared to answer a question?

I am sorry, I do not have sufficient time. The PFP have more time than we have. Whilst I accept that urban renewal is necessary, unfortunately much of the demolition that took place was of buildings which were in reasonably sound condition and which, with a little renovation, could have been recycled and brought back into use. I know that in some instances of urban renewal new street plans and new sewerage systems, and so on, are developed, and I accept that in some instances it may be necessary to demolish a sound building for replanning purposes. However, these buildings must not be demolished when the replacement buildings are only to be erected 20 years later, because the existing building could have been used for another 20 years. I am referring now to Block A, K and G areas where the demolition took place so long ago and it is only recently that things started moving.

Order! The hon. member’s time has expired.

Mr. Chairman, I merely rise to give the hon. member the opportunity to complete his speech.

I want to thank the hon. Whip for allowing me to continue.

Mr. Chairman, may I now put a question to the hon. member?

No man, please. [Interjections.]

Are you in favour of the abolition of rent control?

Make your own speech! Another point I want to raise concerns the taxation system. When property companies develop properties they have to pay taxes on their companies that run these organizations. When they have paid the taxes, the remainder of the profit, such as it may be, is then distributed in dividends to the shareholders. Such is the system today that they are very lucky if they receive 5% or 6% net on many of these projects, and this is what is discouraging people. As I mentioned a year ago, when I first came into the House, certain material tax incentives should be given, because a person can simply invest his money in a bank or building society and he can get between 15% and 20%, without the bother of maintaining buildings and looking after tenants. I am perfectly well aware of the fact that the hon. the Minister is very sympathetic to this problem, and this is why I cannot agree with the statement made by the hon. member for Sea Point to the effect that the hon. the Minister and his department were uncaring and woolly. I do not believe that this is so, but I do believe that they are over-idealistic. I also believe that they sometimes have their priorities wrong. Having said that they have their priorities wrong, I would just like to make the point that the hon. the Minister’s department is not merely a department of Community Development to provide facilities and amenities, etc., for the populace, but is also an agency department looking after other State department’s building projects.

When one goes through programme 7, one really begins to wonder whether, in fact, the priorities really are right. I know that the hon. the Minister has control over the spending of the money, but he does not say what has to be built. He merely looks after it and sees that it is done properly. However, when one finds that at the present moment we have R865 million worth of buildings under construction for prisons, police, the Defence Force and the courts alone—I am not talking about their functions; I am only talking about the buildings themselves—and that at the moment there is also R141 million on the estimates for this year, and for administrative buildings R131 million, of which R18 million is on the estimates, one begins to wonder. Yet for aged accommodation there is only R6 million in these estimates. I am perfectly well aware that there are moneys in the estimates elsewhere for this purpose, but what I am getting at is that there are huge sums being made available, and I should like to point out what they are being used for. Under the heading “Private Bells and Separate Toilet and Ablution Facilities” today’s Citizen points out—

That sounds like an advertisement for an hotel. There are also pictures in this newspaper to illustrate the point. There is no doubt that these are beautiful places. I have recently visited some of our prisons and I must admit that if I wanted a rest cure some of them would not be at all bad, though I would prefer not to be there, of course. The point is, however, that it is this sort of project that is receiving priority. Many of our elderly pensioners would give anything to have accommodation of the nature that is available to criminals. I am sorry, but is that the right sort of priority? We are building ordinary suburban police stations at a couple of million rand apiece. This seems to me to be excessive. Again, to come back to the Durban Westville prison, we see that R80 million is being spent on that. Certain secondary schools are also being built at a couple of million rand each. I believe that whilst it may be necessary to update these buildings and may also be necessary to build new ones, I rather suspect that there is excessive extravagance in so far as many of these buildings are concerned. Much of this money could be spent on housing if the Government departments and the Treasury were to get together to sort out some of these problems.

I feel a little ashamed of myself when I read comments such as the following from newspapers of the last few days: “People threatening suicide over housing”, “The accommodation shortage so bad that desperate old people threaten to commit suicide”, “Flats are being renovated, and the lady is a protected tenant, so they cannot put her out, but her life is being made a misery”, “Old people are living in garages and backyards, meanwhile projects are being held up for funds”, “Building cost rises causing grave problems”, “More forced to sell homes as bond rates increases continue”, “Immigrants face housing crunch”, “Still no hope on the rents front”, “Incentives needed to combat housing prices”, etc. I shall not read all the headlines that I have here. I do believe, however, that the lavishness with which money has been expended on public buildings is such that we must have a good look at what we are doing and get our priorities straight. I maintain that one can keep expenses down if one genuinely tries in respect of these public buildings. If that is done, the money can be funnelled off in other directions. The hon. the Deputy Minister will remember that Addington Hospital was rebuilt at a time when the Johannesburg Hospital was under construction. While the Johannesburg Hospital cost R40 million, Addington Hospital was rebuilt for an amount of R10 million because we saw to it that nothing extraneous was put into it. However, it has everything that a hospital needs. When it comes to the question of building a theatre complex for the performing arts in Natal, we cut the expenses to the bone. I am talking about an amount of about R15 million while other provinces talk of amounts of about R50 million. That is what happens all the way through. I maintain that there is the possibility to cut back on a great deal of this expenditure.

Housing is a vital and primary need and if we persist in carrying through the new dispensation, as it would appear we are going to do, we will not be able to fob off the Coloured and the Indian communities as has been done to some extent in the past. They are going to be sitting there with us demanding their rightful share for their people, and we are going to have to make it available. I believe that we can only do this if we are flexible in our approach. We shall have to accept lower standards and I say that anybody who is not prepared to do so, is being very foolish. We have to make accommodation available for people according to their ability to pay and we must not think in terms of idealism all the way through. I also believe that we should go further into this question of “park-a-home”, which is an up and coming innovation, but even in this respect I feel that one has to make quite sure that the vultures do not get in too quickly as they have already started doing by jacking up rentals for this type of accommodation. I understand that in one local authority area alone the rental is already more than R200 per month in respect of “park-a-home” accommodation. I think this is thoroughly disgraceful and thoroughly disgusting. Many countries have this sort of accommodation and they have provided the necessary infrastructure for it. This accommodation seems to be a success and I believe that there is no reason why we cannot provide a fair amount of housing of this type.

Finally, I want to say that I do not believe that it is the State’s job to do all the work. However, I do believe that it is the State’s job to create the climate for the development of these housing projects and to encourage people to get on with this work.

Mr. Chairman, I should like to express my appreciation for the spirit in which hon. members of all parties in this House have discussed the housing position today. I also appreciate the large measure of understanding which I found among all members on all sides of the House. Although the hon. member for Sea Point may have taken a little malicious pleasure in it, he did show that he understood the problem with which we were faced. It is a tremendous challenge and there is an enormous backlog as far as certain facets of our housing position are concerned. The hon. member also showed understanding for the extent of the problem. I am very glad to observe this attitude in our discussion of this serious matter. It would not make any sense for us to hurl recriminations at one another in respect of matters which we cannot change unless we put our heads together. I am referring to all hon. members of this House, the departments involved as well as knowledge able people in the private sector who can help us resolve the situation.

I also want to convey my thanks to all the hon. members who referred in favourable terms to the work done by the department and especially to officials and officers. I want to tell the hon. members that their remarks are appreciated. We often have a thankless task to perform, and the officials find it encouraging to notice that the work they do is appreciated by the Opposition and by other members of Parliament.

All the hon. members who have taken part in the debate up to now have already referred to the difficult position with regard to rentals, rent control and related matters. As far as I know, all the hon. members who intended to speak about this have already participated in the debate, and that is why I am entering the debate at this early stage to make a fairly comprehensive statement on this whole matter. I feel that there is a position of stalemate from which we must extricate ourselves.

On the one hand, we have rent control in order to protect people who need protection, but now we find that the protection is not effective enough to protect the very people we want to protect. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central—he has apologized for being unable to be present— pointed out that there were also cases where rent determinations were such that one could say that landlords were actually being expected to subsidize tenants.

On the other hand, we are continually being told that it is because of the threat of rent control hanging over the private sector that there is not sufficient investment in housing on the part of the private sector. I think the hon. member for Tygervallei said something interesting in this connection—I think I am correct—and that is that we have had rent control all these years. He also said that since the NP came into power, the accommodation that had been provided for renting purposes in the country had been provided under rent control. It so happens that when the Government decided to phase out rent control, the building of letting units by the private sector began to decline. At the moment we took the final step in the phasing out, it came to a complete standstill.

