Mr. Chairman, this year I deliberately did not speak at the beginning of this debate, and stayed out of it for some time as I first wanted to get attuned to the spirit of this debate. If I may refer to a few observations I have made, I want to say in the first place that basically no or very little real criticism has been expressed with regard to the activities of the Department of Community Development. On the contrary, up to now there has been nothing but praise on the part of the members who have participated in the debate for the task performed by the department. In the second place it has been conspicuous that up to this stage hardly any political arguments have been raised in the debate, except for a single reference to an application for a permit. What has been conspicuous in the third place, is that this year the hon. member for Rondebosch concentrated mainly on the question of Black housing, a matter in respect of which the Department of Community Development really has a minimal function to perform. The NRP, through the mouth of the hon. member for Durban Central, very obviously tried to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds with regard to the question of rent control. [Interjections.] But, Sir, before the hon. member explodes for fear that I am going to quote him incorrectly, I want to say that I shall come back to that matter.

There has been great praise for the two brochures which the Department placed at our disposal shortly before the commencement of this discussion. You will allow me, Sir, to add my personal thanks and congratulations to those of other hon. members. I really think that they are two splendid documents, not splendid in the sense that they are full of colour plates illustrating what the department has achieved, but splendid in the sense of its being a very comprehensive source of information presented in a form digestible by the layman as well. At the same time it is a synopsis of a modern miracle in the field of housing. I make bold to say that the Department of Community Development has really developed into one of the most efficient Government departments. That development has taken place in the very field in which it has constantly been under pressure. Let us give praise where it is due. This year we have virtually reached a position which has been an ideal of the Department of Community Development over the years. To a large extent this department has to be lifted out of the political arena as the provision of housing to all population groups is a national action.

Yesterday, as I have already said, the main speaker on the side of the Official Opposition, the hon. member for Rondebosch, mainly confined himself to the question of Black housing in the White residential areas. Consequently his main point of criticism was that these brochures and the annual report contained insufficient information and statistics with regard to the matters of planning and progress in the field of Black housing. But what is the real function and responsibility of the Department of Community Development in respect of Black housing? In this regard the Department of Community Development has no function outside the White areas, as the hon. member knows full well. Within the White areas, this department acts simply and purely as a financing body. Under the Department of Plural Relations there is today a statutory body, viz. the Bantu Housing Board, which lays down standards for Black housing, which determines priorities and which approves or disapproves of Black housing schemes. When the schemes as such have been approved, the Department of Community Development is approached for the necessary funds from the National Housing Fund. Further to this, I may just mention in passing that last year all approved schemes of this kind were provided with the necessary funds by the National Housing Commission. The physical development of schemes is, however, controlled by the Bantu Affairs Administration Boards. The Department of Community Development has no powers with regard to the determination of housing requirements in the Black residential areas, nor does it have any control over the determination of priorities in this regard. To quarrel—I do not want to be impolite and say “kick up dust”—with this department about Black housing, is really to bark up the wrong tree. It seems to me the hon. member wants to put a question.

Mr. Chairman, how can what the hon. member has just said be reconciled with the declared policy of the department itself, that it is responsible for all housing for all population groups in one key department?

The answer to that is simply that the declared policy at the beginning of the brochure—as the hon. member referred to it here—is quite correct. The department is financially responsible for the needs of all racial groups. As I have also indicated, it is the financing organization for Black housing and to that extent, it is involved in Black housing. To go further into the hon. member’s question, I just want to state that the following question arises from time to time: In view of the department’s small measure of involvement, should funds be channelized through the Department of Community Development at all? I think that is basically what the hon. member’s question boils down to. The reply to that is probably that the machinery of the Housing Act is so sophisticated in respect of action against defaulters and in connection with other aspects of housing, that it is worthwhile keeping it within this category for the administration of housing as such. A valid argument which the hon. member might usefully have raised, was whether the Department of Community Development should not rather be made solely responsible for Black housing in the White residential area. Then the hon. member would surely have been making a positive contribution.

The hon. member’s problem, as I see it, however, is that he has not yet been able to divorce himself from the philosophy of the Urban Problems Research Unit of the University of Cape Town. As far as I am concerned, his entire philosophy is still very closely bound up with that organization. If I had to epitomize that organization, I would do so in this way: It first decides what its findings should be, and then carries out its research to substantiate that finding. That is really the basic ailment from which the hon. member for Rondebosch still suffers.

In passing, the hon. member for Rondebosch also meted out a few blows to hon. members of the Western Cape—and he was pleased to aim a few in my direction as well—about our standpoint in respect of home-ownership for Black people in terms of the leasehold system in the Western Cape. But that is a matter which I should not like to argue with the hon. member today. I feel no inclination to argue the matter with him because the NP of the Cape and all of us in the Western Cape are adamantly committed to protecting the natural work area and residential area of the Coloureds here at all costs. We shall continue to do so even though we do not enjoy the public support of those Coloureds who are supposed to guide and represent their people. I lay stress on public support, because apart from a public standpoint, there is also a very definite private standpoint on this matter. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I am merely standing up to give the hon. member a chance to continue with his argument.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the hon. Chief Whip of the Official Opposition for the opportunity which he is giving me to continue my speech, because I should not have liked to have hurt the ego of the hon. member for Durban Central by not referring to him any further. He devoted his time mainly to rent control. Now he has similarly had the problem of stating the standpoint of his party while his colleague who is sitting so calmly behind him, the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South, anticipated him the other day by lending his support to the manner in which the Government intends to phase out rent control.

Read his exact words.

No words can change that. It cannot even be done by way of the noisiest interjections of the hon. member for Durban Point. The words in question will be quoted verbatim, but at the moment it is not necessary, for the purposes of my argument, to quote those words.

It is indeed if you want to substantiate your argument.

I concede that it is the undisputed right of the hon. member for Durban Central to put questions in this connection. I have no quarrel with him for putting questions.

[Inaudible.]

He must first calm down a little. The big member for Durban Point and the little “point” must just calm down a bit. Surely one would really like to know what the standpoint of the NRP really is in this connection.

Read my speech.

I have not yet been able to find the hon. member’s speech, but I made a careful note that all that the hon. member said, was that he and his party did not expect landlords to subsidize tenants in some form or another.

Well, do you agree?

But he went further with his argument and it clearly boiled down to this: He does not want rent control to be abolished, because there are not sufficient protective measures available.

I did not say that.

In other words, he wants to have his cake and eat it.

He said, “That is not an issue whatsoever.”

I shall come back to a few of his arguments and I think that the hon. member for Durban Point will also have an opportunity to make a speech.

Through the years, rent control as such has always been a contentious matter. I do not want to repeat today all the arguments for and against rent control which have been advanced over the years. I think they are particularly well recorded in the Fouché Commission report, which we all have at our disposal. But what lay at the root of this problem was the fact that the Act afforded protection to a great many people of whom it may be stated that it was never the intention that they should be protected by the Act, nor was there ever any justification for it. The result was that while a large percentage of these people—I am by no means saying that it is the greatest percentage—who were not really entitled to protection, nevertheless occupied these dwelling units, and that those who were, never gained admission to those dwelling units. That was probably not the rule, but I do believe that it was nevertheless a considerable percentage. At the same time, there have been a continual dialogue among owners over a period of approximately 60 years, and their point of departure was that there was no moral justification for their having to subsidize tenants. The hon. member for Durban Central evidently agrees that it cannot be expected of them to subsidize tenants. This matter has been discussed and rediscussed over the years. Personally, I have no more than one occasion specifically requested in this House that an investigation into this matter should be instituted.

The problem with which we have been confronted throughout has been, in my view, that the most practical thing would be to subsidize the tenant. But if one did that, it would mean that one would be resorting to a socialistic system, and in our social structure this is not acceptable. The Fouché Commission evidently discussed this matter in great depth and made specific recommendations in this regard. I can well understand that there may be differences of opinion on these recommendations. But what I personally object to most strongly, is the attitude which a body like Veesa adopts in this connection, as appears from a document signed by a certain Mr. Nigel Mandy, a council member of that association. I just want to quote two passages from the letter which this gentleman addressed to the hon. the Minister of Community Development on 9 February. It is a letter which has been made freely available to members of this House. In one paragraph, he says it appears that certain interested parties are now opposing the recommendations of the commission and that pressure is being exerted for the retention of rent control. Then follows the paragraph to which I object—

I am prepared to accept that.

It is not important to me who wants to accept that. It is my standpoint that it is this type of intimidatory arrogance which definitely cannot contribute to a meaningful debate without emotion. Personally, I feel reassured that the vested interests of people who can claim protection under the Act, will not be affected by the manner in which rent control will gradually be eliminated now. The hon. the Minister also knows how I have struggled with him about this over the years. It is in fact the older people in our community who have to be protected, and an elderly couple will enjoy the necessary protection even if their income is as much as R380 per month. Hon. members know the additional formulae, namely that a couple with one or two children and with an income of up to R440 per month, can enjoy the protection of rent control, etc. This measure will tempt many a house-owner to get rid of protected tenants. I do not believe that after 60 years of rent control, they have now suddenly become little angels. We have had to amend the Act too often for that.

Organizations like “Veesa” have kicked up a great fuss of the costs of rent control to the State. I want to make an earnest appeal to the hon. the Minister today not to invalidate rent boards, especially in the metropolitan areas. The fact that a large percentage of dwelling units is going to be free of rent control, will reduce the activities of these boards considerably. I concede that, but on the other hand, their task as watch dogs against exploitation and intimidation will now become so much greater. As in the past, the rent boards will remain the only guarantee for those people who are entitled to protection. The ball is now in the court of the houseowners and it depends on them whether or not rent control will finally be eliminated. We now have a number of years in which the position will be watched. The owners will now have to prove that they will ensure better maintenance, whereas in the past they allowed properties to become dilapidated.

According to the report by the Fouché Commission, rent control in Sweden was abolished prior to 1971 and was again instituted in 1975. I trust that the conduct of house-owners will not necessitate such action here after rent control has been phased out.

Mr. Chairman, it seems as if time is catching up with me. I therefore just want to react to a final argument by the hon. member for Durban Central. He has suggested that the Community Development Council should purchase flats which are available at low rentals. From time to time, the Opposition describes the hon. the Minister of Community Development as the greatest property owner in South Africa and then tries to tear him to pieces because of that. I cannot reconcile this argument which that hon. member has advanced over the years, with his request now that the department must become an even bigger property owner. It is, to me, a wonderful choir in which that hon. member is singing. He is also particularly worried about those whose income is in the region of R200 per month, and about our social pensioners. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, in my view the hon. member for Tygervallei has fully dealt with the arguments raised by the Opposition speakers. In this process he gave Mr. Mandy a dressing-down too, and I therefore leave the matter there. I should also like to congratulate and thank the department for the reports and publications which they have submitted to us. The reports contain good news, which speaks of effectiveness and success.

This morning, I should like to deal more specifically with a certain need which, in my view, exists in society. In 1976, during the debate on the Vote of this department, I dealt briefly with the need which exists for housing for unmarried servants in White residential areas and also in the non-White residential areas. The hon. member did not reply specifically to that, and I do not think that in the meantime anything has been done in that connection, for very good reasons which I do not want to debate now. In the meantime, the report of the Erika Theron Commission has appeared, and we find that they have also devoted attention to this matter. I quote a brief synopsis of their findings in paragraph 9.89 on page 220—

The following appears in paragraph 9.92—

To that, the Government replied in its White Paper that it accepted the proposal which the Erika Theron Commission had made in this connection—I shall not read the proposal again, because it is similar to what I have just read—and I quote the following from the reply to proposal No. 106—

Although this recommendation affects only those people who are already resident within the Coloured group areas, I want to stress mainly those who are resident in White areas and “lodge” there. In referring to Coloureds in this connection, I include the thousands of Black domestic servants who live in White areas. Large numbers of single men and women—but especially women—come from the country areas to work in our towns and cities, and it provides them with a livelihood.

There is either too little or no accommodation available to them in the existing non-White group areas near our towns and cities. There is a demand for the services of these people and they render good and valued services. In fact, in my view, they perform a very important function in our White community. Some of these women render services of inestimable value, especially in connection with the care of children and aged and sick persons in our White areas. We therefore have appreciation and understanding for this specific category of people in our midst.

They are mainly housed in servants’ quarters in White residential areas, because there is no other accommodation available to them in the non-White residential areas. Owing to the backlog we have been experiencing all these years in connection with the housing of families, we have always regarded housing for families as our highest priority. Many of these homeless people go and lodge with their family or friends and in that way cause overpopulation in the non-White residential areas. This often results in slum conditions and even squatting, as is indeed the case in most places. The community is then burdened with all the social problems which go hand in hand with these conditions. This lack of housing makes them dependent upon the employer for their accommodation. Many employers admirably provide in this need, but many others do not. That is why, from time to time, we hear of servants who sleep in garages, or on the floor, and sometimes even underneath the kitchen table. In most cases, there are no proper ablution facilities and other conveniences for these people. In many cases, the facilities are totally inadequate. What is more: Many employers find that all sorts of malpractices exist in their backyards, and therefore in the White residential areas. There is, for example, trespassing by unauthorized persons. These servants normally have many friends and often go visiting. They have a lot of time free because they do not participate in communal activities within their own communities. Although these guests are not allowed to sleep in, it often happens that many of them stay the night. In fact, many of the men-friends of these women have no address other than that of their girl-friends who live in the White residential area. Often—especially during weekends—there is heavy drinking and gambling. Fighting often breaks out, and ultimately the Police has to go and clean up again.

In the Cape Peninsula and the Boland, where large numbers of single Black men work as contract labourers, the problem has an additional dimension: The undesirable and often unlawful presence of Black people in White residential areas. These Black men even stay in the White residential areas overnight, with all the resultant implications. Unfortunately, municipalities have no statistics in this connection. They do not know how many non-Whites are accommodated in the White residential areas in this way. But if one hears what goes on around one, it appears as if the numbers must be considerable. If one adds their lodgers to these numbers, it is such a great number of people that we simply cannot disregard this situation any longer. We see them in large numbers in the streets in the White residential areas, we see them in the suburban buses and we see them at the homes of our neighbours, while our neighbours probably see them in our backyards!

These people do not live in their own towns and in their own communities. They have no part in the communal life of their own people, because they seldom or never go there. Surely every person has need for contact with like-minded people and fellowship with one’s own national or cultural groups. One belongs with those people and with the community which accepts one and which regards one as a member. In such a group one can feel at home, live the same life and make a contribution to community service and community achievements. This contact takes place on and alongside the sports field, in the bioscope, in the community centre, in the church or wherever. This community is the place where one has a sense of personal worth. One feels that one belongs there and that it is one’s place and one’s people. These people are really being deprived of this privilege and I therefore plead that at this stage we should give serious attention to this situation.

I trust that with the additional financial concessions made by the Government, we have now really reached the stage where we can begin to think of this need. I think it is essential that we should make a survey to determine the total extent of the problem. Then we must begin to build hostels for these people so that they can be properly housed in their own communities. I think an appeal ought also to be made to the employers of these people at least to release them from duty over weekends in order that they may have a normal community life among their own people. That would stimulate the communities concerned and would contribute to the development, the achievements and the enrichment of the lives of these communities. When I think of sports clubs, religious organizations, churches, culture, adult education and recreation, I feel that a far greater measure of self-respect and pride can be developed in these people if they can make their contribution in their own community. The main asset would therefore be a new, happy home for these thousands of people, a home where they can feel at home and can make a useful contribution.

An additional benefit would be that justice would also be done to the White community. We do not live in the non-White residential areas and we are not present there morning, noon and night. I therefore believe that an additional benefit of the removal of these people to their own communities would be that it would mean a great deal to our White communities. Many Whites regard the conditions as undesirable, and I believe that we must provide a solution. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for False Bay mentioned various important matters. He will excuse me if I do not reply to them. I should like to mention and discuss with the hon. the Minister other matters much nearer to my own constituency. In 1975 we put certain questions to the hon. the Minister.

†We asked the hon. the Minister whether he would consider amending the Bethelsdorp Settlement Act, No. 34 of 1921. In recent times we have discussed this Act with the hon. the Minister further, and I think we have had fruitful discussions. I hope so, at any rate. This Act stipulates, inter alia, that no transfer of any building lot at Bethelsdorp shall be passed to any person who is already the registered owner of two or more building lots. This restriction hampers the development of the Bethelsdorp area, which falls, as the hon. the Minister knows, in the Port Elizabeth area. This condition came as a result of a resolution passed by the House of Assembly and the Senate in 1920 when they were dealing with certain disputes which were taking place at Bethelsdorp. This resolution resolved that the London Missionary Society and its successors in title, the Congregational Union Church Aid and Missionary Society of South Africa, relinquish all rights to the remaining extent of Bethelsdorp, save as set out in a schedule to the Act. This restrictive condition is contained in the schedule. Times and circumstances have changed and Bethelsdorp no longer needs the form of control it needed in 1921.

I understand that the restrictive land ownership conditions affect the siting of churches and other centres in that area. If Coloured people want to invest in land in the area, why should they not own more than two plots in that particular area? If, for example, a large Coloured builder wants to develop and keep his building costs down, he would want many more than two plots in the same area. It means he can concentrate his building and work-force there and keep the cost of units down instead of having to cope with scattered development. By scattered building development I mean that a builder has plots many miles apart which results in additional transport, fuel, managerial and staff expenses. This all adds to the cost of the end product, the house.

It is Government policy to encourage the people of other races to build up assets and share in the free enterprise system and therefore the hon. the Minister should have no difficulty whatsoever in agreeing to amend this particular legislation. I understand that the Port Elizabeth municipality has in recent times made representations to the department and the hon. the Minister for an amendment of this legislation. I should like to appeal to the hon. the Minister, as this is a very simple amendment and as there does not seem to be much legislation on the Order Paper, to consider introducing this amending legislation during this very session of Parliament.

It is a reasonable request.

I believe it is a reasonable request. Judging from the smile on the hon. the Minister’s face it looks as though he too thinks that. [Interjections.] Housing and home ownership are two of the most important factors in creating solid foundations for the stability of South Africa. A man who has a state will want to protect that state at all costs. It is the most effective way and weapon in difficult times. The Government can change South Africa overnight from being a nation of lessees to a nation of home owners. This can be achieved if all the tenants in every area buy the houses they live in. The Government could give transfer and 100% bonds and allow repayments over a long enough period so that the instalments would be within the reach of the present tenant. The Government could even adopt another system. They could allow the building societies to grant all the bonds. Naturally, the building societies would require the Government to put up a certain percentage of collateral security, which could be by way of a Government security, not money, of say 25%. The Government would find that if the building societies put up the money and the Government provided a security of 25% by way of a surety signature, hundreds of millions of rand would be released and recycled back into housing again. The hon. the Minister looks at me quite perplexed. May I just explain?

At the moment the Government has put money into housing. If transfer is granted to the tenants who live in the houses and building societies grant the bonds, subject to the Government guaranteeing the last 25% of the bond, then all that money on transfer will be paid out to the Government. It will amount to hundreds of millions of rand and the Government will then be able to recycle that money back into housing again. A nation of home-owners will stand together through thick and thin. Home-owners are people with an asset and a vested interest in protecting and safeguarding their own interests. I believe that the Government and private enterprise must use the present slack in the economy to mobilize whatever funds they can on housing development. We have a golden opportunity now to eliminate the backlog and to stimulate the economy in the least inflationary way, viz. by creating extra jobs. Finance must be obtained from institutions, from the public or through the builders, who may be able to provide bridging finance themselves. Whatever interest one pays on such finance is offset by the lower building costs now, compared with the escalated building costs if the Government built those self-same houses a few years hence.

In that regard I should like to make a special plea for Port Elizabeth and its environments. The area of Port Elizabeth, the building industry there, needs more Government spending. It is mentioned in the department’s report that after Cape Town, the department is most concerned about the squatter problem in Port Elizabeth and its environments. They are also concerned about Durban and say the same with regard to that area. I should like to appeal to the hon. the Minister to embark on more large-scale housing projects for the various race groups in Port Elizabeth who are in need of housing. This would not only eliminate the backlog, but would also stimulate the economy of the area which needs stimulation at present. I am not going to trouble the hon. the Minister about the economic restrictions under which Port Elizabeth suffers, because I believe that falls under another portfolio. But I would appreciate it if the hon. the Minister and his department took a much closer look at the Port Elizabeth set-up in relation to mass housing schemes in that area.

I know there is a shortage of money, but I feel that where mass housing schemes are undertaken it is vital that all the essential services are provided. Amenities and the general appearance of the area must inculcate a sense of pride in the tenants living in that area.

There is another matter which I should like to raise with the hon. the Minister. There are people who have lived in homes belonging to the Government for very many years, and during the passage of time, they have improved these houses considerably. They also have integrated themselves with the community in which they live. After very many years they earn slightly more than they earned before and they then find that their income levels are too high to qualify for this type of housing. They then receive proper notice from the department to vacate those homes. I must say, and I want to be quite fair, I have interceded in numerous cases where people have received notice and the department has treated each case very sympathetically. But there are many hardship cases nevertheless. I would like to see income levels lifted, for example in an area such as Forest Hill in Port Elizabeth. Forest Hill falls in my constituency, and I know that some of the people living there are most anxious to see increments to their salary every year, merely to make ends meet. But at the same time they are worried that if they do receive increments, this will place them above the income limit set by the department and that they will then receive notice to vacate their homes. Besides lifting the income limit, I should like to see that the department has the right and the authority to grant permanent exemptions in hardship cases, even where people exceed the income limits. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Walmer must excuse me for not reacting to his arguments. I think the hon. the Minister would prefer to reply himself to the arguments the hon. member has raised.

I believe that the gigantic task which the Department of Community Development is performing is being noted with great appreciation. To a large extent, the activities of this department affect and regulate the manner in which the different peoples live here in South Africa. The humane and sympathetic manner in which the Department of Community Development acts, and the understanding which the department displays in regulating these things, are, I believe, highly appreciated and respected by the different peoples under the control of this department. We who know this country, and who move about the country with our eyes open, we who notice things and who have appreciation for what happens here, can surely testify today that a gigantic task has been performed in South Africa during the past 30 years—under the NP Government, of course.

