​During the State of the Province Address (SoPA) held on 1st July 2019, Premier David Makhura entrusted MEC's with the huge responsibility of responding to the pressing demands of the people, in relation to human settlements and fixing the functioning of our municipalities. The ANC-led administration committed itself to prioritising the following key areas of work, as part of giving practical expression to the Manifesto commitments of the governing party;
•         Economy, Jobs, and Infrastructure 
•         Education, Skills Revolution and Health 
•         Integrated Human Settlements and Rapid Land Release 
•         Safety, Social Cohesion and Food Security
•         Building a Capable, Ethical and Developmental State

Gauteng Government remain committed to these key focus areas, as we continue to serve our people, consistent with the political programme of the governing party to grow and develop society in an inclusive and cohesive manner, in line with Freedom Charter ideals, as well as successive electoral commitments since the dawn of our democratic breakthrough in 1994.
As part of our Rapid Land Release Programme, we are in the process of procuring serviced stands, which we are going to release to those who are ready and able to build houses for themselves, which is also in line with national government's Zenzele Programme. This will go a long way in tackling the housing backlog in the province. As it stands, Gauteng has a housing backlog of over a million, even though we have built over 2 million houses in the past 25 years.
We will be acquiring six land parcels for rapid land release in the current financial year, four in Sedibeng and two in Tshwane. We have already identified fourty eight thousand release opportunities which are currently usable for the long term following detailed planning and are looking at additional government owned land, from government's asset portfolio to identify land for rapid land release. 
Engagements with key stakeholders:
Since assuming office, we have held fruitful and successful engagements with key stakeholders within our scope of work or mandate. We have engaged with the following critical stakeholders:  Deeds Office, Social Housing Regulatory Authority, National Housing Finance Corporation NHBRC etc. with the following notable outcomes;
•         Deeds Office – we have a service level agreement with the Deeds Office, whereby registration should be concluded within five (5) working days if lodgement is submitted by one of the conveyancing firms on the department's panel. We have also engaged them on whether they can allow Title Deeds registration without section 113 on old townships where conditions were not set. This is a work in progress, which we are committed to following through on till we find an amicable and favourable resolution.
In partnership with the national Department of Justice and the Deeds Office, we are exploring the registration of family titles, something which does not exist at present, but is a critical intervention, as there are currently properties that cannot be registered due to family disputes.
•         NHBRC – our engagements with the NHBRC where aimed at ensuring amongst other things that their service level agreements with municipalities are strictly adhered to before any construction commences as well as bringing about better quality control and guarding against non-completion of projects. 
The NHBRC also expressed an interest in working closely with the province on our Rapid Land Release Programme, to ensure adherence with technical requirements before releasing land. We will also be working closely with the NHBRC in terms of blacklisting contractors who are guilty of not completing projects. 
In conjunction with the NHBRC we will massify consumer education as part of increasing levels of awareness amongst housing beneficiaries about some of the services the NHBRC offers them, such as claims on defective houses.
•         NHFC – we have committed to working closely with the NHFC, as part of addressing the challenge of the 'missing-middle', to popularise their FLISP offering (income around R3501 - 22000pm). We have also engaged the NHFC to explore financing options for back-yard dwelling as part of capacitating and catalysing the township real estate market.

Challenges:
We have taken steps to address the challenges arising from the aftermath of the Bank of Lisbon fire by securing alternative offices for our two departments. This we have done working closely with the Department of Infrastructure Development and Property Management, as custodians of all government buildings. Both departments will be moving to newly revamped buildings, which meet all compliance requirements, over the next couple of months (November 2019).
On the issue of incomplete houses, we have had firm engagements with contractors to go back on site and complete their projects. From our side, we have made a commitment to pay all contractors within fifteen (15) days to address their concerns of late payment. We are also systematically addressing the issue of a backlog of invoices that have not been paid, a process which we hope to complete within the current financial year. We have also identified fifteen (15) projects for immediate rectification, a process which is currently ongoing. We have conducted the required structural assessments with bill of quantities to rectify all affected houses.
We have taken steps to clean up our beneficiary database and improve beneficiary database management in order to deal with the backlog of the 1996 housing database and ensure that our beneficiary system operates optimally going forward.
We are taking steps to address the challenge of underspending by municipalities on Grant Funding for key infrastructure and housing projects which cause massive  service delivery backlogs, by looking to exercise the constitutional powers given to the CoGTA MEC in order to fast-track service delivery.
We have also been pro-actively engaging our municipalities to work with us to accelerate the declaration of townships in order to deal with the unwanted challenge of growing informality as well as the issuance of title deeds, to give our people security of tenure and a much needed asset that will enable them to better participate within the mainstream economy. We are also working in tandem with our municipalities to catalyse the township real estate market as part of provincial government's Township Economy Revitalisation Programme.
Regarding the Vaal River crisis, we have continued the work set in place during the last term with an inter-departmental team established to oversee our intervention in the area, made up of different tiers of government. The intervention comprises a committed budgeted of almost six billion rand from the various tiers of government, with a political steering committee headed by the Minister of Water and Sanitation giving oversight and a project steering committee headed by the Director General of Water and Sanitation constantly monitoring the work of the technical steering committee which is headed by the implementing agent.
 