The fact that there has been rent control all these years is a reality which we must face. We must also bear in mind that while there was rent control, the private sector prospered. That was when conditions were favourable and when interest rates and building costs were conducive to this. Since then, of course, matters have changed, and therefore I believe that this matter must now be dealt with once and for all. That is what the Government intends to do.

I want to draw attention to the position of tenants in the private sector, who have to bear the burden of rising rentals, and I also want to draw attention to the shortage of accommodation, which is giving rise to serious concern. Unfortunately, the price of accommodation has gone up considerably of late. The investigation of literally hundreds of cases in response to representations received by the department have proved that generally speaking, landlords are not exploiting the situation. Landlords have to spend more and more on items such as municipal rates, municipal services, interest on mortgage bonds, maintenance and insurance, which make rent increases inevitable if the landlord wants to remain solvent. Because of high building and financing costs, it is not profitable to provide new accommodation for renting purposes either, because most tenants are not wealthy enough to afford the rentals which are necessary to give the landlord a fair return on his capital investment.

As hon. members know, the Government launched a programme for the gradual phasing out of rent control during 1978, in response to the recommendations of the Fouché Commission of Inquiry into Housing Matters. The programme was equipped with safety valves to discourage exhorbitant rent increases on the one hand, by means of laying down administrative guidelines to limit rent increases to 10% a year for two years, and, on the other hand, to give continued rent control protection to less well-to-do tenants who would normally qualify for National Housing assistance. The phasing-out programme was implemented by means of the issuing of three proclamations in terms of which its date of commencement was moved back step by step, with the result that rent control is at present applicable only to dwelling units that were occupied for the first time before 21 October 1949, as well as to dwelling units occupied by protected tenants.

† Mr. Chairman, during the implementation of the first three steps in the phasing-out programme there was a housing surplus in all the main centres, with the exception of Pretoria. However, by the end of 1980, owing mainly to the economic revival which led to a dramatic increase in activity in all sectors of the property market, the surplus had been obliterated by the growing demand of accommodation. At that juncture, as hon. members will recall, another ogre reared its ugly head, namely the indiscriminate conversion of blocks of flats for sale under sectional title. The compounded effect of these events was a highly exploitive situation which demanded immediate measures. To this end it was decided to postpone the further phasing-out of rent control until such time as the position had stabilized and to amend the Sectional Title Act, 1971 in order to curb undesirable practices and to extend the security of tenure to tenants of rent control units. These measures, together with the shortages of building society funds which has since occurred, have succeeded in combating undesirable market conditions. On the other hand, the demand for housing, especially rental accommodation, is growing at a phenomenal rate, and as long as the private sector remains reluctant to invest in and provide new letting units, the pressure of rents will continue to increase.

As conclusively proved by the Commission of Inquiry into Housing Matters, the reimposition of rent control is not the answer. In fact, private enterprise is adamant that it will not participate in the provision of new letting units as long as rent control continues to be applied and there is a danger of the scope of this measure being extended.

Mr. Chairman, I have given this background as a preview to a proposal which I want to submit to this House.

*Hon. members will undoubtedly agree that the position of stalemate which has been reached in so far as the continued existence of rent control is holding up the provision of new letting units, as a result of which there have been exorbitant rent increases, which will continue until the balance has been restored in the letting market, must be resolved in the national interest. With this end in view I intend to propose at a later stage that a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into and report on, firstly, the desirability or otherwise of the removal of statutory rent control; secondly, measures to afford tenants continued protection against exploitation, victimization and arbitrary eviction; thirdly, measures to combat related malpractices with regard to the Sectional Titles Act, 1971, the Share Blocks Control Act, 1980, and the Land Alienation Act, 1981, and, finally, matters connected therewith. I trust that hon. members will support such a proposal, because the facts of the matter indicate beyond any doubt that urgent steps have to be taken in this connection.

Now the hon. member for Sea Point said at the beginning of his speech that the Government’s housing effort was very feeble. His analysis of the position with regard to funds for the current financial year, and, for that matter, perhaps for the previous financial year as well, is not wrong. Of course, it is to the hon. member’s advantage to concentrate only on the present situation. After all, he knows that as far as housing is concerned, the Government has been moving mountains for several years, especially in respect of the provision of housing for those people in the country who stand to benefit from it most. From a statement which I made earlier this afternoon, the hon. member knows how many thousands of people we have removed from squatter conditions and provided with proper housing. He knows what this Government has done over the past five years with regard to slum clearance. He also knows about the renewal projects which the Government has undertaken, such as those in South End in Port Elizabeth, in Georgetown in Germiston and in parts of Durban. Apart from all these achievements, the hon. member also knows what the Department has done in respect of welfare housing, especially over the past five years.

Since there is to some extent a shortage of funds at this particular juncture—not a shortage in the sense that the State is spending less than in the past—people should remember that while our budget increases every year, and has increased by 60% over the past four years, we can accomplish much less with it today because of inflation. Inflation is just as great an evil in the field of housing. On top of that there has been a sharp rise in building costs and in the cost of providing services. Furthermore, one cannot build nearly as many houses with the same money today as a few years ago.

As a result of the sharp rise in interest rates one also has to spend a much bigger proportion of one’s housing appropriation on the subsidizing of rentals. It is easy for the hon. member for Sea Point and for other hon. members to say that we should raise the rent ceilings and revise the rent formulas, but this simply means that the State subsidies have to be increased. I anticipate that more than R70 million of the funds appropriated by the State will have to be spent on the subsidizing of housing this year so that we may be able in the first place to make funds available for welfare housing at 1%. Had it not been for that, the achievements in the field of welfare housing in this country over the last five years would never have been possible. I think that in this regard, our achievement has not been equalled anywhere in the world. It has been possible for us to make capital available to local authorities at a rate of 1% for housing projects for the less well-to-do, including the aged. I think we must not forget about that record when we look at articles about the claims of our senior citizens in this Year of the Aged. When these are highlighted, we must not lose sight of what has been accomplished in respect of welfare housing over the past five years. On the other hand the position is, therefore, that if I did not spend the R70 million on the subsidizing of rentals, more than 50% of the literally thousands of people, especially non-Whites, who live in this country in housing provided by the State or by the private sector with State funds, people who live in letting units at a nominal rental which does not even cover the cost of administering the loan, would be adversely affected. Then hon. members still advocate that we should re-examine the rent formula because the rentals that the people are paying are still too high. It is very easy, in the present climate, in a period in which everyone is struggling to make ends meet, to highlight this matter and to criticize us in this connection. However, we must see these things in perspective. We must look at what we did when conditions were better. As far as our future policy is concerned, I am not at all pessimistic. I shall explain to hon. members in due course the new ways and means we are exploring in this connection. I agree with the hon. member for Umbilo when he says that we must examine other ways of providing housing for all our people in the country. However, I shall come to that later. I do not want to discuss this in too much detail now.

However, the hon. member for Sea Point accuses us of trying to hide behind the private sector. But it was he and people like him who have been criticizing us all these years and who have said that we are obsessed with the idea of building houses for everyone in this country, Is that not the criticism we have had to listen to in this House ad nauseam? We were continually being accused of building too many houses. The private sector asked us to give them a chance too. Hon. members opposite said that we should give the private sector an opportunity to contribute its share in the field of low-cost housing. Now that we are setting the scene, resolving the problems, and saying to the private sector that it will now have the chance to do something in the field of housing, now that we are working out formulas to involve the private sector, the hon. member for Sea Point is discussing how the wind blows and is accusing us of trying to hide behind the private sector. One cannot have one’s bread buttered on both sides.

The hon. member for Sea Point also referred to the Government’s approach to the report of the Viljoen Committee. He alleges that the Government announced the publication of the report of the Viljoen Committee with great fanfare, but that we rejected its cardinal aspects. These are the proposals relating to subsidizing. But the hon. member knows that it is not as simple as that. We accept the general principles contained in the report of the Viljoen Committee, and we also said that as far as the committee’s proposals in connection with the subsidizing of the private sector in the field of low-cost housing were concerned, we could not accept those. However, we did not reject the proposals out of hand. What was the Government’s reaction to them? The Government’s reaction was the announcement by the hon. the Minister at the Good Hope Conference that the Steyn Committee was being appointed by the Minister of Finance. What is the Steyn Committee working on today? Is it not devising formulas and means of involving the private sector in the question of housing, by means of subsidies, for example?