I can say with great conviction today that during the past 30 years, much has been achieved in South Africa in connection with the housing of our people. We need merely think back to the ’forties and the ’fifties to realize what a great task has been performed in South Africa in connection with the cleaning up of slum areas and poor housing conditions. I am therefore convinced that the NP can today pride itself on what it has achieved in this respect during the past 30 years. We need not be ashamed to give extensive publicity to those results of ours abroad. We need not be ashamed to broadcast those results to the world.

I have obtained some figures which I should like to quote here. During the years in which the NP has been in power—the statistics cover the period 1948 to 1977—we have spent the vast amount of R660,8 million on housing for Whites in South Africa. With that money, 103 400 dwelling units were erected. For Coloureds, an amount of R418 million was spent on the erection of 174 600 dwelling units. Furthermore, an amount of R172,6 million was spent on the erection of 51 000 dwelling units for Asians. That means that a grand total of R1 252 million has been spent by the Government during the past 30 years on the erection of 329 000 dwelling units for Whites, Coloureds and Asians in South Africa. That is indeed a proud achievement by the NP.

As far as housing for Blacks is concerned, the picture is equally phenomenal. Since the coming into operation of the Housing Act, the tremendous amount of approximately R961 million has been spent on the erection of 662 000 dwelling units for urban Blacks. In this process, more than 3,3 million Black people were housed in South Africa. If a person wants to be honest, there are sufficient facts to convince him that the NP has produced positive results in the years from 1948 until now. All these things have been done in extremely difficult circumstances; yet the NP has always, throughout the entire process, determined its priorities correctly. We realized, of course, that in order to develop communities in an orderly fashion in South Africa, the primary requirement was the provision of proper housing.

Just the other day, we undertook a tour through the Cape Flats. Who cannot note with appreciation today what is being done for these lower income groups of the Coloured population on the Cape Flats as far as housing is concerned? There is still a lot to be done.

I now briefly want to discuss my own constituency. I think it is one of the finest and loveliest constituencies in the Republic of South Africa. It is also a constituency with the nicest people. It is a constituency where the people live under the most ideal and idyllic conditions. It is a constituency which has been blessed with lovely sunshine and wonderful scenery. Our people enjoy the scenery there. We are grateful that it has pleased the hon. the Minister and the department to start one of the finest housing developments in that constituency. I am referring to the farm called Rietfontein, which borders on the Edenvale hospital to the south and lies east of the lovely throughway by which one can travel so enjoyably from the south-east to the north. That is where this lovely farm is situated and where this lovely development has been started. As I have said, it will be one of the finest development schemes of this department on the Witwatersrand. One can really wax lyrical about this. In reply to a question in the Other Place on housing for Whites, the hon. the Minister said the following—

Sir, this development will fully comply with the requirements of these categories of people in Edenvale and environs. I shall discuss that presently and say exactly who they are. This area borders on that lovely scenery, which so many people will know, on the lovely Gilooly farm. It is traversed by a creek with a lovely dam in it. The development around that dam and on the banks of that creek will be of such as to create a nature reserve which will be developed in such a way that it will be utilized by the inhabitants of that area.

Phases 1 and 2 of the development of this area will be mainly residential. There will be 750 special residential erven, as well as 10 group housing erven which will contain 1 100 dwelling units. The group housing erven will mainly be placed along the open spaces. There will be a business and community centre, which will border on a 30 metre wide freeway. That will be the focal point of this lovely township. Furthermore, provision is being made for five nursery schools, for stands for churches, for two primary schools, and for a home for the aged. It is a wonderful idea on the part of the department to accommodate the aged in the midst of the younger people. This is indeed a prestige development which will make provision for, and be available to, the childless couple that does not earn more than R380 per month, the family with one or two children with an income of not more than R440 per month, the family with three or four children with an income of not more than R500 per month, and the couple with five or more children with an income of not more than R540 per month. The members of the younger generation and of the older generation who are not so affluent are the people whom this department is taking care of. We are grateful that we have this type of planning in an area like Edenvale. Edenvale is an area with a lovely infrastructure. It has a city council which is sympathetic towards this type of development. There is a cheerfulness among those people …

Order! I am sorry to have to stop such a cheerful speech. The hon. member’s time has expired.

Mr. Chairman, one almost hesitates to detract from the speech of praise delivered by the hon. member for Edenvale about this Government’s housing policy. But it is, of course, a function of a Government to provide housing and it is our function to try to examine and investigate how the Government has carried out that function. Today I want to deal with an aspect of the Government’s housing policy which I believe, in many cases, to be counterproductive.

I want to deal, in particular, with the question of housing in relation to the Indian community. During the debate on the Vote of the Department of Indian Affairs I did raise this matter briefly, and the hon. the Minister indicated, in one of his replies when dealing with the tremendous backlog in Indian housing, that he was confident that this backlog could be overcome. I hope that the hon. the Minister’s optimism is justified, but I am bound to say that I believe that such optimism will only be justified if there is a profound and fundamental change in Government policy regarding the operation of the Group Areas Act generally and the Government’s attitude to the relocation of people, particularly people belonging to the Indian community.

I want to review, for a moment, some aspects of the operation of the Group Areas Act that work against the Indian community because I believe that it is that community which has suffered the greatest hardships as a result of the Group Areas Act. Whilst the tempo of disqualifications in terms of the Group Areas Act has perhaps slowed down for the time being because a number of proclamations have already been issued, we must know that in terms of Government policy and ideology the disqualification of people in terms of the operation of the Group Areas Act is not nearly at an end yet. The Group Areas Act, if one views it in the long term, is certainly an inadequate tool for the long-term segregation of Blacks and Whites in South Africa because unless the areas allocated to any particular race group are sufficiently large to contain the population growth of the race group concerned for a specified period, it will be necessary, as the years go by, to allocate further areas to that particular group.

In Durban, for example, the existing Coloured and Indian group areas will be saturated before the year 1990 and additional areas will have to be found. At the end of it all, what do we therefore have? All we will have done, in effect, will have been to replace a larger number of small Indian or Coloured neighbourhoods with a smaller number of townships. The overall effect will continue to be that of a patchwork quilt of racially segregated residential areas which will differ only in the size and number of patches. What is the effect of all this on the people concerned?

One of the arguments frequently used, when one discusses the Group Areas Act, is that it assists in improving race relations because it is argued that contact breeds friction in a society such as that in South Africa. I believe, however, that the converse argument is a much stronger one because the unequal effect of the Act on the different races has increased racial antagonism in South Africa. I think there is ample evidence of that. The Theron Commission, for example, indicated that the operation of the Group Areas Act caused bitterness and frustration amongst the community concerned. There is other evidence of that too. There is certainly no doubt that the Group Areas Act has had a markedly differential impact on different race groups in South Africa. A survey recently undertaken by the Department of Economics of the University of Natal indicated that almost one-third of Asian families in South Africa had been disqualified in terms of the Group Areas Act. It indicated that almost one-fifth of all Coloured families in South Africa had been similarly affected. It also indicated, interestingly enough, that less than 1% of White families had been affected by the operation of the Group Areas Act. The Act has therefore really been a sop to White prejudice but has created a degree of ill-will and antagonism amongst the Black people which represents an unquantifiable cost to South Africa. So much then for the argument that the operation of the Group Areas Act reduces conflict.

The other argument that is used, of course, is that relating to housing. The Group Areas Act is often justified on the grounds that it has eliminated slum conditions in South Africa. Again, this is very arguable. In many instances there is evidence of neighbourhood deterioration taking place and only commencing when the elements of uncertainty and delay are introduced as a result of proposals under the Group Areas Act. There is plenty of evidence to substantiate that. The Group Areas Act has created a state of uncertainty which often exists for many years before a decision is taken in terms of that Act. These delays have been responsible for a considerable amount of deterioration in many Coloured and Indian areas in which houses and business premises were previously of a reasonable standard. The best example of all is the Grey Street area of Durban. This is South Africa’s biggest Indian business area. It consists of some 30 city blocks and some 418 properties. In it there are businesses of a wide variety and also residential premises which are occupied by 12 000 to 14 000 people. I am using that area as an example of the effect of the uncertainty that has existed. During the period of uncertainty in the years 1950 to 1973 only five large development projects were undertaken in that particular area of South Africa and a marked degree of deterioration could be seen there. What has been the position since the group areas proclamation of 1973? Since then there has been a very marked change. There have been at least 10 large development projects undertaken during that period and there would have been more were it not for the unfavourable economic conditions. There has been a general improvement because of the certainty that now exists in regard to that area. In the previous period there was a deterioration in the condition of the whole neighbourhood of the Grey Street complex.

In addition to causing unnecessary deterioration of houses, the Group Areas Act has also been a cause of the unnecessary demolition of houses. This point has been raised before but I think it needs to be raised again. I believe there is a very great need for a total re-assessment of the attitude relating to slum removal in South Africa. I believe we should be examining alternatives, particularly alternatives relating to renovating and refurbishing areas as is done in other parts of the world. Since we have a chronic housing shortage for communities of this kind I believe there is a very urgent need to re-examine our attitudes in this connection. In 1977 it was stated that some 12 104 dwelling units had been demolished in South Africa over the previous eight years. Included in this figure were buildings of good quality. We are told that in the years 1960 to 1975 some R261 million was spent on Coloured and Indian housing. More than R200 million of that was spent on rehousing disqualified families in terms of the Group Areas Act. I find it difficult to understand how we can be optimistic about overcoming the housing backlog when we look at a situation of that kind. My point is that there has been a considerable and growing backlog of housing for Coloureds and Indians during the last 20 years which has been exacerbated by the operation of the Group Areas Act and removals in terms of that Act.

During the debate on the previous Vote I made mention of the fact that according to figures given by the Durban City Council there is a waiting list of some 24 000 Indian families for housing in the Durban area. Figures indicate that, of all the houses built by the Durban City Council for Indians, only 14% could be allocated for people on that waiting list. The Government took 30% for group areas relocation; 20% were allocated to alleviate overcrowding in Chatsworth; and the remaining units were allocated to families displaced by town-planning projects and to those living in slums declared prior to 1956.

All three deserving causes.

Yes, but 30% was taken for group areas relocation and only 14% could be allocated to people on the waiting list of the Durban City Council.

That is a very interesting half-truth.

Well, the hon. the Minister will have an opportunity of explaining that but these are figures issued by the Durban City Council and they indicate the percentage allocated to people on their waiting list. In 1973 the Durban City Council submitted a memorandum to the Minister in which they pointed out that the major share of new houses for Indians was allocated to group areas removals. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Musgrave spoke about housing for Asians and also about the Group Areas Act which is supposed to be the major cause of the backlog which has arisen in respect of housing. I shall return to these matters here and there in the course of my speech and therefore I am not answering him directly.

I should like to tell the hon. member for Rondebosch, for whose intellectual abilities I have great respect, that last night he reminded me of the words of Confucius: “The essence of knowledge is, having it; to apply it.” I wish to leave it at that, except to say that if people think that we are going to solve the housing shortage in South Africa by the provision of housing and by supplying housing only, they are making a very big mistake.

When one looks at what has been done and what is being done by the Department of Community Development, local authorities and regional councils, one is amazed at the phenomenal growth in the supply of houses during the past few years. Even this year, where we are spending R1 million less on Defence, we are spending R30,1 million more on housing. The total amount voted for Community Development is R50 million more than last year, while the amount used exclusively for housing, is R30,1 million more. Therefore there can be no doubt about the sincerity of this Government, the sincerity of the department and the sincerity of local authorities in respect of the supply of housing to the various population groups in this country.

In order to deal with the housing backlog, it will be necessary to give consideration to more than just the supply of housing; instead of building houses only, it will also be necessary to build the spirit of the people.

It will also be necessary to build peoples’ views in respect of their way of life and their standard of living. In this regard the Opposition can make a vast contribution, but they do not really do so, except to criticize. Neither does one always know whether they are criticizing because they are serious or for the sake of criticism alone. People must be taught to be more responsible. People in South Africa should learn that claims are accompanied by responsibilities and that demands which are made, also entail obligations. This is one of the reasons why so many people want free housing. Listening to them, one would say that the State should supply housing to them free of charge because they must have a roof over their heads.

There is also another matter in respect of which the Opposition did not support us as they should have, viz. the unnecessary urbanization and the excessive degree of urbanization which is taking place. I am referring to people who migrate unnecessarily from the rural areas to the cities. This leads to the creation of squatter camps, which is one of the greatest problems. The squatters’ camp situation gives rise to a snowball effect which leads to people no longer having the ability to assess values and maintain standards. This also leads to all the social evils, etc., which arise from this situation.

This also results in one of the greatest problems of our country: The fact that the population explosion in South Africa is higher than in any other country in the world. These are the basic things which we should approach when we consider housing. This is not all, for when people become urbanized unnecessarily, it also causes problems in the economy. It also disrupts the economy because cheap labour is offered which leads to the disruption of the economy.

Family planning should receive far more attention so that in this regard as well, the pressure on housing may be eased. Responsible parenthood definitely also means responsible citizenship.

These are the aspects which we should constantly bring to the attention of the various population groups and the hon. Opposition can also help in this regard. People should be taught how to work. Hon. members will be surprised to see how many work-shy people there are in South Africa, people who take refuge in the catchword of so-called unemployment. I cannot indicate the figures in this regard, but there are large numbers of people who are not proud of the fact that they can work, and they shift their responsibilities on to other people.

As far as the disability allowance is concerned, there are many people who receive this allowance, but who are not actually entitled to it. From experience I have learned that there are many of these people who are unfit for service and nevertheless often have big families. These people could not educate themselves to feel the will to work, for many of them are mentally, and not physically, ill. Therefore they could not educate themselves to accept responsibility and to do responsible work: How, then, can these people educate their families? Therefore we shall have to find another solution, viz. to warn all population groups and to point out to them constantly that full use of education facilities is very important in this regard so that people can equip themselves to work and provide their own housing.

The question of the supply of job opportunities is another matter which deserves more and more attention and we should also make provision for compelling people who are work-shy to work.

With regard to the question of appropriate housing, too much is still being spent on luxurious and large houses in South Africa. I am, however, thankful to be able to say that after the recommendations of the Fouché Commission, there has been a tendency to concentrate on practical housing rather than on luxurious and large houses. I am glad to be able to say this, but this matter, to my mind, deserves far more attention. There are various methods of building cheaper houses. There is, for instance, the method of constructing and planning a house in such a manner that additions can be made later should this be necessary.

There is another question which I should like to raise in this regard, and I am sure that I shall make myself very unpopular in doing so. The provision of servants’ quarters with every house is, to my mind, completely wrong. If servants’ quarters should be built on to every house, those servants’ quarters cost the owner of the house a large amount in interest every month. If the quarters are not built on, there will be a closer family life, for then every member of the family accepts responsibility for a task. In this way family life will also improve.

Furthermore, no further problem will be experienced with the question of mixed parks or non-mixed parks where unnecessary friction is created. With regard to the development of the old Lady Selbourne—I have never yet been able to accept the new name, Suiderberg, for to me it has always, right from the start, been a place which should have been called “Vergesig” because it really was “Vergesig”—I wish to plead that no servants’ quarters be allowed in this area. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I think this is an opportune time for me to reply to the very interesting and important matters raised by both sides of this House, so that the hon. members may have an opportunity to react to my replies if they so wish. As always I want to express my sincere thanks to the hon. members on the Government side for the contributions they made. Their contributions were constructive, testified to understanding and appreciation, but were also critical where necessary. I have very great appreciation for their standpoints, and I should like to react to some of the aspects they raised.

The first hon. member who spoke was the hon. member for Pretoria West. He spoke about subeconomic houses in particular and made one statement to which I wish to react. He said that we should use the money which came back from the municipalities and which we invested with the Public Debt Commissioners to prevent people having to pay more rent in certain subeconomic schemes, in his case Dannville, because the houses were being renovated. Firstly I want to point out that our policy encourages every city council to have its own maintenance fund. A portion of the rent paid is set aside in this fund. In most cases that maintenance fund is sufficient to take care of the necessary repairs to and maintenance of the subeconomic houses built by the department without necessitating any increase in the rentals. There are other moneys with the Public Debt Commissioners as well, but these we cannot use. Here I am thinking in particular of the interest which we receive on the money which we lend for the purchase of subeconomic houses. It is an interest charge of 1% in the case of sub-economic housing and 0,05% in the case of housing to which social considerations apply, for example old-age homes, child-care centres, etc. That money is invested and then we use the difference between the interest paid by the municipalities and the interest which we pay to the Treasury to reduce the capital loan which these people raise. The result is that in many cases only 49% of the capital loan is repaid. The hon. members will realize that for our city councils and charitable organizations it means that we are able to accommodate them in this way. However, I am not legally able to use that money for the maintenance of the subeconomic houses of the municipalities. My hon. friend will realize that in the case of Dannville the city council of Pretoria, particularly in view of the large loan which they recently raised to supplement their maintenance fund, is able to bear the maintenance and repair costs of those subeconomic houses. Where houses are renovated on a basis which calls for additional capital expenditure, the rentals will inevitably have to be increased because we cannot use maintenance funds to cover capital expenditure. It is in the interests of the people themselves that they are getting a better type of house in that neighbourhood, and we decided that they could afford to pay a little more. It is really in their own interests.

The hon. member for Overvaal spoke about the high cost of housing. What caused him concern was the possibility that some of our people would eventually be unable to afford any housing at all. I want to agree with him and say that we are all concerned about the high cost of housing, particularly the housing which is provided by the private sector in South Africa. I want to state with great emphasis, and also on the authority of the unanimous recommendations of the Fouché Commission, that we in South Africa will have to adapt ourselves to the fact that we can no longer continue to provide and purchase extremely sumptuous and luxurious houses. Housing of this kind is accepted as normal and as what we are entitled to in South Africa today. We find, for example, that when the State provides people with subsidies to make it easier for them to come out on their income, inter alia, the 2% subsidy which we give certain home owners who have a bond from a building society on a house with a value of less than R20 000, the money is used, not to augment their buying-power but to purchase a house of a higher value. Frequently, too, these people are exploited in that people who sell houses push up the cost of the house when they know that the purchaser receives a subsidy. We cannot carry on in this way.

I want to make an earnest appeal to everyone involved in this matter to be a little more moderate as far as housing is concerned. It is not necessary for a young couple to start off with the type of house in which their parents are living at the end of their career, a house with several bathrooms, double garages, and I do not know what else. We could be more moderate and preferably improve the standard of our houses as we make progress in life, and without placing any unnecessary burdens upon ourselves and upon the community.

I should like to convey my appreciation to the hon. member for Tygervallei. He is the chairman of the NP study group and for that reason one could expect him to make a very positive contribution. I appreciate the fine explanation he gave the hon. member for Rondebosch, in particular in regard to our responsibility when it comes to Bantu housing. I shall react later to the matters raised by the hon. member for Rondebosch. However, I want to emphasize at once that our responsibility for Bantu housing, as we state in the report as well, is only the financing thereof by the National Housing Commission. It is the Department of Plural Relations and Development that determines the need for such housing. The standards are laid down by us but the execution of the housing schemes is in the hands of the Department of Plural Relations and Development. Therefore it is very difficult for me to react at length on certain matters concerning which the hon. member expressed concern. I suggest that he raise them again under the Vote of the hon. the Minister of Plural Relations and Development. I can only say that we have recently been able to accede to all the applications for housing which were made by the Department of Plural Relations and Development. It was not necessary for us to ask them to limit their applications in any way.

The hon. member for False Bay, the deputy chairman of our study group, was particularly concerned about certain aspects of Coloured housing in the Western Cape. He and the hon. member for Hercules both spoke about the problems arising from the accommodation of servants in private houses. This is another luxury which we in South Africa have taken for granted over the years and perhaps we should be prepared to wean ourselves of the luxury of having a servant’s room for every house, with the attendant consequences. I find it very interesting that it is in fact those people who criticize the Government the most, for example because we bring single male Bantu workers to an area such as the Western Cape, and who tell us how cruel and wrong it is, who are the people who accommodate their own domestic servants away from their families and then protest vehemently when the husbands of those servants visit them and make use of the facilities available there. [Interjections.] Yes, Sea Point is an excellent example. What is even worse is that although we issued a proclamation, No. 70 of 1970, in which we laid down certain minimum standards for servants’ quarters in houses and similar buildings, these are not being complied with. The Police are experiencing a major problem here. From our own experience we know that there are thousands of servants, living in servants’ quarters, who do not have proper toilet or washing facilities. But if the Police want to investigate, they experience great problems in getting into these people’s rooms. When they ask for keys it is not because they want to prosecute those non-Whites but because they want to crack down a little on those unscrupulous employers. Then there are vehement protests from certain people and the Police are condemned because they want this right to protect those people against exploitation of the grossest kind. I think that people should realize that as far as the Department of Community Development has any authority in this matter, it will to an increasing extent ensure that these prescribed standards are maintained. We shall definitely encourage local authorities to do their duty in every possible way in this connection.

I want to say thank you very much to the hon. member for Edenvale. He indicated some of the housing achievements of the department in co-operation with the local authorities and other bodies. It is a wonderful story which he is able to tell, and I am grateful when hon. members take the trouble to place this on record occasionally so that the general public may also take cognizance of what has been done.

