The Standing Committee on Provincial Public Accounts chaired by Hon. Job Dliso together with the Portfolio Committee on Premier, Finance, Cooperative Governance, Human Settlements and Traditional Affairs led by Hon. Aaron Motswana have raised serious concerns regarding raising expenditure on the unfi¬nished municipal office building project for the Moretele Local Municipality.
This follows an oversight visit to the incomplete municipal office building. The project started in May 2016 at a budget of R59,3 million but the contract was terminated at the end of December 2017 when the project was at 52% completion with an expenditure of R51,3 million.
The Legislature is currently conducting oversights in various municipalities under the Bojanala District Municipality. The program is aimed at taking legislature to the people to strengthen oversight and public participation and to promote accountability and transparency in government. During the program members of the Legislature will interact with different provincial departments and their MECs, Mayors, Accounting Officers and members of the Municipal Public Accounts Committees.
According to a presentation of the municipality, the project experienced various challenges which include community unrest and damage to the established site, subcontracting issues and the discovery of human remains on site. Municipal Manager, Mr. Sipho Ngwenya informed the Joint Committees that the project site is in complete ruins and requires demolition. “After various challenges, we terminated the services of the contractor for failing to execute work in accordance with the terms of the contract in 2017. In October 2019, we went out on tender for the resumption and completion of the project and the highest bidder was R136,5 million.
“Currently the municipality has budgeted around R46,3 million meaning we still need to source additional funds to ensure that we cover the required R136,5 million to complete the project,” said Mr. Ngwenya.
Hon. Dliso said it was totally unacceptable that a project that was initially budgeted for R59,3 million 5 years ago has now been estimated to cost over R194 million. “This is unacceptable as there is no value for money. It is for the third time since both Committees visited the project but nothing is done. Except for these exorbitant amounts on the project, there is no accountability on the funds spent on rentals during the period when the project was stalled including to this day,” said Hon Dliso. Hon. Aaron Motswana said the Committees will escalate the matters with law enforcement agencies to investigate maladministration and corruption in this project that does not seem to be completed.