However, it cannot be dealt with in such a simple manner, merely by way of subsidies. I have just pointed out how much the country is already spending on subsidies. If I did what the hon. member for Sea Point wants, this department would eventually be nothing but a subsidizing channel, which receives a certain amount of money from the Treasury and pays it out in subsidies. I really do not believe that is the way to provide housing in the country. Surely we must try to make available as much as possible of our scarce funds for new housing rather than for subsidies.

The hon. member for Sea Point, as well as other hon. members, also referred to rent formulas. I want to react briefly to that at a later stage. Then the hon. member for Sea Point referred to welfare housing. He touched on two aspects of this. The one is the aspect of security of tenure, an aspect which was also raised by the hon. member for Tygervallei. I have already dealt with this by referring it to a Select Committee of this House. The Select Committee will advise us on how this may be dealt with. I have read a great deal about this, and I have gained the impression that it is time we got away from statutory rent control so that the private sector will no longer be able to hide behind this pretext. On the other hand, the people to whom the hon. member for Umbilo referred, i.e. our elderly people who are particularly dependent on these letting units, those of them who still want to live in their own homes, should not simply be placed at the mercy of the landlords. We must show compassion for elderly people who do not want to live in old-age homes or with their children and who are then dependent on letting units. We must take care of these people, and therefore it is essential that the committee which we are going to appoint should produce very good proposals.

The hon. the Deputy Minister of Community Development is doing very good work in this connection, so I shall leave it to him to reply at greater length with regard to the aspect of welfare housing, as well as the question of State auxiliary services, a matter which was raised by the hon. member for Umbilo and which falls within the jurisdiction of the hon. the Deputy Minister.

The hon. member for Bellville spoke about the question of funds, and I am glad to be able to say a few words about this myself. For several years, the department has been pointing out to the Treasury that it would be a good thing if the National Housing Commission could be allowed, when necessary, to borrow funds for capital works in connection with housing. Seen as a whole, of course, the capital market cannot be thrown open for everybody in the public sector, from municipalities to Government departments, to borrow money whenever they like. The capital market also has to be controlled by one authority. So there must be co-ordination, and in this connection it is essential that co-ordination be brought about under the Minister under whom it falls, namely the Minister of Finance. However, it is also true that local authorities have the right to negotiate loans for housing, among other things, but as a result of the prevailing high interest rates, they do not negotiate such loans, but expect the State to provide them with the necessary funds for housing at low interest rates, and if we do not make these funds available to them, they cannot provide the necessary housing for the specific group in their areas. As a result of the deliberations of the Steyn Committee, the National Housing Commission has at last been given the right to borrow money when necessary, and I piloted the necessary legislation through this House earlier this session.

However, this is not the best way of finding money for housing, because this is expensive money. It is extremely expensive money at the moment, and it will only force us to pay higher interest rates and more subsidies, for the money I am going to borrow now I shall lend to municipalities at 9%, while the State has to pay double that interest rate. Therefore the State will subsidize the difference. If the State is able to appropriate funds for housing from its revenue account, therefore, it should rather not borrow those funds, because we cannot use money for that at the interest rates at which we have to lend it at the moment so as to provide housing for the income groups who need it. However, we can now negotiate the necessary loans and provision is being made in the draft estimates for an amount of R150 million which we can borrow this year. I want to point out to hon. members that we have already investigated the possibility of obtaining these funds, and it appears that we shall be able to obtain the R150 million from a consortium of banks. The department has succeeded in negotiating this loan on a short-term basis from a consortium of banks led by the Central Accepting Bank. At first we very strongly considered negotiating a long-term loan, but the Treasury advised us in this connection and the department itself also came to the conclusion that it would be better to obtain the funds on a short-term basis, say on an 18-month or three-year basis, in view of the fact that interest rates may drop in the meantime. However, I want to say here today that I cannot spend this R150 million on new projects, because the money is needed to finance current projects this year. Hon. members must not start to pressurize me by demanding that I embark on new projects, because this is a time for us to exercise some restraint until the housing situation is back under control and until we may be able to make further progress with the aid of the private sector. I shall come back to this aspect later. All I want to say at the moment is that I think that everything we have done so far, all our attempts to involve the private sector more closely in the provision of low-cost housing in particular, will depend on whether there is an adequate infrastructure for the building of houses, such as serviced plots for individuals, either for the employer who is interested or could be encouraged to take an interest in the provision of housing for his employees, or for the private sector, such as the building societies, or for anybody else. An adequate infrastructure must be created, and therefore I am glad to be able to say today that I have obtained the permission of the hon. the Minister of Finance to borrow a further R20 million, in addition to this R150 million, for the exclusive purpose of creating infrastructures at key points, such as the Eastern Cape, so that the private sector may be brought into the picture.

The hon. member for Bellville also referred to the re-proclamation of certain smaller Coloured group areas in the Western Cape, areas that had originally been destined to be declared White group areas because they were too small to continue as non-White units. That was the motivation, and that was why the areas were declared White. Over the years, however, these areas were not cleared up and the inhabitants were not resettled, and through all those years, the fate of these smaller Brown communities was uncertain and the residential areas began to decay because nothing was being done to maintain them, since the people were going to be moved. Specifically because we now have to account for every cent, I have decided to reconsider the whole matter, and I intend to re-proclaim all these places which comply with the principle of segregation, although some of them are not very big. As far as this is concerned, of course, we do not publicize everything we do. The hon. member mentioned a few cases, and I should like to refer him to an advertisement which appeared in Die Burger on 23 April, to the effect that we had instructed the Group Areas Board to investigate Abbotsdale near Malmesbury, Temperance near Gordon’s Bay, and the Coloured group area at Kleinmond, with a view to confirming that these areas will remain Coloured residential areas, giving those people a sense of security and preventing further decay. All the areas we are dealing with in this way are fully in line with the concept to which the NP adheres, i.e. separate residential areas. Only from that point of view are we reconsidering it.

I want to say to the hon. member for Langlaagte that he made a very positive and responsible speech today. That was because he was talking about a matter which he knew something about. He should confine himself to that in future. Then he will not have any problems.

The hon. member put specific questions to me concerning Crown Gardens. I shall obtain the particulars for him. He will not be here tomorrow, but I shall send him the information by post. He also asked a question in connection with the flats we are selling there. The hon. member has a point when he says that we should sell only to the people who are living there. However, the department’s responsibility is only towards people who fall within a certain income group. My information is that there are many people living in those flats who could very easily afford accommodation elsewhere because of their incomes.

May I make representations to you in this connection?

Yes. The hon. member is welcome to let me have particulars if he has any. Now the position is that in this case we shall be able to sell to one man and not to another. Naturally, the department does not like to be involved in this type of sale if it can be avoided. However, when it comes to things like Indian plazas and business centres which have to be sold under sectional title and which belong to the State, we are forced to do this. When we want to sell a block of flats to the private sector, I think the proper course is to sell it to someone who will then sell it under sectional title or use it for other purposes. At the moment, of course, we are not very eager to sell this kind of accommodation, but it is the considered opinion of the department that on the one hand, we must encourage home-ownership and, on the other hand, in order to obtain more money which we can plough back into new housing, we are going to make a dramatic attempt to encourage home-ownership, especially among our non-Whites, because they are primarily the people who are living in rented accommodation today. Therefore the department has decided as a matter of policy to sell, at attractive prices— which I shall not specify now—a large percentage of the dwelling units which it is presently letting, to those people who are at present renting those units from the department. This will not only be done by the department. We are also going to ask the local authorities, which have built most of these houses with funds obtained from the department, to do the same. What is more, when the local authorities approach the department in future for money in order to create a housing infrastructure, I am going to make it a condition that a certain number of the plots must be for sale so that people may build their own houses there. The days when we were able to build houses for everyone—I am saying this to the hon. member for Sea Point—are past. We do not have that kind of money. We do not even have enough money to provide housing for the low-income groups alone. No country with a population structure such as South Africa’s could afford this. We would have to spend an extraordinary percentage of our budget on this aspect alone, and we have many other priorities in this country that are just as important. Therefore we shall have to approach this matter in a different way in future, and I want to tell hon. members at a later stage of the debate what our policy in this connection will be from now on, so that the local authorities and the private sector and all who take an interest in housing may know exactly where we shall stand in this connection in future.