The hon. member for Hercules, apart from the matter which he raised and which I have already dealt with, rightly pointed out that we do not always get the support of the Opposition in all the responsible things we are doing in South Africa. I am thinking for example of the tremendous criticism which was levelled at us for our standpoint on the squatters, and which my hon. friend mentioned, and the opposition we met with when we curtailed to a certain extent the unnecessarily rapid urbanization of the Coloureds in particular in the Western Cape. He also referred to the despondency of my hon. friends opposite, they who have over the years, since I accepted this position, been telling me that we would never be able to solve the squatter problem. The hon. member for Rondebosch also said that. The hon. Senator who represents the PFP in the Other Place, can speak of nothing else. However, I was very grateful to see that in his contribution to this debate he was virtually conceding now that we shall solve the Coloured and Indian problem with housing, for he is after all not criticizing us so stringently any more. Now he is looking for something new. Now it is the housing problem of the Black people which we will not overcome. In that connection I think he will be able to conduct a very interesting debate with the hon. the Minister of Plural Relations. But I want to warn him in this connection. The Official Opposition has had to swallow their words so frequently. I have had experience of this. I also mentioned this yesterday evening. They will have to swallow their words again. They are already beginning to do so. They will have to swallow their words again, for we are going to overcome the squatter problem as far as the Coloureds in the Western Cape are concerned, and as far as the Indians in Durban are concerned. Make no mistake. To an increasing extent we are receiving the data and the particulars on the achievements to demonstrate this. I have every confidence that the hon. the Minister of Plural Relations will also achieve this as far as the Black people are concerned, even though it is a greater and more difficult task.

That is all I want to say about hon. members on the Government side who participated in the debate.

I now wish to talk to hon. members of the Opposition for a while. I always appreciate the contribution of the hon. member for Rondebosch, the main speaker of the Official Opposition on this Vote. He makes a thorough study of his subject for his contribution, and although we are frequently poles apart, I feel that one is differing here with an opponent who is worthy of one’s steel. The hon. member raised a few special points, and was particularly concerned about Black housing. But I think he understands the position now, after what the hon. member for Tygervallei said, and also after what I said previously, and there is probably no need for me to go into this matter any further. He also asked whether I thought that we could be certain that we would have the funds available for the next year or two or three, as we do at present, to tackle the problem. No one can talk with certainty of matters which cannot be foreseen, the actions of Providence over which one has no control and which one cannot foresee. But we have already made an arrangement with the Treasury which gives us the assurance that, provided nothing unforeseen happens, we shall, for the next three years at least, receive the necessary funds for our objectives and the aims that we have set ourselves. The hon. member expressed a measure of concern because we have caused people to move from existing houses, particularly here in the Cape Peninsula, and establish themselves elsewhere to make room for squatters. It depends of course on where one’s sympathy lies in respect of these matters. In my opinion the squatter is the person who needs the most sympathy. In the Cape Peninsula we have over the years had hundreds, and perhaps far more even thousands of families, Coloured families, who were accommodated over the years in houses, sub-economic houses, inexpensive houses, taking into consideration their incomes. As time went by, however, their positions improved. As the positions of everyone gradually improved under the NP régime, their positions also improved. Today they exceed the means test, and they no longer have a right to those houses. Many of them have been living for years in houses to which they were no longer entitled. We are saddled with the squatter problem now, and we are building houses for the Coloureds at an unprecedented rate. I have already stated, on another occasion, that we are at present producing 800 houses every month, in Mitchell’s Plain alone. Those who are living in sub-economic houses and who do not belong there, can afford to move into houses in Mitchell’s Plain and elsewhere.

We now have to exert pressure on them to do this and to meet their obligations as well, because we have a tremendous humanitarian responsibility to the squatters who find themselves living under such wretched conditions. I therefore regret to have to inform the hon. member for Rondebosch that we shall continue to apply that policy.

Of course the hon. member for Rondebosch also discussed the permanent presence of Black people in the Western Cape. This is something to which other hon. members also referred. Once again I must state, however, that this does not fall within the scope of the activities of my department and that hon. members will simply have to raise this matter elsewhere.

The hon. member mentioned the case in which I had refused to grant the S.A. Red Cross, supported by the Round Table Organization, a permit to hold a mixed concert and music competition between Coloureds and Whites, a function at which they wanted to allow a mixed audience. I refused to allow a permit to be issued in that case. I try to apply the permit system in terms of the Group Areas Act as sympathetically as possible. The hon. member for Rondebosch can take my word for that. My department supports me in this very loyally, and with a clear conscience. However, there are certain norms that have to be complied with. This Act is not there for nothing. The Act exists for a very good purpose. This is to ensure in the first place that we do not detract from the identity of the separate communities in South Africa. This is not always an appropriate consideration. However, what is always an important consideration to my way of thinking is that we should also ensure that we do not create opportunities where friction between communities may arise.

I find anything of this nature very unlikely in the theatres. That is why the Cabinet was able to decide to simplify considerably the permits in regard to the admission of mixed audiences to theatres. That was why I was immediately able—and this also has a bearing on the question which the hon. member for Rondebosch put to me this morning—to issue a permit for the admission of a mixed audience at a religious meeting in a hall in Maitland. For that purpose I was immediately able to issue a permit, regardless of the fact that the audience would be multiracial. In the other instance that was mentioned the possibility of race friction was in fact a consideration. In that case we would have been dealing with parents and their children in competitions in which judges would have had to arrive at decisions. We know that parents are very involved in the achievements of their children. The possibility of aversion or resistance did therefore exist, and I simply could not take the risk. Perhaps the hon. member for Rondebosch does not agree with me. He has the right to do so. However, the responsibility rests with me, and this is how I felt about the matter. In similar circumstances I shall act in the same way again.

What about athletics, sports and similar matters? Surely it can happen there, too.

Yes, that is quite true. However, the considerations which apply there are quite different, but I do agree that friction may occur there as well, but friction there can be eliminated in other ways. For example separate exits and separate seats can be allocated to people at the sports grounds. In the case of the concert to which I referred, however, the request was for a completely mixed audience in a closed hall. This is something which to my mind created other problems. Of course it is for me to judge. The hon. member for Rondebosch need not agree with me. But I have to accept the responsibility for it.

The hon. member for Durban Central also raised a few interesting matters. He referred in particular to the question of rent control. I want to say at once that there is a little uncertainty in my mind concerning the stand point of the NRP on the question of the phasing out of rent control. Recently, during the discussion of the Co-ordination of Housing Matters Bill, we had a very interesting contribution from the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South. That hon. member made a very interesting and constructive contribution, and now the hon. member for Durban Central has also made a very interesting contribution. However, the two standpoints are not exactly the same.

No, I associate myself with him.

I wonder whether that party would not allow the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South to participate in the debate again. I should appreciate it if he would do so. Perhaps we could clarify the matter, because it is important that we do so. [Interjections.] I am pleased to see that hon. members in general are inclined to support me when I make an honest and very essential effort to get rid of rent control. Do you know, Sir, rent control is an emergency measure. Its entire history is that, with one exception, it is in fact a war measure. It was introduced in 1920. After that it was renewed for a few years, and was subsequently incorporated in the Rent Acts passed during the Second World War. From all the legislation and all the speeches made on the matter it appears that the principle was always intended to be a temporary one. It was always intended to cope with emergency conditions. It was always intended to protect old, existing buildings, while future buildings were always exempted. This we also did in the case of our Act. What is interesting is that such a measure is usually adopted in a time of prosperity, after a period of deprivation, be it a war or a depression. After a period of war or depression, when it was not possible to build sufficient houses, there comes a time of prosperity and then people look for accommodation. They are unable to find accommodation easily. Because it is a time of prosperity, the owners may feel that they can exploit people. That is when problems arise. In the Fouché Report there is a very interesting quotation which I want to read out. It is no longer applicable today, and that is why I want to quote it. When the 1920 Act had to be extended until 1922, the then Minister commented as follows according to The Cape Times of 21 June 1921 (page 80 of the commission’s report)—

†Considering the population at that time, there was a considerable shortage of White houses. Therefore it was necessary. But now, at this moment, there is no shortage of housing accommodation for Whites. On the contrary, there seems to be a surplus. This is true to such an extent that even rent controlled flats have to be advertised extensively for the first time in many years. It is very interesting to look at the “smalls” in The Argus. There are two separate columns of flats to let. The one is for flats under rent control and the other is in respect of flats which are not controlled. The situation has therefore changed. The need does not seem to be so great.

They both have vacancies?

Yes, they are both being advertised, and they are being advertised separately. The fact that a flat is rent-controlled is used as an additional inducement to let it. As I have said, I am glad to know that the House agrees with me to a large extent that the time has passed when we can expect a section, a minority, of landlords in South Africa to undertake socio-welfare responsibility on behalf of people who cannot afford high rentals.

The State should do that.

Of course the State should do it. At the same time it is wrong that people who are not in need should have the benefit of rent control.

A small survey was carried out in the hon. the Leader of the Opposition’s constituency. It was not an extensive one. It only involved a test sample to find out what was happening. We found that certain flats were being rented by very prosperous companies in Johannesburg, the flats standing vacant most of the time and being used only for holiday purposes or perhaps when a lady secretary becomes very weary and the manager brings her for a short recuperation period to Sea Point. That, however, was never the intention of rent control. We also found, if I remember correctly, that more than a third of the people in rent-controlled flats have incomes that do not justify that protection. I think it is therefore completely unjust that this burden should be placed on the landlord. I want hon. members to know that we spent a long time trying to devise a formula whereby this could be done justly. Thanks to the NP study group, to whom I want to pay tribute, and in particular also to the hon. the Prime Minister, who took a personal interest in this, we came to the conclusion that it was now the best time to phase out rent control provided we still protected only those who were in need of protection. We therefore decided to apply a means test equivalent to the means test applied under the National Housing Act to State housing, an aspect mentioned by the hon. member for Benoni. I believe this will ensure that the phasing out will be just and fair.

*The hon. member for Tygervallei asked me not to be in too much of a hurry to do away with the rent boards. I can assure him that the rent boards, especially in the bigger areas, will continue to exist for an unspecified time. They will have to be there to act as watch dogs to prevent exploitation. While I am on the subject of exploitation, there is something very serious I want to say. When I made the statement in regard to rent control, I made it very clear that should there be examples of people who are guilty of exploitation, I would not hesitate to re-apply rent control to the building and people concerned. I have with me a letter from Durban. I do not want to mention the names of the people to whom this letter was written. It is a letter written in Durban to certain flat dwellers in Durban. I should like to quote a short passage from it—

†This letter was shown to me this morning and I asked the Secretary for Community Development to consider the immediate reimposition of rent control on those premises. The Secretary for Community Development has told me that he will send out instructions to that effect forthwith. I want to say that I hope that this will serve as a warning. The abolition of rent control was not intended to lead to licence. It was intended to give responsible owners of property the opportunity of controlling their own property, and not to let others wickedly and ruthlessly exploit the people who occupy their properties. I hope it will become known that I, as Minister, and my department will not hesitate in all such cases to reimpose rent control and to see to its application very strictly.

You must go on TV with that!

No, I think I must spare the public that.

He has started to smile already.

The hon. member for Durban Central wanted to know whether the protection we provided by means of the means test under the relaxation of rent control was only of a temporary nature. Not necessarily. The protection does not apply to the occupant. The control is in respect of the actual premises. As long as the man or woman stays in the particular flat or house, rent control will apply.

But when they leave, it will go.

When they leave, they take a chance. But that is also the position today. Nothing has changed in that respect.

They can now move from one to another.

They can move to other rent-controlled flats. Such flats are advertised in The Argus every night. Indeed, they now have a better chance of moving from one rent-controlled flat to another than they have ever had. In the past when one vacated a rent-controlled flat, there probably was not another one within miles. Now there is. But the law has not been changed in respect of the people who leave their accommodation. Therefore such people take a chance on other accommodation. In that respect there is no change whatsoever.

Then my hon. friend asked me whether the Government would accept responsibility for people who suffer hardship as a result of this. I can assure him that those who satisfy the means test can look to the Department of Community Development and the municipalities for assistance. We will go out of our way to give them assistance. He also asked whether we would consider buying buildings. We have already done that in the past and we shall do it again if necessary. I cannot say that we will be successful in every case, but I pledge the sincere desire of the Department of Community Development to avoid hardship and I know that in this I will have the cooperation of the local authorities.

The hon. member for Musgrave raised the question of Indian housing. He also raised the question of the Group Areas Act. We have a problem with Indian housing. Briefly, to overcome this problem we will over the next five years have to build in the Durban area and in the rest of Natal 7 300 houses per year. Most of that will of course be done by the department, but about 2 000 will be built by private enterprise. I am very glad to be able to say that we now have the assurance that we will be able to continue with this at least for the next three years.

The hon. member spent a lot of time criticizing the Group Areas Act. He again made a statement with which I have already dealt many times before, viz. that the Group Areas Act is the reason that decent habitable homes are being demolished. He mentioned the fact that 30% of the people who were rehoused or whose houses were demolished— I am not quite sure which—had it done to them under the Group Areas Act. Then he assumed that good, decent and habitable homes have been destroyed. I want to assure him that in the area to which he referred more than 90% of the homes which were vacated in terms of the Group Areas Act and, where the people concerned were re-established, were slum dwellings. In the Other Place last year I quoted figures which indicated that only about 7% of the homes affected by Group Areas Act resettlements could be regarded as fit for habitation. The point is that under the Slums Act there is no legal responsibility on the owners of property or on the State to rehouse the people concerned, while in terms of the Group Areas Act there is a definite responsibility upon the State and the municipalities concerned to rehouse those people. For that reason—here we differ again—I will, when rehousing people who live in slums, always prefer to do it under the Group Areas Act rather than under the Slums Act, if I have the choice, because the Slums Act imposes no obligation for the rehousing of people. The hon. member asked whether we would consider renovating homes rather than demolishing them.

I want to say that we have the legal power to do that, and at the moment we are negotiating with the Community Development Board to see what can be done. A loan scheme to the municipalities for this purpose is being worked out now in consultation, as always, with the local authorities themselves. An announcement in regard to this new departure will be made very soon. This year we are allocating approximately R5 million for the purpose of rehabilitating existing buildings.

The hon. member mentioned—and this is the last point I want to deal with—that spectacularly more Indians and Coloureds than Whites have to be shifted in terms of the various Acts that apply. That is not as a result of any discrimination, but as a result of certain economic facts. These people generally are poor and have been living—as is the case all over the world—close to the heart, the central business districts, of the cities. As the city grows, the rents become high, the rates become high and as a result they have difficulty in maintaining themselves. They are poor and slum conditions develop which have to be cleared up. This occurred in Johannesburg, Durban and here in Cape Town. We have to clear these areas. But when they have been cleared and urban renewal measures have been applied to the areas adjoining the central business districts, those areas become so valuable that those people cannot afford to live there anymore. They just cannot afford it, because the prices are too high, and accordingly they have to be housed elsewhere. A place like Braamfontein is the best example of all in Johannesburg and my Johannesburg friends will appreciate this fact immediately. Braamfontein was developed and became an extension of the heart of Johannesburg. How does hon. members think those people who were living in the pathetic little cottages and semi-detached houses in Braamfontein before the surge of development took place, could have existed there afterwards? I think the rates in one stand in Braamfontein today is probably more than the salary of many of the people concerned. Let us be practical about these things and, as I have so often asked my hon. friends opposite: Please, when you discuss these things, try to disabuse your mind of your prejudices and look at the facts. Then, I think, we will have a much healthier discussion in this House.

The hon. member for Walmer made a very good speech, and that is why he is going to get most of what he asked for. He asked me about the Bethalsdorp settlement, in the municipal area of Port Elizabeth. Bethalsdorp was originally an old mission station. It is not really a settlement. The word “settlement” refers to the fact that it exists as a result of an agreement, a settlement made in 1920 between the municipality and the mission society concerned. One of the clauses in that settlement provided that no one would own more than two stands, and I think that is my hon. friend’s problem. I agree with him, because if we are going to call on private enterprise to help us develop the area, obviously private entrepreneurs would need units of development larger than just two stands. One may find that big businesses may want to establish themselves there and they, too, will need more than two stands. We are accordingly preparing a submission to the hon. the Minister for Agriculture, who is responsible for this. We will discuss this matter with him and do our best to persuade him to submit a hybrid Bill in Parliament in order to rectify this matter.

The hon. member also asked me to allocate more money to Port Elizabeth. I want to assure him that Port Elizabeth is a most-favoured city within the Republic of South Africa. Port Elizabeth and its immediate environments have been allocated, for this financial year, the sum of R18 297 328 for the construction of large schemes out of the special allocation of R165 million which has become available to us from a loan by certain banks. That is the largest single allocation yet made, and it is going to be difficult to exceed it. In addition they have been given R2 million in the normal budget. In other words, Port Elizabeth is being given more than R20 million this year.

That is too much.

Yes, I also feel that we are being too generous. I am looking forward to the hon. member getting up in the debate and saying to me that I should take some of that money away and give it to other needy municipalities.

The hon. member for Musgrave raised another interesting point, but I shall have to reply to that at a later stage.

Mr. Chairman, I shall leave those hon. members to whom the hon. the Minister has replied to come back to him as I would like to put him straight on one issue that he raised. This is that there is no difference of opinion between the hon. member for Durban Central and the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South in regard to rent control. When the hon. the Minister announced the phasing out of rent control, he did so with an explanation of the safeguards that he had devised to prevent hardship. The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South, correctly and within his right, said that he welcomed the statement and particularly the safeguards. The hon. member for Durban Central said—I have his speech here—that the inadequacies of the present Rents Act is therefore not an issue whatsoever. There is no question about that, especially since the 1975 amendments to the Act.

What are you proving now?

At that time we warned the hon. the Minister, the Government and the hon. member for Tygervallei—he denied it at the time—that those amendments were going to lead to radical increases in rents. Since then the Rents Act has not, in fact given proper protection against rising rentals. Increases of up to 100% and more in rentals have been granted by rent boards. The average rise is approximately 25%. At the same time it can be said that the amendments did not meet the demands of or satisfy the landlords, and therefore the Act had ceased to be an effective instrument. Rent control depends on two legs of which one is to protect tenants against exploitation and the other leg, the essential leg to give it balance, is to ensure that adequate housing is available. The Government failed to give attention to the second leg and therefore the first leg became unbalanced. Rent control then became a subsidization of rentals by landlords instead of a protection against exploitation. We accept that that is wrong and we also accept that there had to be a new deal. We have since looked at the hon. the Minister’s assurances, given so glibly, that there would be adequate safeguards, and we are not satisfied that those safeguards are adequate. That is the issue which the hon. member for Durban Central attacked and which I want to follow up. Before I do that, I want to stress that the hon. member for Durban Central had made one positive suggestion, i.e. the purchase of old buildings, when his time expired. The hon. the Minister says that they have done that, but I do not know of any substantial buildings that have been purchased and re-let in the category we are talking about. I would like to know where they are and I ask the hon. the Minister to tell us. When the department built flats, they did so at such a high cost that the rentals were way above the rentals that the people could pay, and therefore they had to sell those buildings. They sold all the flats they built in Durban …

We bought the whole of Fawlay Terrace here in Cape Town.

I am thinking in terms of what had been done in Durban where I know what happened. The hon. member for Durban Central intended to go on to deal with the question of adequate funds for local authorities and I would now like to add a third positive suggestion, i.e. the question of tax relief to enable private enterprise to supply low-cost housing to those in need. The hon. the Minister’s safeguards, despite what he says, are temporary. Let us take a couple where the husband dies and the widow has to move out because the flat becomes too big for one person. She then loses her protection whereas before she could eventually find another rent-controlled flat. [Interjections.] That is a fact. Anyone who knows anything about the matter, knows that that is so. I have no grouse with the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South. Like all people experienced in property development, he realizes the snags the Rents Act has caused for them. The hon. the Minister himself is an ex-property developer. He has been involved in property development and also therefore knows their problems. Those of us who have flatland constituencies have the other problem—of the tenants—and it is the responsibility of this Government to balance these two problems. They should not get over-enthusiastic about the one side only. The hon. the Minister is responsible, but he tends to get over-enthusiastic about the difficulties of the landlord and does not give sufficient attention to the difficulties of the tenant.

I want to say that the attitude of the department towards tenants seems to have changed over the last year or so. There is not the sympathy towards tenants that there used to be. However, the real failure of the hon. the Minister’s announcement is that the safeguards he announced are going to be temporary and limited and they are not going to provide for the 30%—according to his own commission’s figures—who fall in the income group of R300 per month and under. All the empty flats which the hon. the Minister talks about have rents of R70, R80 to R100 or more per month. If the hon. the Minister can show me an advertisement for a bachelor flat in the R50 to R60 range—the rental that a R200 income person can afford, then I should like to see where it is.

Time prevents me from going into the matter further, but I simply want to warn the hon. the Minister that he is responsible and that we will remind those who become the victims of the inadequate protection which he is granting, that it is this hon. Minister and his Government which has brought about the situation by failing to provide proper protection.

I had hoped to come back to the mainstream of the debate, but I shall obviously have no time to deal with it properly. I am referring to the whole system which this hon. Minister has to administer, this crazy fantasy world of: “Please, Sir, may I have a permit for this; please, Sir, may I have permission for that.” In the meantime we have an army of permit writers waiting breathlessly for the hon. the Minister to decide whether a wedding reception may be held in a certain hall or hotel. Can one imagine a country like this? That is why the hon. the Minister has no time to do his job. He has got all these permit writers waiting for him to decide who can have a dance, who can have a wedding reception, who can go to a football match, who can do this, that or the other. Is it not time that the hon. the Minister takes his courage in both his hands and says that he is going to clean the system up, as he did with theatres, and create a normal society and no more an Alice in Wonderland society. Even the hon. the Minister’s own hon. members and his newspapers are embarrassed.

We have made it clear that we stand for the option to live in a closed, exclusive residential area or in open areas. We believe there must be a choice. The hon. the Minister gives only one choice, i.e. exclusive and no open residential areas. The Official Opposition’s policy is equally clear. It is the only clear point of policy they have that I know of. Their policy is that all residential areas are compulsorily open and that no area may be exclusive. I have here what the provincial leader of Natal said in this regard. The question was put to him whether under a PFP Government people in a certain area would be allowed to retain that area for their use exclusively. He said: “Never. Definitely not.” In terms of Government policy all areas must be compulsorily kept open and none may be kept exclusive.

[Inaudible.]