The Vaal intervention is geared at ensuring that all wastewater infrastructure in the area is resuscitated to an operational state as well stopping pollution. This we aim to accomplish by replacing and repairing all leakages and deficiencies in the network system, prioritising the upgrading of sixteen critical pump stations followed by another twenty-eight as well as refurbishing all three treatment works to optimal functionality.
We have also put in place the Sebokeng Regional Sanitation Scheme to upgrade and build new pump stations using a phased approach so as to bring about optimal functionality of infrastructure for the benefit of the area. It is worth noting that at the beginning of the intervention only two pump stations where operational and to date, with the work already done, seven are currently in operational condition with a further twenty-four being functional but requiring attention and thirteen being non-operational.
Ultimately, through all our work, we want to ensure sustainability of waste water infrastructure in the area by enhancing current revenue streams, reviewing the current water services delivery model for greater efficiency and recruiting and retaining critical skills as part of building institutional capacity to provide sustainable water and sanitation services in the region. All of this should positively contribute towards facilitating local economic development and job creation. It is a comprehensive, multi-faceted, multi-pronged approach aimed at turning around Emfuleni municipality, ensuring future growth and sustainability as well as enhancing service delivery to our people.
Land Invasions: 
We have witnessed a growing scale of land invasions in the province due to land hunger, exacerbated by demagogic and populist calls by certain voices, calling on our people to invade land illegally. This has necessitated our response to deal decisively with land invasions in the province. We have developed a pro-active Land Invasion Strategy working with other relevant provincial departments and part of the security cluster in order to prevent land invasions.  In this regard we have conducted a risk assessment of all provincial land earmarked for development and have set in place security measures to prevent future invasions. We have instilled detection mechanisms to enable us to pre-empt and prevent land invasions.
One of the areas that we were required to respond to was Lenasia in the South of Johannesburg where we discovered the existence of criminal syndicates that are selling land illegally further encouraging land grabs. We have been working with the relevant municipality to come up with a comprehensive solution that will address the concerns of our citizens in Lenasia and the rest of Johannesburg South and through our work with law enforcement agencies and intelligence services we will be accosting the guilty parties in the not too distant future.
We must reiterate that as provincial government we will be evicting all those who have occupied land and houses illegally to ensure that we allocate houses and land to legitimate beneficiaries. This is important in order to ensure that there is a respect for law and order and the following of due process in our quest to ensure adequate housing for all our citizens.  
Forensic outcomes:
As Local Government is a critical sphere of service delivery we are worried about the current state of Gauteng municipalities, as revealed by the Auditor-General's latest findings, as well as our internal State of Gauteng Municipalities Report. We are taking pro-active steps to enhance governance and accountability within our municipalities in line with the Auditor-General's recommendations. We are reinforcing critical Back to Basics pillars to strengthen financial management, capacity and clean governance within our municipalities.
One of the critical engagements we had in this regard was with the Public Service Commission to ensure that we uphold and promote Batho Pele principles in the public service. We agreed to work together to ensure the promotion of ethical behavior in the public service, and to entrench and tighten integrity systems at all tiers of governance within the province.
As a result of this of this renewed commitment to clean governance within Gauteng City Region (GCR) we have written instructive letters to municipalities that have been fingered for corruption through various forensic reports to take decisive action against anyone implicated in corrupt activities. To show how seriously we take the fight against corruption, we have instigated a groundbreaking Committee of Inquiry to investigate all allegations of corruption across our municipalities, and report back within three (3) months, with recommendations for action against anyone implicated, as well as remedial steps to guard against corrupt activities in future, and ensure water tight systems in pursuit of clean governance.
The days of officials and politicians running amok with the people's resources at the expense of service delivery are well and truly over in Gauteng. 
Mega/Urban Renewal Projects/Hostel Revitalisation:
As part of our agenda to spatially reconfigure Gauteng City Region, we have been strengthening and re-orientating our internal systems in order to accelerate delivery of our Mega Human Settlements Projects. A critical step in this regard has been the work we have done in developing a provincial integrated Human Settlements Master Plan to ensure alignment of planning and execution within the various spheres of government. 
We have also initiated a Human Settlements Project Bank for GCR which will ensure that all potential Human Settlements projects are placed in one pot and are gauged by a project readiness matrix which will address challenges such as bulk infrastructure, development of projects on the periphery of the urban centre etc. that create bottlenecks to our spatial transformation agenda. We are also introducing an Infrastructure Delivery Management System aimed at ensuring timeous delivery of all our human settlements projects through enhancing project management.
We have resuscitated and updated our Urban Renewal Masterplans for the five identified areas: Alexandra, Winterveldt, Everton, Bekkersdal and Kliptown and have allocated budget for work to begin on these within the current financial year. We have reconstructed the urban renewal programme forums and have conducted an infrastructure audit to ensure that we address the challenge of urban renewal comprehensively, involving other relevant departments and not just from a human settlements perspective. There are exciting developments in the pipeline, with the Alex Renewal Programme for example having the capacity to add ten thousand new units that our people can reside in.
 We have also identified and allocated budget for specific hostels to be refurbished and converted to livable family units as part of our hostel revitalisation programme with work beginning in this current financial year. This will help deal with the challenge that we are currently experiencing within our hostels as has been evidenced by recent outbreaks of violence stemming from our hostels in Johannesburg. We have submitted a report to Exco on our new approach to convert hostels into fully subsidised IRDP units as well as the renovation of existing hostels. The implementation plan has been completed in this regard and work is currently underway.
Conclusion: 
The above details massive work we have undertaken to give practical meaning to the SoPA commitments made by Premier Makhura when we assumed office. Our success will be measured by our collective abilities to deliver in the next five years and improve the quality of life of our people, especially those who are most in need of our services.