The hon. member for Langlaagte also said that we should undertake large projects such as the one at Mitchell’s Plain in the Rand area as well. We do have similar projects in that area, such as Ennerdale, which are perhaps not so much in the limelight. However, these places were not built in such a dramatic way in a short period, but eventually these townships such as Ennerdale, Lenasia and Phoenix are going to be just as big and just as exemplary as Mitchell’s Plain.

I was referring to housing for Whites.

Yes, I know. There was a time when there was not such a great need for housing for Whites, but it is now time the Whites got their rightful share of the housing funds, although the housing shortage among the non-Whites is enormous.

† As far as the hon. member for Umbilo is concerned, I shall reply in more detail to the matters which he raised at a later stage during the discussion of my Vote.

Mr. Chairman, on behalf of this side of the House I should like to express our gratitude to the hon. the Minister for his intention to appoint a Select Committee to institute a thorough investigation into the whole problem relating to rent control and housing. We have also taken cognizance of the scope of the terms of reference which will be assigned to that Select Committee.

We were also gratified to learn that a loan is in fact going to be raised to assist the department in carrying out its task.

If one considers what the Department of Community Development has achieved in this country, it is something for which the NP and the Government can be grateful, and they can look back with a great deal of pride on the great work of upliftment which has been done in this country by this department. We are also well aware that heavy demands are going to be made in future. I also think it is important that we take cognizance once again today of the fact that the Government of South Africa wishes to avoid what is taking place in certain parts of Africa, viz. the shocking conditions which have arisen there due to the fact that preference is given to a build up of military power at the expense of development which, in turn, has led to famine, poverty and unemployment. It is also important to note that this takes place at the expense of community development as well. We in South Africa should acknowledge that the most effective answer to the danger of Marxism is still to ensure that the standard of living of one’s people is raised to a level where communism will have no appeal.

As far as the NP’s policy in respect of housing is concerned, it is in the first place the responsibility of the individual. In the second place it is the responsibility of the employer. And in the third place it is the responsibility of the State.

I wish to single out one aspect this afternoon. I should appreciate it very much if the hon. the Minister would give his attention to this. When we are dealing with housing, we should take note of the problems and delays caused by certain laws and ordinances. In respect of a specific ordinance, the Town Planning and Towns Ordinance, I took the trouble to see how it applied in the Transvaal, the Cape and the Orange Free State. I found that the ordinances of the three provinces are in precise conformity in this regard; it is virtually a standard ordinance.

If we consider the tremendous delays which occur as a result of the way in which town planning and towns is dealt with in those provinces, it creates a problem for us. It may even take years to have a township proclaimed. In addition one should take into consideration that building costs over a period of two years—the period one waits to have a town proclaimed—could rise by as much as 30%.

I noticed that in its Town Planning and Towns Ordinance, Natal has made an exception in respect of only two cities, viz. Durban and Pietermaritzburg. In the case of Pietermaritzburg and Durban, township development may take place within a period of two months. Township development there is dealt with by the city engineer, and in exceptional cases, it goes to the city council.

These are the things we need to look at. Almost every town in the country has a development or guide plan. Could guidelines not be laid down beforehand to eliminate that long drawn-out process of establishing a township?

I should like to refer to the remark of the hon. member for Umbilo that we should reconsider our building regulations. He wanted to know whether they were not too strict. Should we not consider a possible relaxation so that we can overcome problems? The private township developer is practically out of the market as a result of the delay being experienced with township development.

There is also a long, drawn-out process to have a scheme approved as far as welfare housing is concerned. The interaction between the Department of Health and Welfare, the Department of Community Development and the local authorities is really creating a serious problem.

As never before, the time has come in our country for us to co-operate with one another. I am convinced that we should involve the entire community in community development. Over the years, the local authorities have been too inclined to say when there was a housing shortage, that the Government should provide the funds. Local authorities act as the agents of the Government, but I think the time has come for local authorities to make contributions from their own funds.

I think that welfare organizations in particular should also become involved. I am aware that there are numerous service organizations throughout our country. Almost every town or city has a Rapportryers corps. There are the Rotarians and other service organizations. Each one of them can also do their share for community development. The churches should also be involved; this is also very important.

We should also consider what has been achieved by utility companies in the Cape with regard to one aspect. I refer to Garden Cities in this regard. This utility company was born out of necessity when a Richard Stuttaford donated an amount of £10 000 so that Garden Cities could be established. Today one can go and look at how many dwelling units have been constructed in the Cape by that utility company.

One could also think of the Citizens Housing League. Think of someone like Bishop Lavis or Mrs. Zerilda Steyn—these are the people we need. We do not need a Bishop Tutu who uses every platform to fan hatred in this country. We must keep our people together. We do not need a man like the Rev. Allan Boesak who makes the front pages of the newspapers merely to sow discord among our people. We need people like the Rev. April. Go and have a look at what he has achieved in his community in George. I think I should just mention what one person has done for his community in George in respect of community development. There is a library, two clinics, a community hall, there have been improvements to existing housing facilities, a new sub-economic scheme, and so on. Children from the poorest families are becoming teachers and nurses.

Yes, but with our money of course.

However, he took the initiative. These are the kind of people we need. What I am going to mention in my next point, he did not do with Government funds. We should take cognizance of this. After he had been serving that congregation for 10 years, the population growth, the birthrate, among the Coloureds was 43 per 1 000. This was in 1975. In 1980, there were 16 per 1 000. Even if all he achieved is that those people will co-operate in future, then things will go well for us. I should like to tell the Minister this afternoon that the success we achieve with housing aid in future, will depend on the attitude displayed by the community as a whole, as well as by the political parties in this House.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Witbank made a very constructive and excellent speech. I shall touch upon some of the matters he discussed but he will have to forgive me if I do not discuss all the matters he touched upon.

† The hon. the Minister set out what steps would be considered to improve the housing situation. There is no doubt that the hon. the Minister has a very positive and enthusiastic attitude towards constructive suggestions. I think his suggestion that a Select Committee of Parliament be appointed, is an outstanding suggestion because a large contribution can be made by a Select Committee, particularly when they get evidence from the public and the private sector. The hon. the Minister very correctly pointed out that due to the increase in costs the money available can build much less housing now than before. But despite the shortage of funds the hon. the Minister and his department have laid the foundations in the past and they will do what is necessary in the future to continue with a sound housing policy for South Africa. Obviously the private sector will have to play a far greater part than it has done in the past. We are very pleased to hear from the hon. the Minister that his department was able to borrow R150 million in order to continue with the projects already in progress at present. This R150 million will be an enormous shot in the arm for the housing industry. We naturally also welcome the fact that the hon. the Minister is going to endeavour to borrow R20 million for expenditure in the Eastern Cape. I am sure that if he tries to borrow money for the Eastern Cape, he will have no problem. We wish him all the best and thank him on behalf of the Eastern Cape.

Not the whole amount.

It does not matter if it is not the whole amount, as long as the greater part of the amount is spent in the Eastern Cape.

And in the Eastern Transvaal.

Of course the hon. the Minister of Transport Affairs has to look after the Eastern Transvaal.

We welcome the fact that the National Housing Commission has been authorized to borrow money for housing on the open market. There is no limit to the number of houses than can be built if enough money is available. Should we not in certain cases think of project loans, as in the case of the foreign loan of R160 million to Soweto? Foreign financing will be easier to obtain for some projects than for others. The outside world is always saying how worried they are about South Africa. The way I understand them, they would like to see the quality of life of certain people improved. Here they have a golden opportunity to make a contribution. Project loans also make it easier for local business firms whose share-holding is controlled from abroad. The private sector must assist in the monumental task that lies ahead. Until now, as far as the underprivileged are concerned, the responsibility has been placed on the shoulders of the Government on a massive scale. The private sector, too, must contribute its share now.

† There are enormous priorities in regard to the funds available to the Government and obviously housing is vital and a top priority. Home-ownership, or housing, is one of the most important factors, if not the most important factor, in creating a stable society in South Africa. A man who has a house has a stake in the well-being and the future of the country. We are all waiting to see what the Du Plessis Commission produces.