I meant a PFP Government. Their policy is clear, namely that no area may be compulsorily kept exclusive. We give an option, but the PFP and the Government will give no options. That is the issue we have to debate and decide on: The no option by either the Government or the PFP and the option we offer. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Durban Point had a few clever things to say about rent control, but what is basically the position? Basically, the position is that for the first time in many years we have now reached a stage at which we can provide sufficient housing to the occupier, the tenant. On the one hand there is the basic premise that one cannot discriminate against the landlord. Now we still have those in the lower income group, especially those who would be subject to rent control. My argument is that provision should also be made for their requirements. The hon. members for Durban Point and Durban Central are concerned about those who earn less than R200. I think they have a misconception of these income groups.

Their concern that there is not sufficient housing for those people is the subject of my discussion. I want to allege that there is too much housing for them. I want to try and find a solution to this dilemma. I now want to point out the problem which I experience in this regard. In South Africa there are several fine economic housing schemes which are financed out of Government funds. Unfortunately, due to the unusual and economically unfavourable conditions in South Africa, these dwelling units are being vacated at a tremendous rate. In addition, one finds that this vacation is partly caused by the code of economic rent determination. This is the matter that I should like to exchange a few ideas about. These units are being vacated and are standing empty. This causes a loss for which the municipalities are held responsible. The municipalities have to recover the loss on these empty units from the general taxpayer. I know of local authorities outside my constituency who have lost six-figure amounts that had to be recovered from the taxpayer. I should like to point out two examples. The first concerns my constituency, but the whole matter is of national importance. Groenvallei in the Bellville district is a model town. One of my voters wrote the following to me in a letter—

There are 449 dwelling units available for rent in that particular model town, some of which have been vacated. I want to furnish some figures about these dwelling units which are vacant and available to people in the R200 income group. On 1 June 1977 all of them were occupied. On 1 July nine were empty; on 1 August, 22; on 1 September, 34; on 1 October, 46; and on 1 November, 56. On 1 May 1978 there will be 66 empty units.

The second example which I should like to point out, is Parow Parks where a fine project has been undertaken. There are 534 units for rent there. They were completed in phases and the last one has been completed recently. There are 534 dwelling units standing empty.

Business suspended at 12h45 and resumed at 14h15.

Afternoon Sitting

Mr. Chairman, further to what I was saying when business was interrupted, I ask for what reason, apart from the present economic condition, 61 beautiful dwelling units are standing empty in Groenvallei, Bellville, and for what reason more than 400 dwelling units in Parow Park are standing empty, viz. about 80% of that very special and fine development scheme? Let us analyse the situation. The sub-economic rent interest rate is calculated at 1% on the value of the property, as adjusted, up to a maximum income limit of R150. The minimum income limit for calculating economic rental is R250 at a rent interest rate of 9,25%. Between the R150 income limit and the R250 income limit there is a differentiated rental on a sliding scale calculated at 3½) per annum. Now let us take a practical example of this. Mr. X lives in a Groenvallei flat, he has two dependants and he is very happy there. His monthly rental is R50,11 per month and he earns R250 per month. This rental of R50,11 complies with the ideal which has been laid down, viz. that one’s rental should not exceed 25% of one’s income. Now his salary increases by R1 per month. I am taking a drastic example now to illustrate my problem. Therefore, his income rises from R250 to R251 per month and his rental now rises from R50,11 per month to R85,08 per month. Because he has received an increase of R1 per month, he therefore pays an additional R35 per month in rental. This problem has three serious consequences. In the first place, the person becomes counter-productive. One must take into consideration the fact that due to his income limit, his salary increases are not very high. One must take into consideration the fact that he looks forward to every cent of the increase he can get. But now he has reached the stage at which he simply cannot accept any salary increases.

I know of a divorced nurse who works at the Tygerberg Hospital. She received a salary increase of R15 per month and had to refuse it because her rent would have more than doubled. I know of an official who was transferred on promotion from Paarden Island to the Cape Town harbour, and he had to return to his employer and tell him that he could not afford the promotion and increase.

However, there is a second problem. In the case of Mr. X, whose increased rental amounts to R85 per month—this is on an income of R251 per month—it places him in a category in which he has to pay out more than one-third of his salary in rental. Mr. X’s dilemma becomes much greater. Mr. X’s employer deducts pension contributions, medical aid contributions and income tax instalments from his salary. This amounts to R29. He therefore now pays 40% of his net income in rental. This is not all. Before he can begin to live, he must pay for garbage removal, water levy, water consumption and electricity in respect of that house, and this amounts to R22. After these amounts have been deducted, Mr. X and his two dependants have to face the month with R115 in their pockets. The result of this is that he, who is a willing tenant, actually has to vacate this flat unwillingly. The flat is empty, the local authority has the problem of filling it, the local authority has to make up this loss which it suffers and the only way it can do so is by means of an increase in taxation. I think the biggest problem is that the rapid turnover of people due to this problem is creating an unstable community.

This gives rise to a third unfavourable consequence. This is that the person who can make ends meet has too little left over to be able to save enough to achieve the true ideal, viz. to be able to purchase that unit. In order to be able to purchase that unit, which is sold at an average price of about R10 000, he needs a deposit of 10%, which equals about R1 000. The department facilitates matters for him in a special way by allowing him to pay a deposit on a deposit, viz. R300 per month. However, the local authority requires him, together with this, to pay an endowment levy of 5% on the erf, as well as a 1% facilities levy. In addition, he has to pay the survey costs. In this particular case it amounts to R85. He therefore has the problem of saving up this amount of between R500 and R600 so that eventually, after he has paid the balance of his deposit, he can purchase the house. Therefore, we must try to find a solution to this problem. I want to recommend to the hon. the Minister that we should introduce a system of progressive increases between the 3,5% category and the 9,25% category. Of course, I realize that progressive increases cause great administrative problems. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I simply rise to give the hon. member for Durbanville the opportunity of completing his speech.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the hon. member for Groote Schuur very much for allowing me the privilege of completing my argument. I appreciate it very much.

Even if one could introduce only one interim stage between the 3,5% category and the 9,25% category, one would already be making it easier for the inhabitant of the unit because he would then be offered a prospect. I realize that, in theory, should all units be occupied, there would be a loss of income. However, I believe that it could be recovered by means of a slight adaptation as regards the other income groups.

I want to ask the hon. the Minister very seriously to try to accommodate me in this regard. Divorced women—and many of the inhabitants of economic units are divorced women with dependent children—are often not so sure of receiving maintenance regularly. I therefore urge the hon. the Minister to help me out of my dilemma. A large number of divorced women have been crying on my shoulder for a long time. [Interjections.] I have exhausted my means of comforting them. Winter is at hand, and they are going to … [Interjections.] If I do not come back to this House next year, at least I know that I have stated my case. [Interjections.]

I should also like to refer to a few less important aspects to which the hon. the Minister might give attention. I am referring to the category between R380 and R440 in the economic class. There we find that someone who falls in this category—who has been occupying his unit for years, has spent money on it to beautify and improve it, has taken a great deal of trouble and has been very happy there—is immediately disqualified and barred from renting that dwelling unit when his only dependent child leaves home and therefore becomes independent. The only reason for this is that he has lost his dependent child. However, he still remains in the R380-R440 income group. This means that he is now being subjected to the rent penalty. This amounts to 11,25%.

The additional 2% means an increase of only about R15. This is not serious. This particular man can afford the increase of R15. However, it gives rise to two other problems. It means that, should economic circumstances improve and should applications be received from people who do qualify, this man, who actually does not qualify, will have to be given three months’ notice by the local authority to vacate his dwelling unit. This means that he forfeits his dwelling unit, together with all the improvements which he made to it. He also loses his happiness.

The other important aspect—when the man who has been occupying a dwelling unit for years has to vacate it—is that it often happens to those who are the leaders in their community. Now this is a community which cannot afford to lose its leaders. That is why we are now faced with this dilemma. At Groenvallei, the particular scheme to which I am referring, there are no fewer than 58 people who are subject to the rent penalty. The problem is just that should economic conditions improve, those people will all be liable to three months’ notice.

The second aspect I should like to mention is that, should the man die, we find that his wife must necessarily vacate the economic dwelling unit. There are very good reasons for this. However, it could perhaps be considered under the circumstances, if she does not qualify, to accommodate her because her husband qualified. Of course, this consideration should only hold good if she does in fact have the means to pay her rent.

Then there is another aspect which I should like to refer to. However, I realize that it is a very difficult matter, and I do not know whether there is an easy solution in this case. This is, Sir, that if in one family the breadwinner, his wife and child work and they have a total income of R1 000, while in the case of his neighbour it is only the breadwinner who works and, for argument’s sake, he earns only R400 per month, both of them pay the same rent. This is something which happens and it sometimes causes some discord amongst the neighbours because some of them feel that their neighbours have much larger incomes than are laid down for them to qualify. However, I realize it is extremely difficult for the department to exercise any real control over the income of women and children when they contribute as well.

Finally, the question arises whether one should still take the question of dependants into consideration in determining rentals. In other words, if someone qualifies in terms of his income limits, should one not grant him a house? Then the number of dependants could only be taken into consideration when it comes to determining the size of house which must be granted to that particular person.

In conclusion, I want to come back to the hon. member for Durban Central. That hon. member tried to cause a commotion by referring to the man who earns R200 per month. Our problem is that we are sitting here with hundreds of dwelling units which are available to people with incomes of R200 per month. They can rent those dwelling units for as little as R50 per month. This is much less than such a person would have to pay for a rent-controlled flat, and nevertheless we are looking for tenants. The problem is so great that local authorities are bending over backwards even to take in students who do not comply with those income limits.

Mr. Chairman, as I know the hon. the Minister of Community Development, he will reply to the problems mentioned by the hon. member for Durbanville. I should like to deal with the Group Areas Act. If the Government is in earnest as regards its undertaking to move away from racial discrimination based on race or colour, then the Government should remove the Group Areas Act from the Statute Book immediately. [Interjections.] It is no use beating about the bush; it is the Group Areas Act more than any other which has caused incalculable damage to race relations within South Africa as well as to South Africa’s international position. This cruel system of apartheid has been imposed on the defenceless people of South Africa by the Government, and this Act is the one which is primarily responsible for the fact that our race relations in South Africa have reached such a low level today. It is that Act which is responsible for the fact that South Africa is finding itself in the critical situation in which it finds itself in the outside world. It is that Act which is responsible for the fact that South Africa is being shown up to the world as ludicrous and ridiculous. Just take as an example the reply the hon. the Minister gave the hon. member for Rondebosch in respect of the refusal of the application for a permit to present an evening of light classical music. The hon. member for Rondebosch commented on an application of this nature which had been refused. An application was made for a permit making provision for a multiracial audience in front of whom children were to compete in the sphere of light classical music. It would have been an evening which would have been tranquil and peaceful. There was absolutely no possibility of racial friction or of any other problems. The Minister refused that application on grounds of wanting to prevent racial friction. In this regard one may draw a comparison with a pop festival which took place in Woodstock recently and at which thousands of people were present. It was a multiracial occasion which had every potential for friction and other problems arising. However, such friction did not arise. The festival was held. An evening at which light classical music was to be presented, was turned down by that Government because it would be a multiracial occasion. This Act has caused the merciless disruption of people and communities in South Africa. [Interjections.] Just take a look at the statistics as regards this situation in South Africa. 18,4% of the Coloured population have been or will be affected by the Group Areas Act. It has or will affect 33% of the Indian population as against only 0,2% of the White population of South Africa. Let us compare this to what happened in Germany, for example, before and during the Second World War. If we do this, we shall see that a larger percentage of the minority groups in the South African population are affected by this Act than was the case in Germany with similar legislation during that period. [Interjections.] Just look at the compulsory removal of people that has taken place in this country and that will still take place. 3,84 million people have already been moved or will be moved. Of this number 2 115 000 people, of whom 7 000 are Whites, have already been moved. Another 1 772 000 people, of whom 1 600 are Whites, still have to be moved. Of course, this number includes people who will be moved in terms of other ideological legislation.

Are you not ashamed of yourself, Horace?

This Act is the one which is responsible for the harsh implementation of discrimination against the other race groups in South Africa. As an example one may mention an recommendation of the Erika Theron Commission. That authoritative commission recommended that commercial and industrial rights throughout South Africa be granted to all groups in South Africa. It also recommended, inter alia, that District Six be given back to the Coloured community of South Africa. But what was the reaction of the Government in the White Paper? Incidentally, I thought today there was a second White Paper, but then I discovered that it was the English translation which was appearing on our desks only now. [Interjections.] In the White Paper the Government said it could not allow all groups to develop in the commercial and industrial areas but that it would frequently apply section 19 so as to afford the Coloureds and Indians the opportunity to develop outside these areas. The Government also said that the Wood-stock and Salt River areas would be given to the Coloured community.

I wonder whether the hon. the Minister could perhaps give us an indication of the progress that has been made in that regard so far. Then, of course, there was a relaxation with regard to industrial development, and an interesting aspect is that a spokesman for the Department of Planning subsequently said that that relaxation was with regard to heavy industries only. So I assume now that Coloureds or Indians who are able to build a Sasol or Iscor will have the right to operate in the industrial areas, but others apparently not. This legislation is also responsible for the continuous humiliation of defenceless people Coloureds, Indians and Blacks in South Africa. There are thousands of examples of people who have been humiliated through the application of this legislation. Thousands of examples can be mentioned which ought to make every member in this House ashamed. I need only to mention an example of a Coloured clergyman in Heidelberg who was ordered to leave the White area. He was originally refused permission to live in that area. Take as another example the question of restaurants at which eminent Coloureds, Indians and Black people in the company of Whites have been told to leave and have been humiliated as a result. Just think of the damage done to South Africa abroad as a result of the fact that this has happened, often in the presence of eminent leaders from outside South Africa. [Interjections.] Also think, for example, of the directive which was recently issued to the effect that Black managers may not be trained in White businesses. Just think of the directive which was issued to the effect that all Black lawyers had to leave Durban and go to the homelands. Just think of the humiliation and damage resulting from these things!

Horace, your speech is a disgrace!

I want to address an appeal to the Government. One cannot get rid of apartheid partially. One cannot get rid of these things bit by bit. I just want to mention that Dr. H. J. J. Reynders, the executive director of the Federated Chamber of Industries recently put the matter as follows. He said—

Do the honest and decent thing and get rid altogether of this contemptible legislation which appears on our Statute Book.

There are many other consequences of this legislation. Recently Maasdorp and Pillay discovered in a sociological study that the decrease in contact between Black and White and the different effect this had on the various groups, was giving rise to racial prejudice and racial friction. This causes uncertainty and destroys security and in consequence of the destruction of the security of communities, areas degenerate into slums. Inflation of property prices and rentals is another consequence. For instance, take the housing shortage existing in South Africa today: In the case of the Coloureds the relevant figure is 58 600, for the Indians it is 21 235, for the Whites 5 100 and for the Blacks 400 000. In the eight years up to 1977, the Government demolished 121 104 houses, the majority of which could have been renovated and improved.

How many were built?

It is not necessary to demolish them. They were demolished in terms of the ideological and contemptible Groups Areas Act of the Government. How many other unfortunate consequences of the Group Areas Act cannot be described? [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, this afternoon I wanted to confine myself more particularly to local matters, but in pursuance of the speech made by the hon. member for Bryanston, I am obliged to reply to that first. The hon. member spoke of the “cruel” apartheid policy of the NP. Surely the apartheid policy is not a cruel one. On the contrary, it is a good policy.

Is that why you keep moving away from it?

If the hon. member is so keen to mix and wants to live in a non-White residential area like Soweto, he is free to apply for permission to do so. I shall support his application. If I as a White man live in my residential area, and the Coloured person lives in his residential area in peace and goodwill, and if the Black man in turn lives in his residential area, I cannot understand where discrimination enters into the picture.

[Inaudible.]

The hon. priest need only look at nature: Even the skunks and jackals live with their own kind. Has he ever seen them living in mixed groups?

The hon. member also spoke of the “humiliating” Group Areas Act. The policy of apartheid of the NP is founded on the Group Areas Act and that Act will remain for as long as the NP governs, and that will be for many years to come.

What about South West Africa?

That hon. member should keep quiet for a moment: He does not even know what South West Africa looks like. He belongs to the PFP and does he know what the PFP reminds me of? It reminds me of a mule because it has no past to be proud of nor any future to strive towards. [Interjections.]

Order!

The PFP is like a mule: The sire is a donkey and the dam is a horse. So what can they have to be proud of? I want to pose the question: What is wrong with the Group Areas Act? Does the hon. member want to tell me that he wants the conditions which prevailed prior to 1948 to continue? In those days the Whites and non-Whites, Blacks, Whites and Coloureds, lived in mixed areas and one had the largest degree of the mixing of races. The slum conditions which prevailed in 1948, were nothing but the breeding ground for Communists and Marxists. This shows us where that party’s sympathy lies. Every time we demolish a shanty town or clear up a slum and resettle the people, the PFP revolts. Why? They want those conditions which are a breeding ground for Communists in South Africa. [Interjections.] He used the word “discrimination” and he spoke of the thousands and tens of thousands of people who have been resettled in South Africa. What is wrong with this?

How would you like to be moved?

Does that hon. member want the slum conditions in which the people at Dassiekraal in Port Elizabeth were living squashed together, White and non-White, to continue to exist?

We are referring to the decent people who did not want to move, but were forced to do so, often with violence.

Today those people are housed in fine accommodation and there is the best … [Interjections.] That hon. member must sit still; then he will not look so horrible. We gave those people …

Order! The hon. member may not use that word. He must withdraw it.

What word, Mr. Chairman?

The hon. member said that that hon. member looked horrible. The hon. member may not say that.

Mr. Chairman, I just called him by name. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member must withdraw it unconditionally.

I withdraw the word “horrible” unconditionally Mr. Chairman.

Today there are beautiful residential areas where those slums used to be and people are living there in an orderly fashion in peace and goodwill and every one is proud to be living there. Hon. members may go to the luxury non-White residential areas and ask those people whether they want to return to Dassiekraal. They may ask them whether they want to return to the slum conditions. However, there are some people in the Republic of South Africa who want the slum conditions to continue to exist so that they may have sufficient ammunition for besmirching South Africa abroad. [Interjections.]

Where did the slum conditions arise? These conditions arose under the UP régime. When the NP took over the resus of government in 1948, one of its first tasks was to place the Group Areas Act on the Statute Book so as to enable us to put an end to the shanty towns and slum conditions.

This is what their objection is all about because they would have liked those slum conditions to continue to exist. The hon. members of the NRP will have to agree with me that these conditions were the order of the day when they were in power. Even the leader of the UP, Sir De Villiers Graaff, was so disappointed when, after a period of many years, he looked back at the way in which they had failed to do their duty, at the emergence of slum conditions on a large scale in South Africa while they were in power, that he, after the UP had split into three pieces, wrung the neck of the remaining pieces so that only that portion of the UP remains here today as the NRP. The hon. members of the NRP will have to admit these facts. What happened to that party? It split into three pieces and their leader wrung the neck of the remaining piece. Those hon. members do not want to know that they were members of the old UP …

Order! The hon. member must come back to the Vote.

Now, suddenly, the party’s name has been changed and they are the New Republic Party, because all the years they have been republican. [Interjections.]

There is something of which I am convinced today. When I look at the amount which is being voted, I realize that housing is one of the most pressing problems we have to contend with in South Africa. The Government realizes that the only way to improve the material and spiritual standards of people with any measure of success, is to provide them with accommodation. A sound housing policy is not only the key to a high standard of living; it remains a fact that any person who has a house, does not readily fall prey to communist and other foreign influences.

I should like to address myself to the hon. the Minister and ask him, as other hon. members have done, that the means test which is applied before people are allowed to obtain State or municipal housing, in fact all housing established by State funds, be reviewed. Our people receive salary increases or their salaries are adjusted from time to time, and in consequence of such increases or adjustments they no longer quality to live in those houses. There is a case in my constituency of people having received increases of R10 and R12 per month in consequence of which they no longer qualify to live in their house. I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether we cannot have this matter investigated as soon as possible. I also want to refer to the big fuss that was made about the resettlement of the people who lived in slum conditions in South End. Services have already been provided in that area, and now I want to suggest to the hon. the Minister that the development of South End be commenced. If insufficient funds are available for the development, we should give private initiative the opportunity to undertake the necessary development in South End. The second aspect I want to take up with the hon. the Minister concerns the tremendous amount of land at Fairview in Port Elizabeth which the department has. It is a fine piece of land on which thousands upon thousands of erven can be made available. There is a need for building land in Port Elizabeth. [Time expired.]

The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South.

Mr. Chairman, did you say the “horrible” member?

If I did, would the hon. member have objected?

Mr. Chairman, I wish to answer the hon. the Minister and the hon. member for Tygervallei on the accusation that there is a split in our party over rent control.

Be honest about it.

I shall be honest. I should like to point out that I have always pleaded for the abolition of rent control. The hon. the Minister of Defence will remember that when he was still in that department, I made a number of requests to the department to arrange for the abolition of rent control. The present hon. Minister has now done so, and I wish to thank him for it. I shall motivate my reasons for this thanks. We are living in a free enterprise society; every one of the parties in this House endorses a free enterprise society. Anybody who says that rent control is in accordance with a free enterprise society, must be completely out of his mind.

The system which the hon. the Minister has now brought about sounds good. As the hon. member for Durban Central and our hon. leader have pointed out, there are problem areas and I believe the hon. the Minister should take a very careful look at these areas. I certainly think the step which the hon. the Minister has taken is a brave step. It is not a popular step, as we have noticed from the NP ranks, as well as from our own, because every party has this dichotomy in their ranks. It all depends where one comes from as to whether one is going to assist your groups or not. I believe, however, that the Rent Control Act did more harm to this country than has any other Act in a long, long time.

More harm than the Group Areas Act?

