A R40m KZN school project is now a year behind schedule because of construction mafia disruptions

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05-07-2023
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News 24
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A project to expand a school in KwaZulu-Natal is set to miss its initial completion deadline due to disruptions by a construction mafia.

Government officials say there have been at least six attempts to disrupt the R37.8 million Menzi High School expansion project.

KZN Public Works MEC Sipho Nkosi said he plans to negotiate with the mafia in a bid to ensure the project's completion.

The deadline for the completion of a multimillion-rand project for a school known for producing excellent Grade 12 results in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) has been extended by a year.

This follows at least six attempts to stop construction by armed gangs demanding to be paid 30% of the total project cost.

The extension of the Menzi High School in Umlazi, which commenced in June 2022, was initially budgeted at R37.8 million but there are now fears that costs may escalate due to delays in construction.

The project to build 13 classrooms and specialised laboratories was meant to be completed in 2024. However, the date has been shifted to 2025.

On Tuesday, KZN Public Works MEC Sipho Nkosi visited the school with the aim of resolving the impasse. However, none of the so-called construction mafia members was present.

A handful of community members, a local councillor, members of the school management, construction workers and representatives of a contracted construction company met privately with the MEC before he addressed the media.

Nkosi told the media he was informed of threats by gun-wielding men towards people involved with the construction project but would not elaborate further.

He said:

This situation is concerning. Menzi High School has been achieving quality results in the matric pass rate for the past 10 years.

"Due to the high demand for space at the school, government saw fit to add 13 more classrooms in addition to the 44 already being utilised."

He said that a year after construction commenced, less than 14% of the project had been completed with at least R7 million spent so far.

"We hope to get the names of the construction [mafia] companies so that we can explain the whole issue around 30%," he continued. 

"Once we find them, we are planning to hold positive discussions. If our negotiations do not yield the desired outcomes, law enforcement institutions would have to intervene," Nkosi said.

Local councillor Sibusiso Cele told News24 that the difficulty with negotiating with the construction mafia was that there were too many groupings that operate loosely and independently of each other.

"Here, at Menzi High School, there have been six different groups who are all demanding payment without doing any work and it is not possible to cater to them all," he said.

Cele said he was hopeful, though, that Nkosi’s plan to negotiate with the different armed groups would work.

Construction mafia history

Menzi High School is among the latest sites to be hijacked by armed groups seeking involvement in a construction project in the country.

According to a 2022 report by Jenni Irish-Qhobosheane from the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime, "this new kind of criminality" dates back to 2015 and has often been pursued under the banner of "radical economic transformation".

Irish-Qhobosheane estimates that in 2019 alone, at least 183 infrastructure and construction projects worth more that R63 billion had been affected by these kinds of disruptions across the country.

In April this year, Public Works Minister Sihle Zikalala said his department would open an "economic sabotage unit" to deal with the hijacking of project sites.

However, the timeline of when the unit will be launched and clear details on how it would complement existing crime prevention institutions is not yet public.