Last year there was R12 500 million outstanding in bonds held by the building society movement. These bonds should be sold on the open market, which will then provide the building societies with the liquidity they so urgently require. Obviously, to interest institutions in buying these bonds, the bonds should become part of their liquid assets. I am not now pleading the case of the building societies. I am pleading the case of the man in the street who cannot get a bond to build a house or to buy a house. I know that certain concessions were granted in the budget to encourage housing development. We must encourage this development, but, if we see that these concessions do not produce the required results, we must consider an even better package. With the natural increase in the population, young married people want houses. With successful immigration there is a vital necessity to keep pace with the housing requirements. The private sector has to shoulder its full share of the responsibility. In addition, the hon. the Minister and his department are doing their best to encourage utility companies to be established. One just has to look at the operations of Garden Cities in Cape Town to see how well such a company can operate. Garden Cities has built approximately 6 300 houses housing approximately 30 000 people. In the next five years it anticipates providing homes for a further 7 700 people. I am pleased to say that my hon. colleague, the hon. member for Maitland, serves on this board.

In Cape Town we also have the Citizens’ Housing League and I am pleased to say that the hon. Chief Whip, the hon. member for Tygervallei, has served as a director in that league for 20 years and that the hon. member for Maitland also serves in it. The Citizens’ Housing League has built approximately 11 400 houses housing approximately 59 000 people. In the next five years it anticipates providing housing for a further 4 370 people, approximately.

These utility companies and others are to be congratulated on their outstanding achievements. However, if one looks at overseas reports one sees that the utility companies throughout South Africa can do a lot more. I want to quote from an article which appeared in the Eastern Province Herald on 29 April 1982—

If the utility companies would expand on this basis throughout South Africa, they could make an enormous impact on the housing scene and help us overcome the problems. We must appeal for the establishment of utility companies throughout the Republic and for private enterprise to take the initiative. If we achieve this, these utility companies can render a service that will make a very substantial contribution to the stability of South Africa. They will naturally contribute enormously towards improving the quality of life of all our people.

The hon. the Minister’s department has possibly done more to provide housing than any other government in any other country under similar circumstances. In addition to the large number of houses supplied directly or through local authorities, the department, together with certain organizations, has done fantastic work for the elderly people of South Africa. In the Port Elizabeth area in the Eastern Cape homes for the aged were established with loans made available at one-twentieth of 1% interest. There are thousands of elderly people living in these complexes who spend the twilight of their lives in the most comfortable circumstances. In addition these homes for the elderly people are given substantial financial assistance by the Department of Health and Welfare. We are proud of these homes in Port Elizabeth. In fact, the latest complex to be opened was named after the hon. the Minister of Health and Welfare for the tremendous services he has rendered. On the same occasion tribute was also paid to the hon. the Minister of Community Development and his department for the encouragement and assistance that they had given to these projects.

One of the major problems confronting us is the extremely high expenditure on housing. Those earning less than R650 a month qualify for State subsidized housing. Those earning slightly more than R650 a month, and who therefore do not qualify for State subsidized housing, are in the crisis group. Generally building societies adopt the attitude that the breadwinner’s salary should not be less than four times his monthly bond repayments. Has the time not arrived for the building societies to take cognizance, in part at least, of family or household income, particularly as the percentage working wives has increased? Whilst it is appreciated that the additional income could be interrupted, there are a certain number of years during which the joint income makes it possible for a married couple to acquire a house. In order to assist young families, should building societies not consider a salary of only 3,5 times the monthly repayment, provided a purchaser is in regular employment, has prospects of advancement, and the house is in the non-luxury category? As bond repayments are fixed, the over-commitment is of a short duration, and one is concerned with an appreciating and not a wasting asset.

According to an expert—and I have the graphs here—the anomaly of a fixed bond repayment is illustrated by the following example. While 25% of a purchaser’s total income in 1980 was required to pay for a particular house in 1980, that figure drops to 17% by 1984, and 4,1% by the year 2000. If building societies would agree to these concessions … [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I have no quarrel with the substance of the hon. member Mr. Aronson’s speech. What I do want to react to immediately, however, is the very, very important and far-reaching announcement made here today by the hon. the Minister that he was going to refer the matter of housing to a Select Committee of this House, the Select Committee to investigate various aspects of housing, including the desirability or otherwise of statutory control of rents, and also measures affording continued protection against exploitation and victimization, as well as matters pertaining to sectional titles, share-blocks and other related matters. We welcome this announcement. We will give the hon. the Minister our full support in this matter. We trust that the Select Committee will meet as soon as possible, that it will hear evidence from all interested parties, and that it will be turned into a commission of inquiry at the end of this session of Parliament because there is obviously a lot of work to be done.

We welcome this announcement by the hon. the Minister because the appointment of such a Select Committee is essential. In fact, at the PFP congress in November 1981 a motion was unanimously carried asking the hon. the Minister to appoint a commission of this nature to investigate all aspects of rent control. In addition to that, on 12 February 1982, the hon. member for Sea Point moved a private member’s motion here in the House in which he asked, inter alia, for adequate protection for the public against abuse, harassment and exploitation, special protection and assistance for the aged, the infirm and others in need, and also that the cost of providing such protection and assistance should be borne by the State, and that appropriate incentives should be provided to encourage the private sector to build more accommodation for the middle and lower income group residents in our cities. We are therefore delighted with the hon. the Minister’s announcement, and will give the Select Committee our full support.

What does, however, flabbergast me is the statement made earlier today by the hon. member for Umbilo, who, prior to the hon. the Minister’s announcement and without knowing that the announcement was going to be made, called for the abolition of rent control. I hope the people of Durban and people everywhere in South Africa will realize that it has now become the policy of the NRP to have rent control abolished. I am absolutely flabbergasted by that statement, and I hope the hon. member for Umbilo will be able to explain that attitude to the hundreds and thousands of tenants in blocks of flats throughout South Africa. I should like to remind the hon. member for Umbilo of what the hon. leader of his party said during the discussion of this same Vote by a Standing Committee in the Senate Chamber on Monday, 14 September 1981. On that occasion the hon. member for Durban Point said the following (col. 753)—

Who said this? The hon. member for Durban Point said this. These words were uttered by the hon. leader of the hon. member for Umbilo’s party. [Interjections.]

How can you be so stupid? [Interjections.]

You are stupid, and not only are you stupid, you are also insensitive. [Interjections.]

Order!

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Is an hon. member allowed to tell another hon. member he is stupid?

Yes, most definitely! [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member for Hillbrow may proceed.

Mr. Speaker, we all know who the stupid one is. Nevertheless, we welcome the hon. the Minister’s announcement because such a step is necessary. We are facing a crisis in South Africa as far as the cost of accommodation is concerned . Rent boards are already granting increases of the order of 50% on application. I handle approximately 46 blocks of flats in the Hillbrow constituency alone, and in many cases where I have written to the hon. the Minister asking for relief, and for the reimposition of rent-control in certain deserving cases, what answer did I get? I was informed that compared with rentals in other buildings, the rentals asked were reasonable. These comparisons relate, however, to new buildings, whilst I asked for a re-imposition of rent-control in respect of old buildings, but in this regard there has been no relief whatsoever from the hon. the Minister. However, I understand that a new situation has now arisen and that there will be some relief. Furthermore, the Act makes no reference to this, and I think we should look into this matter, because it is stipulated that rentals should be compared.

As we all know, things are getting worse as far as rent increases are concerned. Rentals that were R60 a month in 1978 are now R200, those that were R100 are now R200 a month, while rentals which at that time were R200 a month are now R600. Rentals of this nature are entirely beyond the means of pensioners, and they are therefore facing a terrible crisis.

There are, at present, still 63 000 units still under rent control, but if my calculations are correct there should actually be 97 000 units if only 59% of a total of 238 000 were phased-out in terms of the Fouché Commission’s recommendations. This involves at least 100 000 people, and what is to happen to them? In what way will they be protected against rent increases and against harassment by landlords? How will their fears be allayed? Sir, we must not leave the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads. The commission must deal with this situation as soon as possible in order to stop exploitation. Perhaps the hon. the Minister might have to consider suspending matters so that people cannot anticipate what may or may not happen as a result of the recommendations of the Select Committee. Some form of protection must be given to these people, but it must be done expeditiously.

Furthermore, far fewer flats are available because of the increased number of flats being converted to Sectional Title. The demand for these flats is growing, and as a result there is a decrease in the supply of flats. I therefore believe that this is another aspect that should be considered.