That is close, but I do not wish to touch on that one. The hon. member for Durban Central mentioned the old-age pensioner as the one who needs to be assisted. I think the hon. Minister should talk to the hon. Minister of Social Welfare and Pensions to see whether some system could not be found in order to assist these people. Our hon. leader further pointed out that we should try to develop a tax relief in an endeavour to assist in developing a suitable type of structure. Let us take as an example the old rooming-house which has the bathroom at the end of the passage. That type of accommodation is very difficult to find. Often a woman pensioner, when her husband dies, has to go into this type of accommodation and I think we should be able to provide something similar to this for these people. I think if we had a tax concession—something which I pleaded for 15 years ago—for the developer in the form of a 2% depreciation allowance on his buildings, so that he could write the buildings off, it would assist him in developing this type of project. I think such a concession would enable private enterprise to get into this market in order to assist these people. This is my suggestion to the hon. the Minister.

I am also very pleased to see that the hon. the Minister is going to thump the exploiter very hard. There is an article in The Citizen of this morning where a person is complaining about undue pressure for the rentals to be increased. I am not going to read the article, but the hon. the Minister can read it for himself. There will be those who are going to exploit some of the unfortunate people, and I think the hon. the Minister should again appear on television. He has a nice smiling face and he should get it across to the population and the landlords that any person who is going to do this is going to get thumped hard and is going to be acted against under the Rents Act.

I now want to come to my main point. I have been side-tracked a bit, so I am going to have to cut it down somewhat. I should like to start off by saying that after careful deliberation I have decided to go ahead and tell the hon. the Minister that when it comes to housing, he and his department are doing a damm good job, especially when one considers the meagre funds which have been available to them in the past couple of years. The reports that have been tabled by the Secretary of the department are really very good. They are excellent reports; positive, enthusiastic, confident and, to say the least, encouraging. What I appreciate about the department—I am going to be frank—is the complete honesty that the Secretary and his staff have displayed to us when we have asked for statistical data. One cannot quarrel with a man who lays his cards so squarely on the table, gives you all the facts and the figures, and then goes out of his way to let you know where his problems lie. He has told us about the difficulties which he needs to overcome, how he has to tackle them and how we can assist him. Hon. members should of course remember that I am only referring to the major physical function of the department, namely the provision of housing for the various groups of our country, and not the political principles and dogma under which the department has to operate.

The first matter I would like to deal with is the provision of housing for Coloureds and Indians. To start with I would like to discuss the basic principle of housing which is to be found in the Mitchell’s Plain type of development and the ripple effects thereof.

I am possibly going to cross swords with the hon. member for Rondebosch, but I positively believe in the principle of Mitchell’s Plain. We all know that Mitchell’s Plain is a remarkable achievement, and South Africa can be justly proud of it. Congratulations are due to the Department of Community Development and to the Cape Town City Council. What I like about Mitchell’s Plain and its underlying principle, is the creation of a stable and proud society amongst the Coloured people. What Mitchell’s Plain illustrates so vividly is the goal of home ownership and the achievement of a healthy society. Some critics of the Mitchell’s Plain type of scheme have stated that this scheme really only provides for the upper and middle income groups of the community and does not cater for the poor. I do not believe this. In fact, it is not so. What a scheme of this kind is doing for the Coloured community is offering them a goal, the hope of an attractive home, and thus enticing them away from the more mundane and unimaginative housing schemes of the past decades. Families are moving out of their older homes, thereby vacating this older and cheaper accommodation for the less affluent to take up. This movement will assist in the slum clearance programme. The continuous movement upwards from the older, stereotyped and monotonous housing is, in fact, a very healthy sign and should be encouraged to the fullest. Out of the community of Mitchell’s Plain there will be born the future leaders of the Coloured community. They will be men with a stable and satisfying youth behind them and not the type of embittered leader coming from a ghetto or a squatter camp. This type of development further allows for much of the capital invested by the State to return to the State to be used for future schemes instead of it being permanently locked into rental schemes. I plead with the hon. the Minister to initiate more and more of this type of project for all the racial groups in our country. There is a perfect example of it near Cape Town and the hon. the Minister can certainly adjust and modify this model to suit the Blacks and Indians as well. The only problem—and this is where I cross swords with the Government—is that we are not giving them enough money to do the job. I believe this department can do it.

One word of caution to the hon. the Minister: He must tread very carefully when he undertakes the massive “new town” type of scheme. I am referring to towns such as Atlantis. I do not believe they can be considered as a dormitory type of development scheme. They will have to be completely self-sufficient cities within themselves. The “new town” concept has really not proved itself in any other country of the world and can, in fact, really only work if massive and wasteful additional injections of funds, capital and tax incentives are made. [Time expired.]

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

Thank you very much. At this juncture of time we can ill afford this additional expense in our housing programme. The hon. the Minister and his department in the annual report, have clearly indicated that very serious shortages presently exist in the provision of Indian and Coloured housing. They are, however, very optimistic that this shortage and backlog will be wiped out entirely within the next five or six years, if sufficient funds are made available to them.

I believe this House has the duty to see to it that these funds are made available to them in order for them to rectify the situation.

I now wish to discuss the provision of funds for Blacks. Here I am in agreement with the hon. member for Rondebosch. According to a report of the Department of Community Development the department has been responsible for the provision of 89% of the funds required therefore. The under-provision of funds for the housing of Blacks is an area where our country is running into very serious trouble. In almost every speech I have made to date in this House I have stressed this aspect again and again. The hon. the Minister has pointed out that his department is only providing funds for the housing needs handled by the Department of Plural Relations and Development. I realize this, but I want to deal with the amount of money this budget makes available to that department.

Two days ago Mr. Justice Steyn said in Johannesburg that in the White areas of the PWV complex alone there was a shortfall of 73 000 homes for Blacks. A total shortage of 200 000 homes exists in the urban areas of South Africa, and then there is a shortage of another 200 000 homes in the homelands. One must ask whether these figures are correct. My personal assessment is that these figures are very close to the mark, but how can one be sure? The only body which can give this data about Black housing to us is the Department of Plural Relations and Development, and they will not, or cannot. The arrogance, be ignorance, or both of this department is frankly incredible. In order to try to establish how much money would be required by the Department of Community Development to adequately house our urban Blacks, I submitted a number of questions to the Department of Plural Relations and Development.

You have the wrong department.

I have to obtain the figures. I cannot obtain them here so I have to obtain them from the Department of Plural Relations and Development. I submitted these questions on Black housing needs to the hon. the Minister of Plural Relations and Development. Do you know what I got? Feathers! That was all I could obtain from this department. That department does not know how many houses it has built, is building or will build. In fact, it can offer little or no information about its housing programme at all. I am talking about the hon. the Minister of Plural Relations and Development, but I have to obtain statistics to establish our needs. I want the hon. the Minister of Community Development to have those figures. In the Department of Community Development’s Focus report the Secretary states that for urban Blacks some 70 000 housing units plus hostels will be erected during the next five years and funds for this housing will have to be provided entirely from the National Housing Fund. That means that only 14 000 houses will be built for urban Blacks per year. Let me immediately point out that the estimated annual demand for houses for Blacks in Soweto alone can absorb the entire 14 000 units per year, without taking into account any building elsewhere in the Republic. This does not even take into consideration the 200 000 shortfall which exists in urban South Africa. I know that it seems as if I am fighting with the hon. the Minister of Community Development, but he is not really the one with whom I am fighting.

My shoulders are broad.

I accept that, but the hon. the Minister of Community Development has to talk to the other gentlemen in order to get this money. How can we even possibly hope to catch up on the backlog when we are not even planning, in our five year programme, to come anywhere near to meeting the normal annual demand? This is the point I want to stress and stress again. I tried to calculate the total amount of money that would be required in order to wipe out the backlog and to meet the needs of our annual demand. I struck many snags, however. The first factor that I took into consideration in my calculation was naturally the number of houses that had to be built. I therefore had to take Justice Steyn’s figure of 200 000 and add another 30 000 per year to cover the annual demand. In order to keep pace with and to eliminate the backlog we shall therefore have to erect 350 000 homes in the next five years.

I now come to snag No. 2. What is the average cost of a Bantu dwelling? In the report of the Department of Community Development the figure is R2 200, but the figure I receive from the Department of Plural Relations and Development is R4 500. I therefore do not know which figure to use. The Department of Plural Relations and Development does not know, but I realize that the Department of Community Development does know.

Ask Dr. Rhoodie.

I am not quarrelling with the hon. the Minister. He has one of the best departments of any minister in the House. It therefore means that we shall require 350 000 multiplied by R2 200 which gives a total of R770 million, or R150 million per annum for five years. That is 10% of the defence budget. I am now coming to the hon. the Minister of Defence.

We have already discussed defence. Are you aware of that?

I realize that, but I have quarrelled with the hon. the Minister of Plural Relations and Development and I am now going to quarrel with you. I have, of course, no quarrel with the Defence Force, but what I am saying is that we need R150 million per year for the next five years which represents 10% of the defence budget. This is just to make a comparison. I am not saying that the one is not necessary.

Are you prepared to pay higher taxes?

Yes, Sir. For my safety I am prepared to pay it. What about the hon. the Minister? Is he prepared to pay?

Are you speaking on behalf of your party?

Yes, Sir. [Interjections.] We know that only R16 million comes from the Department of Community Development, but they do not know how much comes from the Department of Plural Relations and Development. They have a whole stack of money, but they do not know where it is going. This is true. Why do they not give me the figures? [Interjections.]

Encouraging private home ownership is one way to assist, and I believe the principle of building a better class of home, for example as is being done at Mitchell’s Plain, is a good principle to adopt. This is borne out by the Department of Plural Relations and Development, and I quote from page 41 of its report—

[Interjections.] I am trying to substantiate what the hon. the Minister from that department is doing.

That Vote will be discussed next week.

They discovered this when they decided to sell their housing units on the Reef on long lease a year ago. One might ask why it took that department so long to realize this elementary fact about selling their homes. If they had not stopped the sale of houses in 1967, in the first place Soweto would never have burnt.

Order! The hon. member must not discuss the Plural Relations Vote now.

Mr. Chairman, with respect, I am dealing with the provision of housing for Blacks, which falls under this department.

Order! The department is providing the finances, but they have nothing to do with the selling of the houses.

Mr. Chairman, I am sure that the department of Community Development recognizes the gravity of the situation. My question is, however, how we can get the Cabinet to realize this. Of the R520 million allocated to the National Housing Fund during the past five years, only 6,5% has been spent on Black housing. When one considers that Blacks account for 44% of the urban population, this 6,5% really strikes a very sour note. If we look at the number of housing units built, the percentage rises slightly to almost 18% of the total. Let us not forget that 44% of our population is the poorer section and thus requires the most assistance. I cannot stress this strongly enough. I am not getting involved with Plural Relations; I am getting involved with the Department of Community Development. The hon. the Minister of Community Development has to approach the Cabinet for more money. I have stressed why it is necessary.

When one starts thinking about the mammoth building task that lies ahead, one can only reach the conclusion—and this I have mentioned before—that the Government must now bring all the housing projects under one roof and establish a fully-fledged Ministry of Housing. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, on this pleasant note I think it is time for me to enter the debate again in order to reply to new arguments which have been advanced. I want to convey my sincere thanks to the hon. members for Durbanville and Port Elizabeth North for their contributions to the debate.

The hon. member for Durbanville drew my attention in particular to problems experienced by the Bellville City Council in the administration of certain housing schemes which they have established in partnership with the Department of Community Development. The problem is—and this is a phenomenon which we find everywhere—that there does not seem to be a great demand for White housing at the moment, and that many dwelling units are unoccupied. This causes losses to the municipality, and eventually to the Department of Community Development as well. I do not want to elaborate on that. It is probably due to the fact that immigration has gone down considerably. Another factor which plays a part in this is the fact that many people arrange for their wives and children to move in with their family or parents when they have to do their military duty of two years. Many people who have to do military duty put off buying a house and even getting married. Then, of course, there are the economic circumstances. However, it is true that a large number of dwelling units are standing empty at the moment. As I said, this creates problems.

Now, it is the policy of the Department of Community Development to adjust its norms and conditions administratively in order to assist the city councils. In this way, for example, in cases where subeconomic dwelling units are unoccupied, we allow people who would otherwise not qualify, because their income is too high, to stay on in those dwelling units. In other cases, we allow people who are very poor to move into empty units at a reduced rental. It is better, of course, to receive a small amount in rental than nothing at all. As far as the case of Bellville is concerned, we are investigating these matters as a result of representations made by the hon. member for Durbanville. Other matters to which he referred in his speech and which he also mentioned in his representations are being investigated. We shall try to help where we can. We may not be able to give everything the hon. member is asking for. However, we shall discuss it with him and explain our standpoint to him with regard to the concessions which are practicable. I appreciate the fact that he availed himself of the opportunity of mentioning those problems in his area in this responsible way.

The hon. member for Port Elizabeth North praised the scope of the work undertaken by the Department of Community Development. I want to endorse what he said and at the same time to express my thanks to my colleagues in the Cabinet, especially the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance, for their realization of the extent and urgency of the housing problem in South Africa, and for the way in which they are enabling us to make a real and worthwhile contribution towards solving that problem. A little more than R300 million is being appropriated under this Vote, and of this amount, R210 million is being appropriated for housing, if one takes into account the R30 million which is coming back. This is an increase of 16% over last years’s figure. We have received an extra R50 million from the Treasury, and this is the greatest increase which has been granted to any department for this financial year. If we include the R250 million we have obtained from banks and other sources, we have spent R800 million on housing over the past three years. This is a very large amount, but nevertheless there are those who think that we shall not be able to raise R1 000 million over the next ten years. It is not always realized that R800 million has been made available to the Department of Community Development over the past three years for the provision of housing.

Before I proceed to talk to the hon. members of the Opposition, I want to keep a promise which I made to the hon. member for Musgrave.

†I promised to let the hon. member know the position with regard to Indian housing in the Durban area. He was most concerned that we were not achieving our object and that we were failing in our task. I want to tell him that of the loan we received from the banking sector, an amount of R26 million has been apportioned to Durban alone for 4 388 Indian dwellings. I may add, in addition, although the hon. member did not ask for this information, that a further R3½ million is being provided for 926 dwellings for Coloured people. A total of 6 302 dwellings for Indians and 2 300 for Coloureds were under construction or about to be commenced on 31 December 1977. The figure will increase during the course of the financial year. So, Sir, I think we are well within reach of our target of supplying the Indian people in the surroundings of Durban with 7 300 dwellings a year in order to catch up on the backlog of Indian housing in the next five years or so.

Another matter I should like to deal with, concerns the position in Durban where a flat-owner gave notice of rental increases varying from 80% to 130%. I have had further news on this matter since I last spoke. The attorney who is dealing with the estate of the owner, who has died since the original notice went out, has taken urgent action to change this situation. He has withdrawn the previous notices. In fact, he withdrew them yesterday after we became aware of the matter and advised him we had become aware of it. He now intends to give notice that he wants an increase in rent of only 20%. That, of course, conflicts with the provisions of the proclamation which allows an increase of only 10% per year, since the proclamation phasing out rent control came into effect. My department will be in touch with him and will try through administrative means to get him to accept that he should not exceed 10% in any case.

I would not be so sympathetic.

Why should I fight someone who has died?

The tenants are suffering.

Where are the tenants suffering? The new rentals have not yet come into effect. I can assure hon. members, however, that this sort of thing will be stopped. I want to put on record our appreciation of the attitude of the attorney. I am glad the matter has taken this turn. There is also another point I wish to make. Except for statutory increases, i.e. increases in rentals that arise from increases in rates, etc., the rentals for this building were last increased in 1966. In this case therefore, more than in other cases, I do think that an increase of 10% per annum would be fully justified since the income of the landlord has not increased over a period of 12 years. I am glad I have been able to give this information to the House and I am glad the matter has taken such a happy turn as the result of the intervention of my department and also the attitude of the attorney concerned.

*I come now to the hon. member for Durban Point. He spoke about rent control. Other members also spoke about that. I just want to emphasize again that the proclamation in terms of which rent control will be phased out makes ample provision for people who are protected in terms of the present rent control policy to continue enjoying that protection in several ways. Firstly, if they remain in their present dwellings, they are still protected as they have always been, except for the possible increase of 10%. However, if they have to move and have problems in doing so, they can appeal to the city council or the department, if they fall within the limits of the means tests which have been laid down, and we shall go out of our way to accommodate them at a reasonable rental.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. the Minister whether he is aware of the fact that this promise has often been made but that when specific cases come up and one asks that the people concerned be housed, there is no house in that specific price range? I am referring to the people earning R200 per month or less.

I refer the hon. member to the speech of the hon. member for Durbanville.

What are the rentals in that case?

Reasonable rentals. It is the task of the Department of Community Development, in partnership with the municipalities, to look after the poor, and we shall do it. The hon. member must know what he is leading himself into and he must ask himself whether he wants to do that. He is making out a case for the extension of rent control, not its phasing out. Think of it! He is making out a case for the extension of rent control on premises erected after 1966—continuous and never-ending rent control. Why is he so deeply concerned about people who are living in buildings constructed before 1966 and why has he no concern for those who live in dwellings constructed since 1966?

I am concerned that you have not made provision for them.

I say that we are concerned for every person in South Africa whose income is lower than an income on which they can afford economic housing. I undertake that the department will go out of his way to assist anybody who is hit as a result of this proclamation phasing out rent control.

We shall hold you to that.

I say this knowingly, because what we do will be subject to the scrutiny of every member of this House, including the hon. member for Durban Point. He would be failing in his duty if he did not bring cases to our notice where he could not get satisfaction. I know my responsibility to the House and I can assure the hon. member that we are going to do our very, very best. Where we fail, it is his duty to tell us and my duty to try to explain to him why we failed and perhaps to reconsider our policy if there are too many failures. Of that I am fully aware. At the moment, however, I am not concerned, because the situation obtaining in the country is that reasonable accommodation is available and will be becoming available in increasing measure.

I want to thank the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South very much for the appreciation he has for the work of the Department of Community Development, especially in the field of housing. It is most encouraging to get words of commendation such as we got from him, a member of the Opposition who is known as a fighter who does not pull his punches on other issues. It is a tribute to my departmental head and his staff which I appreciate very much. I do not feel that he intended it for me personally. But he certainly intended it for the departmental people who are devoted to their task and who are doing a splendid job of work, and for that I want to thank him. The reason why he can get information from my departments is that my officials and I believe that, if one gives a responsible member information and all the facts he requires for his purposes as a member of Parliament, one makes it possible for him to speak with authority and to base his criticism on facts. That, in turn, makes the debate on my Votes much more constructive and valuable and certainly enables us to rethink and adjust where necessary. If one in the other hand gives information to irresponsible members of Parliament—they do unfortunately exist and I do give them information because I do not differentiate between member and member—they find it a little more difficult to be utterly irresponsible because they know that the facts are against them. The trouble is that some of them are so irresponsible that they do not concern themselves to obtain the facts before they start speaking.

The last hon. member I want to deal with now is one of these. I am referring to the hon. member for Bryanston, who in his speech put his foot into it repeatedly and, I would almost say, with enthusiasm if one is to judge by his performance. I want to talk to him. He made an emotional and melodramatic speech and suggested that we should immediately abolish the Group Areas Act. As an example of his main reason he says that the Group Areas Act is discriminatory, that it shifts the non-Whites about while it does not shift the Whites about to the same extent. He quoted as an example that more than 30% of the Indian people have been moved under the Group Areas Act while…

I said “affected”.

Yes, that they were affected by the Group Areas Act while only about 2% of the Whites were affected by it. Let us just pause here for a moment. Unfortunately and for historical reasons, which I neither approve nor condemn but just state as a fact, the poor people of South Africa have for centuries been the non-White people.

The “Sappe” are the people who made them so poor.

No, I would not say that. The “Sappe” did, however, contribute to the situation, although they are not solely responsible.

The Minister was a “Sap” himself at that time. The hon. Chief Whip has made a blunder.

The fact remains that when this Government had to tackle the problem of housing in 1948 they faced an almost impossible situation for which the main reason was the war of 1939-’45 when virtually all building stopped in South Africa, and the Government of that period, according to its lights, was attending to more urgent, more pressing and more important matters. Let us face it, Sir. When I was still sitting on the benches opposite, I paid tribute to this Government on this point after it had come into power. They faced a situation in our urban areas that was too dreadful to contemplate or to remember even. We had the shanty towns and places like Pimville, Moroka, Cato Manor and others. I can tell you, Sir, it was a most disgraceful situation. I remember a survey done by one of our churches in the shanty towns on the Witwatersrand where they found that the infant mortality rate had risen to 600 per 1 000 in some areas. That is a shocking figure. Also that more than half the little girls growing up in those areas had to sell their bodies for gain before they were 11 years old. That was the situation. I can tell hon. members who spoke about Black housing that in the 1960s this Government as a matter of priority—and this is what I gave credit for when I sat on those benches—had to build 370 000 houses for the Black people of this country because they were urgently and desperately in need of accommodation. They had to concentrate on houses. The urgent priority they gave to housing caused problems in our time. A total of hundreds of thousands of houses were built, but the community facilities could not keep pace with that. That is why one can criticize Soweto as it is today. However, one can only criticize it if one takes into account the fact that 370 000 houses had to be built in virtually a decade to meet an intolerable situation.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. the Minister whether the figure of 370 000 which he quoted refers to the number of houses built since 1920?

Yes, I am grateful to the hon. member, but by far the largest number of those were built in the 1960s as a result of the desperate situation. One speaks fast and one may make a slip of the tongue. However, hundreds of thousands of houses were built, a number unparalleled in the history of South Africa. It was a magnificent effort. When it was done, other communities had to receive urgent attention. We then found that because of their poverty, the Coloured and Indian people were also beginning to face a desperate situation. That is why these people are getting priority now and in the years in the immediate future. These people are getting urgent and imaginative priority and I am proud that I am able to be associated with this stage of this great development. However, the hon. member for Bryanston does not take this achievement into account and he does not understand that when we started looking at the houses of Coloured and Indian people urgently and boldly, we found that these people were occupying slums which we could not justify and that many of these were in close proximity to the CBD areas of our big cities. These people had to be rehoused, but the areas in which they were living were in most cases not suitable for rehousing them. They were economically unsuitable. The same applied to certain White people. My hon. friend from Pretoria spoke about Danville. Danville is far from Pretoria, but the people living in that area were people removed from slums in the central area of Pretoria.