Another aspect is the conversion of companies to share-block companies, and I am pleased that the hon. the Minister has now amended the Steyn Committee’s recommendations to include share-block companies, because it appears that share-block companies have bought shares in blocks of flats and are giving notice to the tenants, who then have no alternative but to vacate these flats. I do not think that these companies are legally entitled to act in this way, yet the Rents Act only refers to a lessor giving notice. Whether these people are lessors or not, is a legal matter that, I believe, should be sorted out, otherwise all the protection in terms of the Sectional Titles Act will fall away because of the big loophole as far as this is concerned, and also in regard to the conversions.

I hope the hon. the Minister will also consider raising the ceiling of R650 per month that is at present imposed on economic housing provided by the department. In my view this limit should be raised to the realistic level of approximately R1 000 per month, although this would possibly place a heavier burden upon the State to provide more housing. There are, however, a considerable number of people earning between R650 and R1 000 per month for whom no provision is made and who are, in other words, nobody’s children. They do not have the necessary deposit to purchase a home of their own, nor can they obtain accommodation. This group does not only consist of older people and pensioners, but also many young people who want to get married and have a family. There is therefore a gap in this whole situation of providing homes for the needy, people in this category receiving no aid from the State. I believe that something should be done in this regard.

Recently the hon. the Minister of Finance announced a tax concession as an incentive to erect new blocks of flats. It would be interesting to see whether this will achieve its objective, although if the report in yesterday’s Citizen is correct, no new blocks of flats have been built in Johannesburg during the past five years.

I believe that the hon. the Minister should approach his colleagues in the Cabinet and appeal to them to refrain from taking over existing blocks of flats for occupation by employees in their departments. Surely the Government has sufficient funds to erect blocks of flats and provide accommodation for its own employees instead of depriving the existing tenants—and especially the aged—of their accommodation.

Because of the housing shortage, an ever-increasing number of people are living in caravans and mobile homes, and townships of this nature are spreading. More and more caravans and mobile homes are being sold to provide accommodation, but existing ordinances and by-laws prohibit people from permanently occupying these caravans and mobile homes. Although this type of dwelling is well known in the United States in particular, and also in Australia, there is no reason why we should not consider this properly and liaise with local authorities and provincial administrations in order for townships to provide for the availability of mobile and caravan homes. The idea that the caravan has to be removed within a certain number of months may have to be reviewed if this is going to be an ad hoc arrangement—it certainly is a temporary arrangement—to meet the situation in this country so that proper housing can be provided for people. In this way they will at least have somewhere to live. I think we should look into this matter as quickly as possible.

As far as local authorities are concerned, I believe they are a little too generous in the application of section 4 of the Sectional Titles Act in regard to the conversion of flats to sectional title. I believe before they grant sectional title they should see that the flats are adequate, that there are proper parking facilities, that the lifts operate properly and that the water and electricity supply is in order. They must also ensure that the flats comply with the by-laws and with the town planning laws.

In certain instances there are blocks of flats on leasehold property and they will never get sectional title. I believe we should take another look at the Sectional Titles Act to see whether we cannot allow sectional title to be given on leasehold property because if one can own a dwelling on leasehold property then surely one can own a flat that is on leasehold property as well. In certain cases where blocks of flats have stood for many years which were erected in contravention of a town planning scheme initially, they are still being discriminated against because they will never get past section 4. I believe there could be exceptional cases which could be looked into. With the co-operation of local authorities and provincial administrations the town-planning aspect which bars sectional title ownership could be looked at as well.

We have called upon the hon. the Minister from time to time to appoint a select committee to investigate all aspects of housing but as the hon. the Minister has already announced the appointment of such a select committee, there is no need for me to again make such an appeal as I would otherwise have done today. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I listened to the hon. member for Hillbrow and I do not also wish to become involved in the argument which he and the hon. member for Umbilo had earlier. In particular, I do not wish to decide which of the two is stupid. As far as the questions which the hon. member put to the hon. the Minister are concerned, I think he will receive replies, and therefore I do not wish to deal with them. I do just wish to put it to the hon. member that the question of the abolition or non-abolition of rent control is not as simplistic as he implied. I believe that a lot more light will be cast on the matter when the Select Committee investigates the matter. My personal attitude is that one should think in terms of a kind of package deal. It has advantages on the one hand, and restrictions on the other, but such a comprehensive package could cover the entire spectrum.

This afternoon I should like to put forward a few ideas on the financing of housing. Since we are a hybrid between a developing country and a Third World country, the excuse is sometimes used that we cannot provide for our entire housing demand, since we cannot maintain the standards which are maintained in the developing countries because of the Third World circumstances in which we find ourselves. However, it is interesting to note that according to statistics, a country such as South Korea, which is not a developed country, is the country with the highest house-ownership figure in the world, viz. 92%. The second highest is the Philippines with 83%, followed by Turkey with 80%, the USA with 70% and England with 55%. We shall therefore have to take this into account and we shall have to adapt the factors we are dealing with according to circumstances. I wish to relate this to the question of financing. The problem of financing can be divided into three categories; firstly, the availability of funds, secondly, the cost of funds, and thirdly, the cost per unit.

As far as the availability of funds is concerned, I wish to state that I do not think that we should regard this factor as the primary factor in the solution of our problems, since we have major cyclical problems in the economy. We shall therefore have to accept that the continuous fluctuation will have to be taken into account; in other words, we shall have to take the availability or otherwise of money into account. That is why, since we have this problem, a problem which we have no hope of overcoming, I should like to focus attention on the other two factors which I have already referred to. I believe that we should now concentrate on the cost of funds. We read in the annual report of the department that the cost of the establishment of an infrastructure alone can be responsible for 50% of the cost of a housing unit. Today we are speaking about the difficult solutions to the problems with regard to the shortage of housing in South Africa, and in this regard I wish to state that if we cannot find financial solutions to this problem, we should try and look for solutions in areas which are not going to cost us money. In view of what I have already said with regard to the cost of the infrastructure, I wish to make certain suggestions to the hon. the Minister, taking into account, of course, the problems involved. Furthermore, I wish to associate myself with the hon. member for Witbank, who pointed out that it could take from four to six years to obtain approval for township development in certain provinces, while on the other hand, approval could be obtained in the way in which the hon. member mentioned here. Let us assume that it takes five years to create an infrastructure in a particular place and to make residential plots available there. For the purpose of my argument we could also assume that the present interest rates of 20% were generally applicable. If we were to shorten the period from five years to two years, this surely means that we should be curtailing 50% of the costs of the infrastructure per unit by between 20% and 25%. Should we proceed to do what our population figures are eventually going to compel us to do, viz. to provide for a higher density of housing, particularly here in the Western Cape where agricultural land is rapidly being absorbed by residential areas, we could cut the cost per unit even further to 12,5%, particularly, if we halve the present accepted size of 7 200 square foot per unit, so that a plot which was previously a single unit, now becomes two units. If we were to do this, we would begin to have a situation in which land for housing could be made available to the population at realistic prices.

This brings me to a third facet of the problem, viz. the luxurious housing that is generally considered to be the norm today. If we were to build between 25% and 30% less luxuriously, this would mean that we could curtail the original 50% of the costs per unit to below 10%. Then we could begin to do business.

There are several other ideas which I could put forward. However, the few suggestions which I have already made will suffice. However, as far as the subsidizing of housing funds is concerned, I also wish to put forward a few ideas. Firstly, the department’s annual report, the report of the Viljoen Commission, as well as many other reports, clearly indicate that the State will no longer be able to provide everyone with housing, and that the private sector will therefore have to be brought into the picture. Something will have to be done to encourage the private sector to contribute its share in this respect. Since we accept this, I wish to ask the hon. the Minister if he would not consider allowing his department to make land and infrastructure available to companies in terms of leasehold, freehold rights or even by means of letting, for example, for the construction of accommodation for Whites, Coloureds, Asians and Black people.

This is already being done.

Yes, I am aware that it is already being done. However, I believe that it is not yet being done on the scale on which it could in fact be done. Nevertheless, I convey my gratitude to the hon. the Minister for what is already being done in this field. Furthermore, I should like to know whether it is not possible for the hon. the Minister, in co-operation with the building societies, to extend the restriction of 20 years for the repayment of bond rates to 50 years. If we accept that the normal lifespan of a dwelling house is at least 50 years on average, the question arises whether it is necessary for everyone who purchases a house to pay for it in full at his death. In view of the problems we are dealing with at present, is it not essential that a purchaser’s descendants also contribute something so that the house concerned could be at their disposal too?

Furthermore, I wish to associate myself with what the hon. member Mr. Aronson said in his plea that the income of the purchaser’s wife ought not to be taken into account. I wish to point out once again that for young people in certain circumstances, the income of the wife should also be included when the 25% of the monthly income which normally has to be spent on housing, is calculated. I wish to make the statement, as I did last year, that all the people living in a house should make a contribution towards new housing. When there are overcrowded conditions, those people who live on those premises cannot contribute to the building of additional housing and I think it is necessary that they make such a contribution.

When it comes to the cost per unit, I wish to state categorically this afternoon that our building industry is making profits in the most irresponsible manner at present. Building costs have increased by 93% over the past three years, and I think it is high time that these people be called to account. I wish to suggest that in future we make use of utility companies, as the hon. the Minister has also done in the past with great success, and also that local authorities should, as in the past, use their own building machinery in order to establish more equal competition as far as the building industry is concerned.

I wish to conclude by referring to one point with special reference to a remark which the hon. the Minister himself made in his speech, and that is that the hon. the Minister said that he would see to it that the local authorities convert the rented units they have at their disposal to marketable units. I wish to point out that as far as the Cape Town City Council is concerned, there are 38 000 units at the moment which the city council is letting as rented units. I think this is an absurdity. It is the same situation one has in England as soon as a Labour Government comes into power. Rented units are created immediately, but when the Conservative Party is in control, marketable units are created. This is something I would welcome, and it is to be hoped that the hon. the Minister will see to it that this is done.

Mr. Chairman, it is my pleasure to speak after the hon. member for Vasco, who raised certain matters in regard to housing here, and who made certain proposals on the question of the financing in this connection. I also wish to refer to what the hon. member for Witbank said in this connection. The hon. member singled out three provinces when he said that the towns ordinance was responsible for the delay in township development. He referred to the Transvaal, the Free State and the Cape in this connection. I am not conversant with the circumstances in the Transvaal and the Cape, but I wish to assert that the popular statement which is sometimes made that the provincial authorities and its local government section frequently cause unnecessary delays in the establishment of townships is not entirely true. I want to tell the hon. member that I have had experience of this matter in the Free State, and I want to give him the assurance that no unnecessary delays whatsoever occur. I even want to go so far as to say that in numerous cases, when complaints by township developers or even by municipalities are investigated, it appears that the township developers themselves, or the local authorities in question, had omitted to do certain things which were their responsibility. I also want to point out that all Government departments have to be consulted in regard to township development and that it is sometimes necessary to wait for approval. I just want to say that the course of action which was subsequently adopted in the Free State was to say that if notice of a certain matter was given and there was no reaction to it within 14 days, it would be accepted that there were no objections in that connection. I am merely mentioning this in passing.

On this occasion I should like to say that in the debate which took place here this afternoon it was very clearly emphasized that the hon. the Minister and his department had an extremely difficult task to perform, particularly under the present circumstances. I also wish to express my gratitude and appreciation for the dedication and zeal with which these people are tackling this extremely challenging task. The problems were sketched this afternoon and attempts were made to find certain solutions and I think it was proved that this was a very difficult matter. In this connection I also wish to convey my gratitude and appreciation to the local authorities for the role which they are playing, for over the years they have been the agents of the department and I think that in most cases—there could be exceptions—they acquitted themselves well of their task and made a contribution to the provision of housing. If the department had not, over the years, performed this task with the assistance of the local authorities, many people who are in the fortunate position of having a home today, would have been without accommodation.

In the annual report of the Director-General reference is, inter alia, made to research, and according to the report the money which was appropriated for research was not utilized very fruitfully. Of the research projects for low-cost housing carried out by universities, only 66 projects out of a total of 246 are perhaps of any practical use.

It would appear that a need exists for a thorough investigation into the research being done by the State or which the State is causing to be done, in order to achieve purposeful, coordinated and practical goals. In times when money is scarce, research which does not lead to the practical application of the results or findings of such research, is a luxury which cannot be afforded.

As far as investigation and research is concerned, I wish to refer briefly to the cost of services or infrastructures, something to which other hon. members also referred. It is true that there is an exceptionally high cost factor at the present time, since water, sewerage, street layout and other services are tremendously expensive. I think that research could fruitfully be carried out in this connection to establish whether cheaper methods cannot be found for providing these services. This would make a tremendous contribution to reducing the expenditure on housing, and on the entire system in this connection.

I come next to building material. This is a practical matter, I admit, but surely it is the case that when we are dealing with housing we are dealing with a practical matter. When it comes to the use of bricks or other building material, I want to suggest that the department should investigate the local testing of such materials, because the cement, bricks or modern building materials which are to be used have to be sent to the Building Research Institute to be tested, and precious time is lost. Then, too, additional expense is involved. I should like to hear whether it is not possible to make an arrangement, in co-operation with the building sections of the municipalities, for the testing of such materials. In any event the equipment needed for this purpose is not very expensive.

In conclusion there is one other matter. I should like to express my gratitude to the hon. the Deputy Minister for the attention which he gave to this matter. The department is contributing a great deal to the stimulation of the building industry. I received a complaint from the Association of Building Employers and Related Industries in respect of the Orange Free State goldfields. I am sorry that I have to touch on a local matter, but it is necessary. I should like to point out that recently a relatively small amount has been spent in that area and that during the present financial year very little is being provided for the OFS goldfields. The hon. the Deputy Minister knows about the problems. I want to repeat that I have appreciation for the fact that he will try to give attention to this matter. If he is able to assist in this regard, we shall appreciate it very much indeed, because the conditions are critical. Major development is taking place in that area. There are serious problems for the various population groups. In some cases there are even as many as four families, who have to find shelter in one house. That is why I would appreciate it very much indeed if the department could also give attention to this matter so that a solution may be found in due course. I realize that the circumstances at present are difficult. One understands the financial problems of the department. What I am pleading for, however, is that as soon as improved circumstances and the hon. the Minister can provide funds for this purpose, he will in fact do so, because it will meet a very great need.

Mr. Chairman, I do not wish to deal with the specific matter which the hon. member for Welkom raised. I think we are all concerned about the delays in the proclamation of townships, the selling of land and the housing problem.

I am not used to having an almost full front bench to listen to the debate on this Vote and I think it is perhaps appropriate that I should ask hon. members to lend me their ears even if their minds are elsewhere.

Mr. Chairman, I wish to raise a matter with the hon. the Minister of Community Development in regard to the legislation dealing with urban renewal. This legislation has been very useful in smaller local authorities and the report of the hon. the Minister’s department poses a number of rhetorical questions regarding this legislation. The point is, of course, that it is very useful to the smaller towns. In fact, although it does not have any racial provisions as such, this legislation has generally been used in respect of poor buildings owned by Whites and usually occupied by Indians. This has happened more particularly in the Transvaal where Indians do not have freehold rights and so have had to make use of rented premises owned by Whites.

Mr. Chairman, the position is complicated. Because of the uncertainty of Indian-occupied areas and the effect of the Group Areas Act, many of these buildings have deteriorated even further. Another feature of this legislation is that the department effectively intervenes in the affairs of the local authority. This is done in consultation with and often with the agreement of the local authority but in a sense the department takes over the functions of the local authority for financing and planning.

However, there is another section of the hon. the Minister’s department which deals with the Group Areas Act. In terms of section 19 of the Group Areas Act the occupation of certain general business areas by people of all races is allowed under permit.

Ownership by Coloureds and Indians, as in the case of industrial areas, is also allowed.

In my constituency of Pietermaritzburg North, the municipality wishes to embark on a process of urban renewal at the western end of Church Street. There is an existing bus station serving Black commuters. That bus station has existed since buses started bringing Blacks in from the Black area which Sir Theophilus Shepstone established in the last century. The municipality intends redeveloping that area for a new bus station costing in excess of R1 million. The majority of the businesses in that area, which have existed for a long time, are Indian-owned or Indian-run or they are run by White nominees. The point is that the municipality has taken the trouble to make a study of the ownership and occupation of those businesses, those little shops, and what is more important, they have done a survey among Black commuters who have indicated that they like the kind of shops to be found there. They like the service they get from the Indian shop-owners as well as the competition which there is in that small area.

And the curry and rice.