They were rehoused a distance away as in the case of the Indians and the Coloureds. There is a place near Germiston called Klopperspark. It is some miles out of Germiston, but White people who had been living in the same circumstances as the Indians and the Coloureds were shifted there. They could not be rehoused where they were as it was economically impossible. The moment one embarked on an urban renewal scheme the values of the properties became such that it was not possible to use those properties for the occupation of the people who had been there before. It is therefore not a question of discrimination against the Coloureds and the Indians; it is a question of having a set of facts with which the hon. member for Bryanston did not take the trouble to acquaint himself. This is a problem with which one has to deal, and deal with urgently, and we are not only dealing with it urgently, but successfully. If the hon. member for Bryanston had come to my department and said he was worried about the figures, and had asked if there was an explanation, he would have received such an explanation. He could then have accepted it or rejected it, but he would not have appeared before this House this afternoon in the guise of an ignoramus venturing where angels fear to tread.

He said that the change in the application of the Group Areas Act affecting industrial areas only applied to heavy industrial areas. He mentioned Sasol …

No, it was a statement made by an official of the Department of Planning and the Environment.

Yes, I know he said that. However, he interpreted it as applying only to areas where industries such as Sasol …

I asked a question.

Well, that is certainly an improvement. I would then like to answer it in all friendliness. The position is that “heavy industries” has a very special meaning, and excludes only those little industrial areas known as service industrial areas in close proximity to residential areas. There are light industrial areas where services are provided to the immediate community. Those services are ones like shoemaking, dry cleaning, etc. These areas retain their group character because they are intended for the inhabitants of the residential area. In the case of the service area intended for the people of Mitchell’s Plain, it is surely right to say that the Coloured people should have preference there. In so far as the other industrial areas are concerned, however, they have no racial or group character any more. I hope that will satisfy the hon. member that we are not being wicked in this particular instance.

I am also a wee bit cross with the hon. member for raising the question of the Anglican minister at Heidelberg, Cape. He tried to indicate that this was an indefensible application of the permit system under the provisions of the Group Areas Act. What are the facts? This is where I and my department would so gladly have helped the hon. member if only he had spent two or three minutes in my office. The facts are that the Anglican Church of that village decided to appoint a Coloured man as a priest. They have their own home for their cleric in the village of Heidelberg. They then wanted the new minister to move into that house, but the town clerk of Heidelberg warned them that they could do this only if they applied for a permit …

That is wicked and discriminatory!

That is not the case. I am giving the hon. member the facts and he should let me finish.

I know those facts.

I know, but the hon. member says it is wicked and I want him to listen to what the Anglican Church said about the matter before he makes a further fool of himself. They were warned, and the hon. members of the NRP will understand this, because they believe in a form of local option, do they not? The church elders were warned by the town clerk that there might be resistance from the municipality of Heidelberg and from the inhabitants of Heidelberg. He told them to clear themselves first by getting a permit. I do not know whether it happened before the application for the permit was handed in, but certainly while it was still being considered, this man moved in despite the advice given by the local community. This caused tremendous annoyance because he had jumped the gun.

A permit application was then made, but it did not give the true facts and it was not complete. When the matter became public, it was amicably settled at administrative level with the responsible people of the Anglican Church of Heidelberg. They admitted that their man had been at fault in jumping the gun and they admitted that they had been at fault in not putting forward a proper application for a permit. Above all, an untruth had somehow slipped in amongst their representations. The untruth was that they stated that they had already started building a home for this man in the Coloured area. That was not true, because nothing had been done about the matter. That statement was therefore misleading. When all this came about, they started building the home, they rectified their permit application and this man was then allowed, with the consent of the people of Heidelberg, to stay in that house in the White area until his rectory was completed. That is not the same story that the hon. member tried to convey here today.

That is what I said.

No. Here we have a case where, in spite of misunderstanding, a happy solution was found to an unfortunate situation as a result of the understanding of my departmental officials.

*I think I should read a passage for the information of the hon. member … [Interjections.] No, I do not want to hurt the hon. member. The following document was drawn up about this case by the Secretary for Community Development and I just want to read two quotations from it. He refers, among other things, to—

My NRP friends will understand that. He also refers to—

This refers to the Secretary—

From this it is quite clear that all the unpleasantness cannot be blamed on any lack of discretion on the part of any official of the Department of Community Development. The fact that the hon. member for Bryanston has once again raised this matter—which has already been settled to the satisfaction of everyone—with such an impudent and presumptuous flood of words and attitude in this House, without furnishing all the facts, I consider to be most unfortunate, especially because an official, who would find it difficult to defend himself against misrepresentations, is discredited in the eyes of the public which hears about such a speech. I want to ask quite seriously: Let us fight each other as a Government and an Opposition without pulling any punches. Let us criticize each other and tear each other to pieces if we want to, but in dealing with these delicate things in the relations politics in South Africa, let us act responsibly. I ask this in a friendly spirit and I ask it every time I rise to take part in the debate on this Vote.

Before an hon. member makes this kind of wild allegation without knowing the facts, he should first acquaint himself with the facts. The doors of my department are open. I want to request the hon. members first to come and find out the facts, and then we can attack each other to our heart’s content. I have known that hon. young member, the hon. member for Bryanston, for many years. At one stage, he was almost my protégé, and I do not like treating him like this. [Interjections.] However, he makes it impossible for me to do anything else, because he is acting irresponsibly by making such a fierce attack on the State of South Africa in this field of relations politics without knowing the facts.

Mr. Chairman, I hope the hon. member for Bryanston has now learned his lesson and that next time he will get his information from the department and not from The Cape Times.

I got the information from Die Burger.

Nevertheless, it is best to get it from the department.

I have no doubt that all hon. members in this House approach the matter of the abolition of rent control with mixed feelings. I say with mixed feelings and not with mixed opinions. I know there are people who have mixed opinions, but I want to talk about mixed feelings. What we wanted, we have, of course, received in full measure today, i.e. the assurance that the people concerned will, in cases of hardship, receive special attention. I do not think the hon. the Minister could have made it clearer than he has done and I am very glad that he said this morning that the rent control boards will not be summarily dismissed. I think he said that they will still act as watchdogs. That is, in fact, what we really want. We want a body to which one can take one’s complaints. We are also glad to hear from the Minister that in cases of abuse, rent control will immediately be reimposed in the cases concerned.

There is one aspect I should like to mention. Unfortunately I could not be present this morning and I do not know whether this aspect was mentioned. It seems to me that there is still a degree of uncertainty about one aspect, i.e. the question of sectional titles. I have here a cutting from one of the Port Elizabeth newspapers in which the chairman of the Rent Control Board announces that there will be a meeting in Pretoria of chairmen of the various Rent Control Boards on 1 May. It appears from the report that the chairman expects to have clarity on all the aspects after that meeting. He said, inter alia—

I think this is something about which we want to have some clarity, if possible. There are people who are worried about this. It is not a question of people necessarily being unable to pay the higher rent or not being prepared to pay it, but, as I see it, some people have spent considerable sums to make themselves comfortable in their flats. I think this is the type of thing which worries the pensioners in particular, i.e. that they can be put out of their flats when rent control is abolished. I think it would be a good thing if we could give attention to this matter.

Two aspects concerning Port Elizabeth have been mentioned today. I only want to refer to them briefly. The first aspect was mentioned by my hon. colleague, the hon. member for Walmer. He requested further funds from the hon. the Minister, and the hon. the Minister rightly pointed out to him that Port Elizabeth has been treated extremely well. I should like to convey—I have done this before, but I want to do it again today— my gratitude on behalf of the local authority of Port Elizabeth to the department for the wonderful co-operation we received and for the wonderful opportunity that was afforded Port Elizabeth to establish a model development scheme. We are proud of what has been achieved there and it gives us great pleasure when other authorities come to see what has been done there.

I want to ask the hon. the Minister please to not regard the request of the hon. member for Walmer as an indication that he was not grateful. As a young, impetuous member he only wants to ensure that he will be at the head of the queue once again the next time funds are allocated. We are very grateful and want to express our thanks for that. However, we do want to be in the queue again when funds are being allocated.

The other hon. member who referred to Port Elizabeth was the hon. member for Port Elizabeth North. It is a pity that he was unable to complete his speech. He was talking about Fairview. I do not want to complete his speech for him, because I am convinced that he will do so himself in due course. However, I want to say that I agree with him that there is a vast expanse of land eminently suited to development. I think this is the type of area which should be made available to the beginners, the young people, who would like to acquire their own homes. I am convinced that the department will be able to allow the young people, especially young married people, to acquire plots there at a fair price. It would be worth a great deal to the city council if that area could be developed in the same way as South End was developed, since at present the city council receives no income from that area.

The other matter I should like to mention, is the matter of housing for Blacks. I just want to point out briefly that housing and other facilities for the Blacks are being made available in urban areas with the aid of economic funds. I think I am correct in saying that the department makes economic funds available to the Administration Board. All of us know that building costs are high and that the provision of services in particular is very expensive. This leads to problems as regards the collection of rent from some of those people. Hon. members will agree with me that the economic position of the Black is generally inferior to that of the Coloured, but subeconomic funds are in fact made available for Coloureds. I think the time has come for the department to consider providing sub-economic funds for Black housing.

A second proposal I want to make, if this would not be possible, is that the department should consider providing services with cheap funds because one of the major problems in that sphere is, in fact, making the services available over long distance to where the townships are being developed. I am positive that we can make funds available more cheaply in some way. This will bring the rents more within reach of the people who at present find it difficult to pay the rent. It is not that one does not appreciate the existing opportunities and services, but I think we must find where the need is greatest. In this case I think the need is very great in the case of the lower income groups who have to pay rents based on economic funds.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central made certain representations to the hon. the Minister and the hon. the Minister will doubtless give them his attention in due course.

When the Department of Community Development was established on 1 April 1964, the then Prime Minister, the late Dr. Verwoerd, set this department three important tasks or ideals. These three tasks were the following: Firstly, that we shall try to settle and accommodate all our population groups properly; secondly, that we shall ensure that they develop into sound communities; and, thirdly, that all inadequate conditions which could hamper this development, shall be eliminated. This we should be able to do by clearing up slum areas and by urban renewal. These are the tasks entrusted to this department in respect of the Whites, Coloureds, Indians and Chinese, subject, of course, to certain confining limits.

On this occasion, after a little more than 14 years, one likes to look back to evaluate the successes of this department in terms of its successes in the city of Port Elizabeth. I believe that the success achieved in Port Elizabeth, is virtually the same as that achieved in the other cities throughout South Africa. What do we find there? We find in the first place that the soul-destroying slums of the forties have been completely cleared. We find that most of our Whites, most of our Indians, virtually all of our Chinese and a very large number of our Coloureds are properly housed. We know, however, that there is still a large number of Coloureds who need housing and, listening to all the amounts appropriated for Port Elizabeth, then we know that this aspect will receive the necessary consideration in due course.

Furthermore, one could ask the question: What caused these outstanding results? I think it is attributable to the fact that the department had the support of a very stable Government over the years. Secondly this department was blessed with a number of brilliant officials who, over the years—one could say—unselfishly devoted their lives to the housing of our people. Thirdly, the department at all times used the right machinery, the right means to assist them in this great task, for example the National Housing Commission, the Development Board, the Group Areas Council and many others. Finally, and this is important, this department at all times tried to determine their priorities correctly, viz. thorough planning, the provision of services and the building of houses by the thousands. Taking these 14 years into account, I think one is entitled to tell the whole world to come and see what can be done in the field of housing.

We must also concede, however, that housing will make perpetual and continuing demands on this department and on the Government. Therefore I now want to return to another demand, viz. the demand with regard to community development itself. A well-known writer, T. R. Batten—he is known throughout the world and many others agree with him—defines community development as follows—

There is probably nothing wrong with this definition. We in our unique situation, however, see community development as much wider, much bigger and much better. We should like to define and regard community development as consisting of two outlined facets. The first facet—which is actually a prerequisite for community development—is the creation of housing, of services and of community facilities. As far as this facet is concerned the department has met its obligations to the letter and will continue to do so in the years ahead. Our problem, however, is to be found in the second facet.

This is the facet which relates to the modus operandi, the working method according to which economic, social and cultural affairs of the community can develop in such a way that each community can itself achieve maturity in accordance with its own nature, traditions and customs. As far as this facet is concerned, many problems and challenges await us. The task and the demands set with regard to this facet, are not really the task of this department. It is the task of the people of South Africa as a whole, and the task of local bodies in particular. Moreover, although we in South Africa have made tremendous progress in many fields and in certain communities, we cannot utilize in this country the proven methods used by other experts in the field of community development in the Western World, because we are in a unique situation and because we have been blessed by history with a community made up of a diversity of peoples.

However our problem is not merely one of welfare, education or housing. In order to meet the demands set us by this facet and in order to bring about true community development in South Africa, we shall have to devise our own scientifically-based methods of operation. Only then shall we succeed in affording our various peoples real community development so that each of them can develop to full fruition and so that each population group can prosper according to its own nature and tradition.

I have never been worried about this challenge, because in South Africa we have certainly overcome bigger problems in the past. I have no doubt that as far as this challenge, this problem, is concerned, South Africa can once more take the lead. Therefore, since I have been referring with great pride this afternoon to what has been achieved in Port Elizabeth in the field of housing, I want to suggest to the hon. the Minister of Community Development and his department, in collaboration with the Department of Social Welfare and Pensions and other departments, to create a chair at one of our South African universities where in-depth scientific research can be carried out regarding the methods of operation in the process of community development. Now, I should also like to request that if we were to consider that, that the young university of Port Elizabeth—since we have made so much progress on the road of housing there— should be considered as the university where such a proposed new chair could possibly be established.

Mr. Chairman, I should like to congratulate my benchmate, the hon. member for Newton Park, on his well-considered speech. I think he has touched on matters which definitely require the attention of the Minister and the Secretary of the Department of Community Development. I also believe that he did indeed attract their attention. A little later on I should also like to take up some of the arguments raised by him. Before doing so, however, I should like to congratulate the hon. the Minister on his handling of the Department of Community Development. He is a good Minister, and, coming from me, I believe he will appreciate my saying this. Of course, this includes the secretary of the department and his staff as well. I think that very profitable work is being done in this department. I, too, as hon. members did, want to express a word of sincere congratulations to the hon. the Minister, the Secretary and his department for the brochures which were made available to us together with the annual report. They contain some very valuable facts and admirable synopses. They give us a broad view of the activities of the department. I want to assure the hon. the Minister that I am of the opinion that the department is in very good hands and I want to congratulate him on that once more.

Mr. Chairman, allow me to associate myself with my benchmate in saying something about community facilities. In the first place I should like to pose a few questions and then, by means of a few sentences from these brochures, I should like to clarify the position. I think even the hon. the Minister will realize, after I have done this, that there is some valuable information in these brochures which he might possibly have overlooked while glancing through them. In the first place I should like to ask what community facilities actually include. In the brochure entitled Focus, I read the following on page 21, paragraph 9.1—

One asks oneself where these community facilities are being provided. The answer is obvious, of course. They are being provided in all the housing schemes for Whites, Coloureds and Indians. At a later stage I shall come back to the question of community facilities for Whites, but I just want to mention in passing that because housing schemes for Whites are situated within local authority areas for the most part, probably not so much are being done in connection with facilities for Whites, as the local authorities themselves provide them in any event. You will allow me, Mr. Chairman, to add with regard to the Transvaal, which is well known to me, that if it had not been for the Department of Education of the Transvaal which created facilities for Whites at schools, the Department of Community Development would have experienced major problems in providing these facilities in the areas in which we have these housing schemes. But, Sir, community facilities to Coloureds and Indians are provided in generous measure in the housing schemes in which they are accommodated.

Another question which one asks oneself, is where the funds come from for providing these community facilities. On page 21 of the publication Focus we read the following—

Therefore, what I want to emphasize in this regard is the following: It is a very, I almost want to say, moving thought that we in South Africa are providing not only housing to the Coloureds and the Indians, but also things which are in actual fact luxuries, because the facilities known as community facilities are luxury items today. In the days when the most of us were young people or school-children, these facilities were extremely scarce. Now, however, we can boast R16,9 million that has been set aside over a period of three years for these facilities, mainly for the Coloureds and the Indians.

The next question I ask myself is this: How are these facilities being provided? In this regard I just want to refer to another document which I received from the department. I have just quoted details from the brochure Focus in connection with the older community facilities. Let us have a look at the new ones, however.

Let us begin with Mitchell’s Plain here in the Cape. At this stage the following has already been completed: One community hall, one clinic, sportsfields with pavillions and change-rooms—rugby, soccer, tennis, and netball—playing areas for children, a park and shops. Another community hall, a library and a swimming pool are under construction. The provision, according to needs, of a business centre, community halls, clinics, parks, sportsfields and playing areas is also being envisaged.

Let us look at things at Atlantis, another new area. Already completed: Two rugby fields, one cricket ground, four tennis courts, one netball court, one community hall, playing areas for children, parks and shopping facilities. A library and a creche are under construction. The further provision, according to needs, of parks, creches, community halls, clinics, sportsgrounds, administrative offices and business centres is also being envisaged. There! These are all community facilities which are in fact luxuries. These things are not essential housing nor are they essential food or work. These are community facilities which are in actual fact luxury items for the convenience of these people to whom they are given. Of course, these are things which we want them to have.

Allow me to say, however, that I represent a constituency on the Witwatersrand where the whole of Soweto … [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, by way of commentary on what was said by the hon. member for Maraisburg, I just want to say that it is a good thing that the provision of community facilities was made the responsibility of the Department of Community Development. It is particularly necessary, when vast, ambitious projects such as Mitchell’s Plain are undertaken, that these facilities are provided together with the housing so that right from the start a sound and balanced community is established.

I wish to refer hon. members to a passage from the annual report of the Department of Community Development. I am referring to the passage on page 2 relating to the housing requirements of various race groups. It states—

That is for Whites—

The hon. the Minister has just confirmed in his speech that in his opinion there is no housing shortage as far as the Whites are concerned. He referred to the advertisement columns of local newspapers to point out that that was the case. Therefore it is clear, in my opinion, that what he meant was that it was the case in the Peninsula specifically since he referred to local newspapers. If, by way of comparison, we review the position of the Coloureds, we see in the department’s report and in the Press, and we realize, if we have any appreciation whatsoever of what is going on in the Peninsula, that as far as the Coloureds are concerned, there is indeed a serious housing shortage at this stage. Against this background I want to say a few things about District Six.

†District Six was proclaimed a White group area on 11 February 1966 and since then an estimated 40 000 people have been moved out of the area and numerous buildings have been flattened. There has been a massive de-housing operation. The question arises at this stage whether this whole matter has been properly handled by the Department of Community Development in whose field of endeavour the matter obviously fell immediately. Firstly, many areas in the same kind of condition that District Six was in in 1966 have in fact been renovated so that they have become neat and decent areas providing proper housing for established communities. I do not have the slightest doubt that a great percentage of the housing units in District Six were still at that time in such a condition that they were in fact capable of being renovated in the same way and without causing people to be removed to the extent to which that has been done. The department has, however, chosen to allow the condition of many of the housing units there to deteriorate to a hopeless degree and has demolished most of the buildings in the area.

Twelve years have elapsed since that proclamation was issued and the area is still totally bare. Over this period many plans have been made for District Six and many statements have been issued to the Press and made at public meetings and so on. However, can we condone the fact that at this point in time this area still looks like a moon landscape? Let us look at the progress that has been made. Let us look at what has been done. At this stage about R27 million has been spent in District Six on the expropriation of property. As far as real progress is concerned, according to the report of the department only two properties have in fact been sold up to now, hopefully for purposes of building.

*This state of affairs makes of District Six the largest piece of first-class building land within an urban complex in the Republic of South Africa which is lying fallow and which is not being used as it should be. The irony of the matter is that this piece of land belongs to this department, which, in the final analysis, is responsible for the housing of all South Africans. What does the report say in this regard? I refer hon. members to the paragraph entitled “District Six: Extension No. 1” on page 11. It reads—

It is gratifying to note that something is happening at least: That plans have been approved and that there is negotiation about the provision of services. But what consolation is there for us in the fact that negotiations are now taking place about the name of the place and the names of streets? Of what importance is that at this late stage? As far as Extension 2 is concerned, the fact is mentioned that an amended layout plan has been prepared in order to include certain sites, etc. In other words, as far as the second part is concerned, there has not even been that measure of progress.

I believe that one would be justified in asking the hon. the Minister what is envisaged for District Six at this stage. As I have said, it has been indicated that general plans have been approved. However, what plan is there with the specific aim of bringing about rapid development? The hon. the Minister at one stage mentioned the fact that the area was a potential “golden acre”. That really does not seem to be the case, however, for only two sites have been sold.

The department has already made it clear to the Press, according to a report which appeared in Die Burger of 8 May 1976, that the redevelopment of previous slum areas like District Six should be left to private developers. I should like to ask the hon. the Minister whether he is convinced that District Six could indeed be developed by private developers into a proper township within a reasonable period, as it should be, if he believes at this stage that there is no housing shortage as far as the Whites in South Africa, specifically those in the Peninsula, are concerned. The fact that this area is lying fallow is costing South Africa a lot of money, not only because the department is losing interest but also because it is costing the Municipality of Cape Town approximately R750 000 per annum in lost rates.

In my opinion all the indications are that District Six should be opened to all races.

Tell that to the City Council.

If that is totally impossible for this ideologically-bound Government, I earnestly appeal to the hon. the Minister to negotiate without delay with the hon. the Minister of Planning and the Environment to see whether they could not perhaps, at this late stage, return District Six to the Coloured people. If we leave aside all emotional arguments and totally ignore the position of the Coloureds, we still have to face the fact that all indications are that the Whites do not need that area. The report mentions that there is no demand and no shortage. The hon. the Minister has spent a lot of time pointing out to us how much available accommodation is advertised in our local newspapers. The question is whether under those circumstances it is in any way justified—apart from all the other moral arguments—that District Six should still be lying fallow as it is today. I want to predict that if my earnest appeal is not complied with, the area will be lying like that for a long time yet, because it simply is not a proposition for a private developer to invest money there if the hon. the Minister is correct in saying that there is no real housing shortage for Whites at this stage.