Yes, and the curry and rice. The municipality wants to develop that area under a section 19 permit in terms of the Group Areas Act. My information is that the department wants the urban renewal legislation applied. The municipality does not want this, first of all because it means that all that land will be expropriated which will go against the rights of the Indian landowners. The Indians are resentful of this Act being used because they know from their cousins, relatives and friends in the Transvaal how the urban renewal legislation has been used to enforce the Group Areas Act. Furthermore, the Pietermaritzburg municipality, which is a large and very responsible municipality and which is very progressive—with a small “p”—wishes to retain its own rights to plan and develop this area without the Department of Community Development becoming directly involved.

My information is that the Pietermartizburg municipality has asked to see the hon. the Minister but that it has been told it would serve no purpose and that it should submit a memorandum to the Strydom Committee of Inquiry investigating the improvement of the Group Areas Act. As I see it, if it is a matter concerning urban renewal, why refer it to the Strydom Committee looking into the Group Areas Act? That reinforces the view that what the department in fact wants to do is to deprive the Indians in that area of their land and send them down to the eastern end of Church Street. I want to ask the hon. the Minister in all earnestness please to allow the Pietermaritzburg municipality to develop that area. We all agree that it needs urban renewal. There are some buildings there which are in a decayed state. The municipality also recognizes that, although it also cares for old buildings. Pietermaritzburg is one of the finest examples of a Victorian town that we have in this country. The municipality wants to protect the interests of the Black commuters, the Indian traders and the White people who own property there and to undertake the planning with that in mind. It accepts the need for some form of urban renewal there, but it does not want those people to have to give up their rights in that regard. I want to ask the hon. the Minister not to avoid dealing with this issue by passing the buck to the Strydom Committee, because I think he will receive only goodwill and co-operation from that local authority.

A lot of hon. members are in the House at present and there is a last matter I should like to raise while I have the ear of such a large audience. [Interjections.] It concerns the financing of housing. The hon. the Minister mentioned the fact that there is a shortage of rented accommodation for Whites in South Africa despite the fact that the application of the Rent Control Act is being steadily reversed in time. I do not believe that it really has anything to do with the Rent Control Act. I believe it has to do basically with two things: Firstly, the Sectional Titles Act which has meant that a man can capitalize and make money out of selling a property and, secondly, the growth of our economy in South Africa. I want to suggest to the hon. the Minister that, if he wants private enterprise to develop—he has indicated that he does and that principe has also been accepted by the Minister of Finance in the budget—he must look at other financial incentives to private enterprise to start developing blocks of flats. That may mean that we might have to look into certain measures applied in the USA, such as allowing for the depreciation of buildings to be tax deductible etc. There are many of these techniques. Until the hon. the Minister introduces a profit motive private enterprise will not undertake the building of blocks of flats and of other accommodation in South Africa. We do have the expertise and the money. We also have the skills in the private sector. All these things have to be looked at.

Furthermore, there is the problem of interest rates. I know people who have sold blocks of flats in terms of the sectional title scheme. The buyers cannot obtain bonds, with the result that the prospective sellers are charging them occupational interest. In this way the prospective sellers are deriving more money from occupational interest than they would from ordinary rentals paid by tenants. I suggest that these possibilities I have just mentioned be investigated by the Department of Community Development. I accept that the matter is already under investigation, and that the hon. the Minister has already accepted the concept spelt out by the hon. the Minister of Finance in his budget speech that certain incentives should be given to flat developers.

Mr. Chairman, just before my speech was interrupted earlier, I made the statement that as soon as rent control is abolished, the lessee really has no legal protection or assurance of his right of occupation of a particular property, since lessors are then in a position to be able to impose even astronomical increases in rentals. If there should be any objections on the part of the lessee, the lessor even has the right to terminate the occupation of such a lessee, by way of intimidation. I therefore wish to request that the commission announced by the hon. the Prime Minister will give attention to the establishment of security of occupation by applying chapter 4 of the Rent Control Act to all rented units. Of course, this excludes units in respect of which application has to date, been made to a local authority for the commencement of a scheme in terms of section 1 of the Sectional Titles Amendment Act.

The new proposal means that when a lessor gives a lessee notice to vacate controlled or decontrolled premises, he must, in the first instance, give written notice, mentioning the reasons why he wishes the lessee concerned to vacate the premises, and secondly, immediately after dispatching the notice to the lessee, he must submit a copy thereof to the chairman or secretary of the Rent Board in whose area of jurisdiction the premises concerned are located. Chapter 4 of the Rent Control Act may be made applicable by amending the Act so as to make it applicable for these purposes as well. Then a proclamation may be issued in terms of section 52 of the Rent Control Act whereby the provisions of chapter 4 are included. In this way security of occupation in respect of premises occupied before 1 June 1966 will be ensured.

Chairman directed to report progress and ask leave to sit again.

House Resumed:

Progress reported and leave granted to sit again.

Order! The hon. the Prime Minister has requested me to afford him an opportunity of making a statement. I now give him the opportunity of doing so.

Mr. Speaker, I have great pleasure in announcing that an exchange took place in Europe today involving the South African national serviceman Sapper Johan van der Mescht.

Hear, hear!

As hon. members will, no doubt, recall, Sapper Van der Mescht has been held prisoner by Swapo since February 1978. He will be arriving in South Africa shortly and will be reunited with his family and those near and dear to him.

In the transaction the Russian KGB spy, Major Aleksei Kozlov, was exchanged for nine persons, including Sapper Van der Mescht and eight very important Western intelligence agents who have been in custody behind the Iron Curtain for some considerable time and in respect of whom all previous efforts at release had failed. The exchange was the culmination of difficult and protracted negotiations carried on at intervals and in secret over many months.

As regards the party who handled negotiations on our behalf, I feel compelled by way of an exception to violate my personal public approach to matters pertaining to the actions of the National Intelligence Service in giving credit where credit is so patently due, I should therefore like to avail myself of this opportunity to congratulate the Director-General and his personnel of the National Intelligence Service on the capable manner and on the measure of success with which they conducted the difficult and direct negotiations with the Russian intelligence service, the KGB.

Hear, hear!

Mention must be made of the fact that during the negotiations determined efforts were made to also secure the release of the Russian dissident, Anatole Victor Scharansky. Due to factors over which the Republic of South Africa had no control whatsoever, this effort was not successful. Appreciation for South Africa’s efforts in this connection was nonetheless expressed by Rabbi Rabinowitz of Israel in The Jewish Herald. He said—

The release of eight high-ranking Western agents not only illustrates the success achieved during the negotiations but is also clear proof of the Republic of South Africa’s goodwill towards Western countries and our active contribution towards the free world’s struggle for survival against communist domination.

I trust that this approach of South Africa will not go unnoticed by these governments. I refer especially to those who have recently displayed a sharply hostile attitude towards our country. The successful conclusion of this matter can be ascribed largely to the fact that it was handled professionally and under conditions of the utmost secrecy. The ethics of intelligence work demand that it be performed without fanfare, and I should like to emphasize that no further information about the negotiations will be supplied to this House or to any of the media.

In conclusion I want to appeal to all decent and reasonable South Africans to appreciate the valuable work done by members of our three intelligence services, the Security Police, Military Intelligence and the Department of National Intelligence, which are working under strained and often dangerous circumstances. Irresponsible gossip about and speculation on these groups of men and women not only harm them in their work but also harm our own security.

Hear, hear!

Mr. Speaker, with your permission I should like to respond to the statement of the hon. the Prime Minister. It is important news that he has given us, and on behalf of the official Opposition I want to express my thanks and appreciation for the fact that Mr. Van der Mescht has been released and that he will be re-united with his family. At the same time, I want to convey our congratulations to the National Intelligence Service for the able way in which they brought about his release.

Mr. Speaker, I should like to associate my party with the remarks of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, to say how pleased and very happy we are at the release of Sapper Van der Mescht after four long years as a prisoner, and to add our congratulations to those expressed by the hon. the Prime Minister and the hon. the Leader of the Opposition to all concerned in the delicate negotiations. It is indeed an event which all South Africans will welcome with great feeling and joy for the family of Sapper Van der Mescht.

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my party I should like to endorse what has been said by previous hon. speakers. We too are delighted at the release of Sapper Van der Mescht and we are particularly pleased with the achievement of the National Intelligence Service.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and the other hon. members for their words of welcome to Sapper Van der Mescht.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Agreed to.