I want to point out briefly that the whole handling of the District Six question has meant nothing at all to the Coloureds in the Peninsula. The Coloureds have not gained anything at all. They now have other accommodation elsewhere in the Peninsula. I suppose some of them are better off. I believe that is the case with most of them, purely from an accommodation point of view. I just want to point out, however, that of one of the reasons why District Six was declared White and the Coloureds removed, was the soaring crime rate and the fact that gangster activities there were so serious. At this stage, before one stone has yet been placed upon another … [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Green Point must please pardon me if I do not react to his arguments on District Six. I am certain the hon. the Minister will reply to him very thoroughly in that regard. I have very little time to bring a matter which I consider to be very urgent to the kind attention of the hon. the Minister.

It is concerned with the Sectional Titles Act. I want to begin by expressing a few thoughts on home ownership. I think that home ownership as such is probably the cornerstone of the system of free enterprise which we have in South Africa and which we want to retain at all times in this country. It is the best way for an individual to have security as far as his accommodation is concerned and it is also the best way for an individual to accumulate his own capital and his own portion of the wealth of a country. Particularly in times of dramatically rising costs, home ownership is one of the best ways of entrenching oneself against rising accommodation costs. Apart from the other increasing expenses such as rates, services, etc., one can, in regard to one’s monthly expenditure on one’s bond, at least keep this amount constant. One can do one’s own maintenance work, and one can also save on water and electricity.

This hedge against rising costs is in my opinion extremely important for two categories of persons in particular. In the first place I am thinking of young people who, in spite of their low income, also have the responsibility of building up capital to enable them eventually to acquire a house for the family they are planning to have. This is extremely important to them. A young couple frequently encounters the problem that, although they have a low income and perhaps one or two small children, they must also save to be able to acquire a house or somewhere to stay in future. It frequently happens then that such a young couple incur too great an obligation in regard to a stand. In the end some of them frequently become so frustrated, because this saving process of theirs is taking such a long time, that they build or purchase a house at a cost or price far higher than they are able to afford at that stage and then saddle themselves in this way with financial problems.

Another very important category of persons who have to entrench themselves against rising costs in this way, consists of the older people, those with a fixed income. A person with a fixed income who sees how accommodation costs are rising almost monthly and at least every year, realizes that sooner or later they are going to catch up with him, and he therefore leads a life of uncertainty because he knows that he will eventually have to pull out and go to a place with a lower social standard than he has been accustomed to. Such a person might then find himself, perhaps long before it would have been necessary to do so, in a home which is financially supported by the State.

It was in view of the needs of these people in particular that one felt glad when the House passed the Sectional Titles Act in 1972. That Act affords both the young people as well as the older people a method of acquiring housing which enables them to meet their needs at the stage to which I referred. They can also comfort themselves with the knowledge that the money which they pay every month is not entirely lost, but that it does at least include a little capital by means of which an asset is built up on which one can borrow money.

This is an important aspect to both the young as well as the older people. To the older people it offers the wonderful security of not only having a place in which to live, but also of being among people. Sometimes there are quite a number of widows in such a block of flats who have built up a circle of friends and who then supplement one another mutually in this way so that for a long time they remain useful citizens who are not dependent on a home or a similar institution. This Act lent itself pre-eminently to this. This need for proprietary rights over flat units, for example, has existed in South Africa since as long ago as 1930, when block share systems, etc., were applied in an effort to meet this need.

The moment the Sectional Titles Act made its appearance, however, a flock of vultures from the property market descended on defenceless elderly people in particular, and in many cases they launched what was nothing but a formidable campaign of exploitation. If one then considers how well the sectional title market developed and how that development met the needs of the people, it is a terrible disappointment to see how many people have in the meantime been completely ruined and how the sectional title market has been almost entirely destroyed as a result of this sophisticated piracy that occurred in terms of this system from which so many positive benefits could otherwise have been derived.

There is a case in my own constituency where buyers consisting mainly of pensioners jointly lost approximately R400 000 in one block of flats. In this case buying transactions took place before the sectional title register was opened. There are certain Railway pensioners who paid R23 000 in cash and who did not get a cent back when the scheme folded. As a result of the meagre pension which is all that such a pensioner has left, he is no longer able to maintain that standard of living. He has to establish himself elsewhere, so that he can come out on that meagre pension. Unscrupulous people have quite simply caused this money to disappear somewhere in their mixed-up books. The company’s books are in fact in such a tangle that one can only wonder how long the auditor and the liquidator will struggle to make head or tail of the whole business. My enquiries indicated that the Attorney-General was very interested in laying his hands on the particulars.

Not only did this unfortunate case occur in my constituency, but similar cases occurred throughout the entire Republic, and are indeed still occurring today. Innocent people are being dragged into this kind of thing and in this way lose virtually all their hard-earned savings.

The department spotted the deficiencies in the system and the Fouché Commission went into them thoroughly and in the report which was tabled in May last year, inter alia, the Commission fully justified its findings, on the deficiencies in the Sectional Titles Act. This commission also made certain recommendations. I should like to associate myself whole-heartedly today with the findings of the Fouché Commission in respect of the Sectional Titles Act. I want to address a plea to the hon. the Minister and ask him to urge his colleague, the hon. the Minister of Justice, provisionally to effect at least one amendment to the Sectional Titles Act during the present session, if this is in any way possible. This amendment is contained in recommendation No. 61 on page 160 of the Fouché Report. The second part reads—

If we are able to do this during the present year, we would be saving a very large number of people no end of hardship. I should like to ask that a serious appeal be made to the public from this House to be on their guard against these property vultures who are robbing innocent people of their savings as a result of the deficiencies which still exist. It is a blot on the property business that something like this was able to happen and that so many people suffered so grievously in the process. I want to address a plea to the hon. the Minister to the effect that, if it is in any way possible, we should do something about it during the present session still, for if we are able to do so this session, we shall be able to reduce the liability of this side of the House and the entire House of Assembly by putting a stop to this particular practice. There are, in addition, quite a number of other deficiencies which require further study and on which further recommendations must still be obtained from various parties that are involved in this matter.

Therefore I want to ask the hon. the Minister again whether it is not possible to ask the hon. the Minister of Justice whether section 23 of the Sectional Titles Act cannot be amended during the present session. We shall then be able to prohibit pre-registration sales completely so that there will be no possibility of people being defrauded any further.

Mr. Chairman, I hope the hon. member for Florida will forgive me if I do not reply to his speech directly. I agree with him basically on the question of home ownership and the question of sectional title. The matters must obviously be referred to the hon. the Minister. My quarrel this afternoon is with the hon. the Minister himself. To me it is quite apparent, as evidenced throughout the session, that the hon. the Minister is now representing a party of fat cats who look after the rich only. We had legislation introduced on sales tax which makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. We had the hon. the Minister of Finance granting an additional pension of R8 per month to the pensioners, and today the hon. the Minister of Community Development takes it away by lowering the economic limits. Then we had the hon. the Minister supporting the abolition of the Rent Control Act because he found it annoying and discriminatory, and, with respect, it is annoying because of the fact that it is annoying to the landlords. It is based upon the interests of Sapoa—the South African Property Owners Association—and nowhere does this report, in dealing with this aspect, also deal with the rights or protection of the tenants. Only the landlords are considered. The hon. the Minister also said that rent control was discriminatory. However, again it discriminates against the rich and the hon. the Minister, with respect, should be the last one to complain about discriminatory legislation when he supports hundreds of pieces of discriminatory legislation that are on the Statute Books today.

Do you think we should have rent control?

We issued a statement on the matter. On 6 April 1978 the hon. the Minister made a statement in the House, and this statement was followed by a proclamation. He used his powers in terms of section 52(1) and proclaimed the Rents Act applicable to certain people. He has no jurisdiction in regard to the 10%, so the hon. the Minister already has a problem in Durban. Once rent control is abolished the hon. the Minister has no law to stop the owner from increasing the rent. He can therefore only do so by threatening this person by saying that he will again make him subject to the Rents Act. What the hon. the Minister has done here is that he has issued an open invitation to landlords—an invitation which will immediately be accepted by every landlord—to increase their rent immediately by 10% this year and 10% next year, because they do not know what is going to happen in the next two years and whether the threat, which the hon. the Minister made today, will not still apply at a later stage. So they will climb in and increase their rent. [Interjections.] Just a moment.

There is, however, a worse problem. Looking at the proclamation and the hon. the Minister’s speech very carefully, one sees that the hon. the Minister has, in terms of the National Housing Act, exempted those people who fall under the categories of section 19(1)(a), and in the hon. the Minister’s statement he repeatedly mentioned that the first category involves those tenants with families, families earning not more than R380 per month, whilst the report of the Fouché Commission talks about another category, i.e. married couples with no children earning no more than R380 per month. I have examined the housing code and I have consulted with two of the leading local authorities in South Africa, and it would seem that this is applied on the basis that a married couple has got to be a married couple.

In other words, this cannot apply to a bachelor, spinster, widower or a divorcee. If a person is married at the time he enters into the lease contract and becomes single as a result of being either divorced or widowed, he no longer qualifies for this housing. I therefore want to ask the hon. the Minister whether, in issuing this proclamation, he intended to exclude the provisions of the Rent Control Act in the case of all the single people, the divorcees, the widowers, the bachelors and the spinsters who now fall under the R380 category.

I do not follow your question.

It is very clear. If the hon. the Minister had listened to me, he would perhaps have been able to follow it. In terms of the Rent Control Act and the Housing Act he has excluded those people who fall under this category of married couples with no children. If one applies this category in terms of the National Housing Act, single people do not qualify for this housing. Single people, therefore, will not be controlled by the Rent Control Act. Does the hon. the Minister realize what he has done? With this proclamation he has created a situation which can be misinterpreted. If the hon. the Minister has not intended to do so, he must please get up in this House and tell South Africa that he does not intend applying the Rent Control Act to single people, bachelors, widowers, divorcees, spinsters, etc., who fall under the R380 category. However, if he does intend it, he must make it clear to them and to us who have a responsibility to those people.

In Hillbrow?

Yes. There are 25 000 flats in my Hillbrow constituency, which includes Berea. Hon. members on this side of the House have given much attention to this. This is my interpretation of what the hon. the Minister has brought about today. This is the bombshell. On examining the proclamation the hon. the Minister has issued, one finds that this is what he has done. The whole support for the Rent Control Act is based on the fact that the hon. the Minister now wishes to assist the private sector. However, that is a fallacious argument. I want to help the hon. the Minister by bringing certain figures to his attention. In 1971, 3 560 additional flats were made available in Johannesburg alone. In 1972 the figure was 1 583. In 1973 it was 1 614 and in 1974 it was 188. Since 1966 there has been no rent control. All these buildings that are being built now are not rent controlled and the owners can charge whatever rent they like, so what is to stop them from charging any rent they like? The fact that no buildings are being built is not because of the Rent Control Act. During the fat years, from 1968 to 1972, thousands of flats were built in South Africa, in spite of the fact that the Rent Control Act only applied to buildings which were built before 1966. The blocks of flats which are built today are not subject to rent control.

I now want to discuss the question of vacant flats. I want to take one day out of each year as an example. On one day in 1971 111 advertisements for vacant flats appeared in The Star. One can multiply that figure by 10 to determine the actual number of vacancies. In 1972 the figure was 221; in 1973, 220; in 1974, 175; in 1975, 60; in 1976, 77; in 1977, 252, and in 1978 185 advertisements for vacant flats appeared in the 25 April edition of The Star. I have made an analysis. At the moment 20% of the bachelor flats, 7½% of the one-bedroomed flats and 1½% of the three-bedroomed flats are vacant. That means very simply that when the building societies stop giving loans to those in the private sector who want homes to accommodate their children, they then concentrate on the two-roomed and three-roomed flats. In the early days, when there was a surplus of other flats, no bachelor flats were available. Now there is a surplus of bachelor flats and not many two-roomed and three-roomed flats are available because they have been snapped up by these people. So rent control has not, in fact, affected the situation. The hon. the Minister himself has given figures of vacancies. There are just as many vacant flats which are rent controlled as there are uncontrolled flats. So where on earth has the Rent Control Act endorsed the argument that it is necessary to retain these measures?

I want to suggest that the Rent Control Act does not apply to rent only. There are 15 provisions in it which give protection to the tenants. They relate to matters such as rent control, when rent can be increased, the question of obtaining a receipt, of having children, of grievances of which the Rent Board can be notified, of notice being properly given and of the demolition of buildings which has to be approved by the courts. The hon. the Minister is taking all this protection away from the tenants.

Tell us what you want?

We have made our statement perfectly clear. As far as we are concerned—and we have stated it very clearly—we do not believe that it is in the public interest for the Rent Control Act to be tampered with on a piecemeal basis. The Government has a duty to bring legislation to Parliament and we as the Opposition have to operate as the watchdogs of the tenants. The negative features of the Rent Control Act must be eliminated so that property developers are encouraged to provide residential accommodation. Essential safeguards must apply in cases where tenants may be threatened.

The position now exists that challenges are being issued by SAPOA, and the hon. member for Tygerberg read them out today. He read out the letter written by Mr. Nigel Mandy and it was directed to the hon. member for Yeoville and myself. We have publicly accepted his challenge and he can come and debate the question of rent control on any public platform of his choice. There are many features that have to be gone into very carefully in so far as the Act is concerned.

What is fundamentally missing from the Fouché Report with regard to rent control is the view of the tenants. I do not know of any noteworthy association for the tenants’ protection. Well, I know of one, but I cannot say that I have a great amount of faith in the organization as it exists at present. However, the hon. the Minister or any officials of his department are welcome to come with me to visit the flat areas and to consult with the people as to the effects that the abolition of rent control is going to have on them.

I want to return to the position of those people and I should like to point out that whether they are exempt or not, it means that if they moved in with children and no longer have children, they will lose the protection of the Rent Control Act itself. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Hillbrow will excuse me if I do not react to his arguments. I believe that the hon. the Minister will reply to his questions in this regard.

I should very much like to take this opportunity of paying tribute to the former regional representative of Eastern Cape, Mr. D. J. du Preez, who retired from the service of this department at the end of September last year. I should like to pay tribute to this particular official who served the department admirably over a period of many years. I have in mind in particular the fact that Mr. Du Preez was involved in a serious motor accident shortly before he was to retire. I should very much like to wish Mr. Du Preez the best of health and express the wish that he will enjoy many years of rest. At the same time I want to congratulate the new regional representative, Mr. A. C. Verwey, on his appointment and also wish him well in this particular job he is doing. He has only been in this job for a short while, from 1 October 1977, but he has already proved himself an admirable official who is sympathetic towards every suggestion or request made to him. We should very much like to wish Mr. Verwey all the best.

Having said that, I should also like to say, as various hon. members on this side of the Committee have already done, how proud I am of the fine progress made in the provision of housing for the Whites and non-Whites of the Republic, especially with regard to low-cost housing. Such progress has been made in the supply of housing to all the population groups that we can say that the backlog has been virtually wiped out with regard to the White group.

With regard to the non-White groups, for example the Coloureds, phenomenal progress has been made; so much so that squatter areas could be cleared up and squatter families properly housed. It has been done in such a way that the statement by the prophets of doom that the backlog would never be made up, has been contradicted by the facts. With regard to the housing of Whites the backlog has been wiped out. In fact there is an oversupply of high density housing in the case of the Whites. That is evident from quite a number of unoccupied flats in my constituency.

In this regard I should like to refer to the situation in the area Algoa Park. A total of 804 flats were erected in Algoa Park, 546 of which are three-bedroomed and 258 two-bed-roomed flats. Specifically because these flats are not in such heavy demand, on 6 June last year the National Housing Commission granted approval for 180 of these flats to be converted from an economic to a sub-economic system. With the specific aim of making an offer for these flats possible, the rental was reduced so that the position with regard to subeconomic flats, is that the rental is now R18,80 for the two-bedroomed flats and R22,90 for the three-bedroomed flats. The cost of water is included in this rent, but the consumption of electricity is determined separately for each flat. In spite of this reduction in rentals achieved by placing the flats in the subeconomic group, 143 economic flats and 83 subeconomic flats were standing empty on 3 April of this year. Apart from these unoccupied flats, 108 two-bedroomed economic maisonettes were also built, five of which are vacant at the moment. Then I want to add that in order to make these flats even more attractive, efforts were made to beautify the premises in various ways. Play facilities for children were provided and general repair work to the value of R219 000 was carried out on these flats. In spite of this, flats are still standing empty. That confirms my statement that there is virtually an over-supply of high density housing for Whites.

What we find here with regard to departmental housing, we find to a greater extent in Port Elizabeth with regard to flat buildings in private hands. That confirms that phenomenal progress has been made in the supply of housing, especially high density housing.

While we are talking about these empty flats, we have to ask the question whether it is not necessary to take another look at the facilities offered by these flats, and so forth. Should a survey not be carried out among the present occupants in an effort to ascertain why there is no demand? Is it not necessary to reconsider the building method of flats that was actually an experiment originally? If the construction method and the housing as such do not fit the bill, perhaps we should do away with these blocks of flats in Algoa Park.

There is another aspect which I should very much like to emphasize: The provision of community facilities. It is true that further progress has also been made with regard to the provision of these facilities. I want to point out that it appears from the annual report that 36 applications for advances for the provision of community facilities to the value of nearly R2,5 million were approved, which brings the total value of applications approved to date, to nearly R17 million. Many of the projects for which application was made, had to be kept in abeyance due to lack of funds. Community facilities are essential and it is, therefore, very encouraging to know that where local authorities have opened a separate account for the provision of these facilities, magnificent sums of money have come in, which means that funds can be made available more quickly for these essential amenities. They are essential, especially with regard to high density housing in Algoa Park.

I should especially like to draw attention to a situation that is also in my constituency, viz. the residential area for Coloureds at Somerset East. There are virtually no community facilities for the Coloureds of Somerset East and the only playing fields for the thousands of children there, are the small areas of playground around the school building. I feel that serious consideration should be given to the shortcomings in the residential area for Coloureds at Somerset East. I believe it could be very useful to look into this. For the adults there are minimal amenities, virtually nothing.

While making this plea for the establishment of facilities there, I should also like to thank the hon. the Minister for the construction of two old-age homes in my constituency, viz. the Valleihof Home for the Aged in Kirkwood and the Huisgenot Home in Algoa Park. These two homes are not only an adornment for the community, but—and I want to emphasize this—also meet a special need in the lives of the aged, especially those who are infirm. In each of these two homes, provision has been made for a sick bay. On behalf of the occupants of those two homes I want to convey my sincere thanks to the hon. the Minister and his department. Last but not least I want to address an urgent appeal to the hon. the Minister to consider the complete abolishment of graduated rentals. Graduated rental has been applied in homes for the aged through the years, and formerly it was based on a maximum income of R200 with a loading of 30% on amounts higher than the fixed amount of R200. The maximum income to which graduated rental applies, has since been reduced to R150 with a levy of 25% on an income exceeding that limit. I am informed that the total revenue from graduated rental is R50 000. I am now asking whether it is worthwhile to continue applying graduated rental, especially seeing that the amount has now been reduced and more people are affected by it.

Mr. Chairman, we have now nearly reached the end of this debate and I would like to begin by referring again to the matter of rent control, a matter which was prominently raised by the hon. member for Hillbrow. When I spoke yesterday it was unfortunate that I could not complete my speech, because if I had done so hon. members would have realized that nothing I said could be interpreted as being a contradiction of what had been said by the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South. The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South said that he welcomed the gradual phasing out of rent control, with the prerequisite—and those were his words—that provision be made for the protection of the less privileged.

My whole speech of yesterday revolved around the question of the lack of adequate protection for the less privileged. Therefore, I cannot understand how certain hon. members—for example, the hon. member for Tygervallei, and even the hon. the Minister— could at all have been under a misapprehension and could have interpreted that what I said was not consistent with the views expressed by the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg-South. [Interjections.] Let me just refer again to the factual situation.

Did Gerrie scold you?

No! Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Tygervallei is supposed to be a Whip. Honestly, one would expect…

Not supposed to be; he is a Whip!

All right, he is a Whip. However, one would expect him to do his homework at least. Nevertheless, he tried to sit on two chairs. [Interjections.] He was the one who said I had pleaded for the retention of rent boards. In fact, as I have already said, I made a plea for protection and for adequate housing for the less privileged. That is exactly what the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South did too.

[Inaudible.]

If the hon. member for Parow will only speak up a little, and not mumble like that, I might be able to answer him. [Interjections.]

†However, let us return again to the factual situation as it is revealed to us in this report.

*In paragraph 143 of the report it is stated clearly that the commission found in its inquiry that it was unnecessary to make provision for any protective measures. It is stated, furthermore, that the largest percentage of tenants in rent controlled dwelling units could lay claim to accommodation financed by the State. The question I then put was whether such accommodation was in fact available. The hon. member for Durbanville pointed out in passing that an abundance of accommodation was available in the northern suburbs of Cape Town, which could be placed at the disposal of those people with an income of R200 and less. I want to put it clearly to the hon. the Minister, however, that this, according to my information and from observations in cities like Durban, is definitely not the case. Where flats in Durban are, in fact, to let, they are rent controlled flats which are far more expensive and which do not cater for people in this income group.

†I also suggested—and I want to repeat it now because I did not have time to complete my speech yesterday—that the Community Development Board should either purchase low-rental buildings or develop them. Secondly, I wanted to suggest—and that is the alternative which I did not have the time to state yesterday—that if the department is not willing to purchase buildings, the hon. the Minister should undertake to see to it that local authorities receive increased funds which can be used for the building of flats or other places of accommodation for these people. At least one hon. member has already attacked us and accused us of wanting to move into the field of socialism. It has also been said that we have accused the Department of Community Development of being the biggest property owner or estate agent in South Africa. What is important though, is the type of accommodation that is needed. What is really needed is some form of cheap flat accommodation. With the high cost of land today, and with the high building costs, one cannot expect private enterprise to provide this. It will in fact be a cruel thing to expect private enterprise to undertake a scheme of this nature, because, in doing so, one would be acting as a parasite on private enterprise. The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South was quite correct when he said that in many instances what was required was buildings with people living in rooms and sharing a common bathroom. We have many of these types of old buildings in our central city areas, buildings where these people can in fact be accommodated. However, they are deprived of this facility and a vacuum is left in its stead.

I want to say again that we will go back to our constituencies and that we will look at the situation again. However, we will hold the hon. the Minister responsible because it is the responsibility of the State to see to this. The hon. the Minister cannot simply wash his hands of it.

I now want to refer to another urgent matter. That is the question of urban renewal. I want to urge the hon. the Minister and his department again to bring a far greater sense of urgency to bear on completing urban renewal schemes. The second chapter of the report deals with this. I have counted the projects upon which the Department is engaged at the moment. There are some 40 of them throughout the Republic. It is quite clear that in the majority of cases the system of merely trying to dispose of properties by way of public auction has proved to be unsuccessful. Under the present economic circumstances I can well understand it. Nevertheless, I believe that the Department should do its utmost to have these properties restored to private enterprise so that they can be utilized and developed. The hon. member for Green Point mentioned the case of District Six. In Durban we have Block AK and Block G, and everything the hon. member has said about disadvantages relating to District Six also applies to the situation in Block AK and Block G. I do not know whether it was sad or amusing, but when the hon. the Minister replied to the argument of the hon. member for Bryanston, he kept on saying, with regard to the NRP: “They understand. They know a little about local option.” I am proud to say that we in the NRP are the only people that uphold the principle of local option. This is something which is fundamental to our political philosophy. The hon. the Minister must not try to pay lip service to the principle of local option when it suits an argument of his, because whether one likes it or not, as long as we in South Africa have a system in terms of which matters pertaining to particular communities are decided in dark rooms in Pretoria, or are decided from the top, and favours are granted by means of a system of permits, so long will there be a ready-made recipe for conflict and confrontation in this country. It cannot be denied that forced removals in terms of the Group Areas Act did in many cases take place unnecessarily. As regards Coloured schools, for example, it was found by the Erika Theron Commission that 60% or 70% of new classrooms that were built over the last 10 or 12 years were being built purely as replacement classrooms. This has been caused by forced removals under the Group Areas Act. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, before the hon. the Minister replies to the debate, there are two matters I should like to raise with him. The first is in relation to urban housing arising out of his decision to phase out rent control. I raise this matter against the background that within two years or so rent control will have disappeared altogether.

No.

If the Fouché Commission’s recommendations are implemented, it will be another two years. Secondly, Sir, we accept that the hon. the Minister shares our concern that with the abolition of rent control there should be no exploitation, harassment or abuse. I think he has expressed concern that this should not arise. It is against that background that I raise these issues.

First of all, let me make it quite clear that it is our view that in the case of those people who can afford to pay economic rentals, the normal supply and demand factors operating in a free market economy should also operate in relation to rentals. That is the attitude adopted by members in these benches and also, I think, by the Government. For those who cannot afford economic rentals, quite clearly the State has a responsibility. Unfortunately, even at the present stage the Government has not fully recognized that. It is still, in applying the remnants of rent control, making this responsibility with a small section of the landlords in South Africa.

Did you not listen to the hon. member for Hillbrow?

We believe that the State has this responsibility, and not a small section of the landlords. If the Government does not have the capital resources available to provide adequate housing for something like 119 000 families who the State acknowledges are entitled to some form of financial assistance or protection through local authorities or through Government-assisted housing, then I believe that the Government is in due course going to have to consider ways and means of subsidizing these people in the private sector of the economy. In other words, if the State cannot provide the housing and it is going to abolish rent control for people which deserve some protection, we believe that the Government is going to have to find ways and means of assisting these people within the framework of housing provided through the private sector. Unless they do that these people will either not be able to make ends meet as far as rentals are concerned, or we will persist with the situation where a small section of the landlords are carrying the responsibility for the State.

There are one or two other problems which could arise out of this. I want to ask whether the hon. the Minister has any mechanism for monitoring rental increases over and above the 10% which should, according to him, be applied. It appears to us that because properties are now freed of rent control, there is in fact no system for monitoring rental increases other than members of the public writing direct to the Minister. We believe it is important there should be some formalized system by which the public could complain or draw his attention to rental increases over and above the 10%.

Secondly, within the framework of the new system it can happen that in one block of flats certain flats will be rent controlled as long as they are occupied by the people who fall within the housing categories, while the others will not be rent controlled. We can see practical difficulties when, in a high rise apartment building, flats are occupied at different rentals because some are rent controlled and others not.

There is also the practical difficulty of the few remaining tenants in rent-controlled flats having to argue their case before the rent board because one will not have the concerted effort of all the people occupying that block of flats, but only one or two people with limited resources.

Finally, there is the practical problem that the rent board is required to set a rental on the basis, basically, of an 8½% return on the rental valuation of the property. However, they have to take the whole building into consideration when setting the rental that is to be applied to two, three or four dwellings—in any event a minimal number of dwellings—within that building. We foresee practical problems and we want to draw this to the hon. the Minister’s attention.

I think the hon. the Minister will agree that one does not want to encourage or allow harassment, but once again the question arises: What mechanism is there for monitoring any of the problems that might arise as a result of the abolition of rent control?

Lastly there is the question of security. Many tenants have felt that the rent control legislation gave them security. The problem that arises at the moment is that, because of the relatively low return the entrepreneur or landlord can receive on his building, he tries to reduce his capital by selling off as many flats as possible under sectional title. That is an entirely appropriate way of sweetening the return on a particular building. It does, however, have the effect that the tenants suffer under the pressures engendered when such flats are sold under sectional title. While one does not object to this, the people who can generally use the facility of sectional titles to their advantage are the people who have access to capital. The Fouché Commission reports that the building societies are very chary and conservative in giving bonds to people for sectional title purposes. We believe that sectional title is a thing of the future. As single unit residences become more difficult to acquire in the cities, sectional title gives people security, as the hon. member for Florida indicated. We should, however, like the hon. the Minister to take a more positive view and think of the people who could get housing loans from the State under the Government’s 9,25% interest policy or under the Government’s and building societies’ joint 11,25% interest policy on bonds of R17 000. If this can be applied to single unit residences, we believe the Government must think very seriously of making this type of bond available to people who want to buy property under sectional title.

I want to switch from that to a question relating to the hon. the Minister’s policy. With reference to the department’s own report dealing with its policy in respect of permits under the Group Areas Act, the hon. member for Rondebosch pointed out that the basic principle regarding sport and entertainment is that “if non-White groups do not have the necessary facilities in their own areas, concessions can be made provided they are prepared to share facilities with Whites in an orderly, decent and fair manner”. That is the hon. the Minister’s statement on how he will apply his sport and entertainment policy, and this is given effect by Proclamation 228 which consists of four sections: The occupying of land or premises; the partaking of refreshments as a customer; involvement in public entertainment; and being a member or a guest of any club. Ministerial permission is required for exemption from the provisions of Proclamation 228. Let us compare that with the statement of the hon. the Minister of Sport and Recreation which was endorsed by the hon. the Prime Minister under his Vote the other day. That statement reads that—

This was a most definitive statement made by the hon. the Minister of Sport and Recreation. Yet under the Minister of Community Development’s department there is Proclamation 228 which makes it impossible for anybody to occupy land or premises, which includes playing fields, for any substantial period of time and which makes it impossible for anybody to take part in any spectator sport, because that is public entertainment, and which furthermore makes it impossible for anybody to be a member or a guest of any club save with the permission of the hon. the Minister. I believe that this regulation, as it stands, is a flat contradiction of the undertaking and the statement made by the hon. the Minister of Sport and Recreation. It is also a flat contradiction of the assurance that has been given by the hon. the Prime Minister in endorsement of that policy. I want to put it to the hon. the Minister that Proclamation 228 should go, both in the interests of sport and in the interests of the credibility of the Government in its commitment to get rid of race discrimination and apartheid. I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether it is correct that permits are required in terms of this proclamation or whether he is prepared to withdraw this requirement in terms of the undertaking given by the hon. the Minister of Sport and Recreation.

Finally, this proclamation also deals with restaurants, tea rooms and eating houses “where the partaking of refreshments ordinarily involves the use of seating accommodation”. This means that restaurants and cafés in our city areas require permits in respect of people of a different racial community. We believe that this is outdated and that it should go. We believe that restaurants and tea rooms should be open. In practice Black people in restaurants in so-called “White areas” have to stand at the counter if they want to have something to drink or to eat their hot pies, or they have to go take-away places, buy their food and then eat it sitting on the pavements. We believe that the time has come to open the restaurants and tea rooms in South Africa to all races. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I am rising once again to react to the speeches that have been made because the time is running out. I should like to avail myself of this opportunity to thank all the speakers for the contributions they have made in the debate on the Community Development Vote. I think it was a particularly fruitful discussion. What struck me in particular and what I felt grateful for, was the change which has set in in the type of criticism which has come from the Opposition in certain respects—especially in the field of housing. It is beginning to appear to me as though there is appreciation for the work which the Department of Community Development is doing.

When you perform well, you get credit.

Thank you. But that does not apply to the other aspects of my work, at which strong criticism has been levelled. I have nevertheless tried my best to reply to that.

A while ago, there was a constructive contribution from the hon. member for Newton Park, who spoke about a very interesting problem. He referred to some of our people—indeed thousands of our people—who have, as a result of poverty and precarious circumstances, developed a culture of poverty. He pointed out that it is necessary that we should rehouse them in decent conditions and that they should be re-educated to know how to live in those conditions. What I find interesting is the fact that the University of Cape Town, which previously wanted to teach this department how to establish housing, is now singing a different song. Now they no longer want to teach us, but they want to teach the people whom we are rehousing so rapidly, how to adapt themselves to their improved conditions. I can immediately tell my hon. friend that we welcome the assistance of responsible bodies that are in a position to assist in this great task. I think that in this connection, they should get in touch with the Department of Social Welfare and Pensions, whose responsibility it is.

The hon. member for Vanwyksvlei … [Interjections.] I mean the hon. member for Maraisburg. He made a very effective speech, especially in respect of the provision of community facilities for housing schemes and municipalities. I am very pleased to be able to say that although there were deficiencies in our legislation in that respect, these were cleared up in an excellent, imaginative way in 1975 by my immediate predecessor, Mr. A. H. du Plessis. He was a man of few words, but one who did many good things, and these amendments to the Housing Act to facilitate the provision of community facilities, were really a monument which he created. I just want to tell my hon. friend that few applications for funds are received from municipalities to establish community facilities for Whites. There is not such a great need. But as far as non-Whites are concerned, there is a great need and the applications are pouring in. We are in fact making large amounts available in this connection. However, if he knows of instances where Whites have a need for these facilities he must ask them to submit an application. We shall consider every application very sympathetically and we shall assist wherever we can.

The hon. member for Florida spoke about the protection of people who conclude buying transactions in terms of the Sectional Titles Act. He has requested that I should urge the hon. the Minister of Justice to implement the recommendations of the Fouché Commission in this regard. He has requested that sales prior to registration should, if possible, be prohibited by legislation during the present year. As a matter of fact, the Department of Justice has already been approached to give effect to these recommendations. The matter is no longer in my hands. It now depends on what the hon. the Minister of Justice can do. I therefore advise my hon. friend to discuss the matter with him. I shall also discuss it with him if the opportunity presents itself.

The hon. member for Somerset East spoke about Algoa Park. We are not quite happy with the conditions in Algoa Park, because it was also developed in very unusual circumstances, when the Department of Community Development was still in its infancy and had to deal with the very urgent problem of finding accommodation for our poor people in that area. The responsible Minister at the time, decided to erect prefabricated buildings there to cope with the immediate problem and also to encourage the establishment and development of a prefabricated building unit factory in Port Elizabeth. We now have that area there. It is not altogether satisfactory in all respects, but we are doing our best to beautify it, and we shall give sympathetic consideration to any suggestions which the hon. member may make. We shall indeed expedite the matter. In the meantime, I can give hon. members the assurance that we have a need for such a place, because there are still very poor people among the Whites and we can house them very inexpensively and in a civilized way in that area, although we would perhaps have acted differently today in less difficult circumstances.

The hon. member for Somerset East has complained that there are no community facilities for Coloureds in Somerset East. I want to tell him that the department will look into that, because we should like to see that such facilities exist. He has also requested that sliding scale rentals in respect of the aged should be abolished. I can state immediately that sliding scale rentals for the aged who exceed the subeconomic income limit, have just been reduced from 30 cents to 25 cents for every rand by which the subeconomic limit is exceeded. As a result of my hon. friend’s representations, the department will investigate this matter again.

My friend the hon. member for Pretoria Central spoke about sectional titles. I want to inform him that all the normal rent control measures remain in force, but that in the case of eviction notices there is a special section in the Sectional Titles Act in terms of which the matter is controlled by means of a different procedure to the one in terms of the Housing Act. There the tenants are protected even if the purchasers want the unit to live in themselves. We are studying the position and if necessary it will be possible to effect changes. Once again, this is a matter which we shall have to take up with the Department of Justice.

My hon. friend has also spoken on the interest rates for Black housing. That is of course a matter which I can only handle in close consultation with my colleague, the hon. the Minister of Plural Relations. All the members who have discussed housing for Blacks, must please take note what I am now going to say. All matters concerning Bantu housing and the relations between our departments—because I have to finance and they have to determine the need and do the implementation—is at the moment the subject of urgent discussion with a view to a more effective and a closer co-operation between us. I trust that we shall be able to issue a statement in this connection soon.

The hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central spoke about Fairview. Owing to the general shortage of funds it was not possible for development in this area to commence any sooner. Preference had to be given to South End and I think my hon. friend will agree with me on that score. However, the city council is now able to complete the provision of services by 1980, at an estimated cost of R4 million. As soon as the services have been provided, development will commence—if possible through the private sector, otherwise the department will consider the establishment of a pilot scheme in order to stimulate development.

The hon. member for Green Point spoke about District Six and I shall give him a reply within a few moments by way of a statement on the future of District Six.

What I found interesting about the speeches made by the hon. member for Hillbrow and the hon. member for Sea Point, was the fact that they contradicted each other. It will help us in these benches a great deal if those hon. members will settle their differences before they come here with aggressive speeches in which one of them utterly contradicts the other. With reference to the speech by the hon. member for Hillbrow, I want to ask the hon. member for Sea Point: Is the PFP in favour of private investment in South Africa? Is that, or is that not, the basis of their approach to our economic problems?

You know this is so.

If that is so, the hon. member for Sea Point has given me a reply to the speech by the hon. member for Hillbrow and I am not going to …

To provide housing for lower-income groups.

The hon. member for Sea Point discussed matters concerning rent control and came to the conclusion that the ultimate solution will be the application of some form of subsidy on rents. I do not have time now to go into detail, but would suggest that my hon. friend first has a good look at paragraph 144 of the Fouché Commission’s report. Then we can take the matter further. However, I want to assure him that if assistance to the very low income groups is needed—I say this to the hon. member for Durban Central as well—such assistance will be forthcoming. We will, as a matter of principle, wherever necessary assist the people in the very low income groups. I want him to know that I agree with his statement. It is fundamental to the thinking of this party that the State has a responsibility to those persons and we shall not shirk that responsibility.

What worries me about the speeches of the hon. member for Hillbrow, of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, of the hon. member for Durban Central and earlier today of the hon. member for Durban Point, is that they seem to think that because of the proclamation that was issued a few weeks ago there is going to be an immediate and almost disastrous increase in rents. But that cannot happen, because landlords are limited to a 10% increase over the next two years. I want to say with confidence that if landlords were to use the normal machinery of the Rent Control Act to apply for increases, they would, in the present climate of inflation, probably receive more.

The other point that I want to make is that because of the process of phasing out of rent control—it is not an abolition—we will have time to consider what its impact is and to plan as we go along. We will have time to adapt our policies and our actions to the needs as they develop and reveal themselves.

The hon. member for Sea Point was concerned about the fact that we have no system of monitoring.

Is there a system of monitoring?

Yes. I do not wish to criticize my hon. friend very harshly, but if he had made some inquiries before he spoke, I would have gladly told him all about it. We have a system of rent inspectors. These inspectors investigate complaints and sometimes act on their own initiative. But speaking from experience, I am confident that the best monitor we have is the public, the tenants. Look what happened in the case of Durban, for instance. Immediately when there was an attempt to impose unconscionable rent increases, we became aware of it because of the reaction by the tenants. We take great trouble and go to great lengths in order to make public our point of view and our policy. I immediately want to confess, however, that there will be technical problems, but I hope the hon. member will give us some credit that we, too, can act empirically and adjust ourselves and react to problems as they arise. That is what we shall do. I welcome the statement made by the hon. member that he and others will be watch-dogs to see what happens. That, after all, is his function and I shall always appreciate any constructive advice he wants to give. I shall also understand if he turns and criticizes us.

I have gone through my notes carefully and if I have left anything out, I shall contact the hon. members about it.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. the Minister a question?

Please not.

You have not answered my case.

The hon. member did not make a case.

I did. May I ask a question?

I am so sorry, but time does not permit to.

You made a blue and you know it.

I will have to be quick about it. The only point which the hon. member made that deserves attention was whether single people are protected.

That is what we want to know.

That hon. member is a lawyer and should therefore know. I have made statements over the radio and over television to say that the figure of R300 a month is the means test for protecting single people. Now the hon. member has got his answer.

That is not in the Act.

Of course it is not in the Act, but I made statements to make this known. I said it over the radio and over television in both Afrikaans and English. I cannot do more.

*The hon. member for Green Point referred to District Six and for the information of hon. members, I should like to make a statement about District Six. During the past few years the Department of Community Development has made great progress with the clearing up of the slum conditions in and the replanning of District Six. Replanning has been completed, and the next phase of this urban renewal project—the re-development phase— has already been reached. I should now like to announce details of how we shall proceed to stimulate the re-development of this area, for this aspect, owing to the recession in the property market, and a resultant tardiness of interest on the part of the private sector, in addition to other unfavourable financial factors, calls for a special effort. In order to pave the way for re-development by the private sector, an amount of approximately R25 million has been spent in District Six on the acquisition of properties, clearing up operations, and replanning. A full-scale marketing programme—including the appointment of property consultants to promote the alienation of property for private development—has been launched, and construction work on the proposed Asian Business Centre—an Oriental plaza for Cape Town, and a potential tourist attraction—is in progress. The installation of new services in District Six had already been planned and approved, and is expected to commence in three months’ time. But taking into account the vast amounts that have been ploughed into this area, and the fact that development has not gone ahead rapidly enough, these steps are still not sufficient. It has accordingly been decided to take further steps. Firstly: A rehabilitation scheme for the improvement and renovation of the flat complex bordering on De Waal Drive and known as Fawley Terrace, so that it may fit in with the intended development; secondly: the rehabilitation and the rebuilding of the Bloemhof flat complex, in order to remedy the conditions which impede future development; and, thirdly, the establishment by the department of a pilot scheme consisting of 15 dwelling units of a very high standard. The two rehabilitation schemes I have mentioned, will of necessity bring about that the present inhabitants—Whites as well as Coloureds—of both complexes, will have to be reaccommodated elsewhere for economic and other reasons. A suitable piece of land, which still has to be acquired, has already been earmarked for the establishment of a housing scheme for the inhabitants of the Bloemhof flat complex in order to resettle them as a community—all in one area—and in that way restrict disruption to the absolute minimum. This scheme will be supplemental to the housing programmes of the local authorities in the Cape Peninsula and will therefore in no way influence existing priorities.

As regards Fawley Terrace, which is inhabited by Whites in the lower income groups, no problems are foreseen with the rehousing of the inhabitants of the 94 units of which the complex consists, because inexpensive housing will be found for them. According to estimates, the cost of the two rehabilitation schemes as well as the provision of the necessary alternative accommodation, will amount to R7,5 million, while the cost of the pilot scheme will be approximately R1,5 million—giving a total expenditure of approximately R9 million. This expenditure will be fully justified if—as is expected—the rapid redevelopment of District Six is achieved in this way, as the interest on money already invested in the area already amounts to millions of rands every year and the City Council of Cape Town loses a substantial amount in rates while this land remains undeveloped. Besides, the conversion and renovation of Bloemhof Flats and Fawley Terrace have become imperative because the buildings are either in need of urgent repair or are situated in an area where the land is so valuable that it is at present being hopelessly underexploited. This cannot be justified from an economic point of view.

I should once again like to express my sincere thanks to the hon. members for their participation in the debate.

Mr. Chairman, I should like to ask the hon. the Minister two questions. Firstly, will the people of the Bloemhof Flats be rehoused within the District Six area or outside it?

I cannot give an assurance as to where they will be rehoused. However, they will be rehoused as a community. To me that is the cardinal feature.

My second question is: Is the hon. the Minister going to deal with my question relating to the repeal of regulation 228 to bring his own policy in line with the policy of the …

I am very keen to do so now, but unfortunately time does not permit me. I am willing to discuss the matter with the hon. member at another opportunity, either by correspondence or personally.

Mr. Chairman, as regards the Fawley Terrace area: While the area is being renovated, are the people who are at present living there and are being temporarily rehoused, going to be given preference when they want to return to that area?

I am quite willing to give them the first opportunity to return to the area if they want to and if there are suitable neighbourhoods, but I am afraid that perhaps it will be a bit expensive for them. But I shall gladly consider that.

I want to conclude by again thanking all those who participated in the debate. I appreciate their constructive contributions and look forward to next year’s debate.

Vote agreed to.

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

House Resumed:

Progress reported and leave granted to sit again.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Agreed to.

The House adjourned at 17h25.