KZN to blacklist contractors who abandon projects after getting paid upfront

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17-10-2024
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News 24
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• The KwaZulu-Natal Public Works and Infrastructure Department is set to blacklist contractors who abandon projects after receiving upfront payments.
• MEC Martin Meyer announced plans for a central database to track errant contractors, preventing them from re-registering under new names to bid for future projects.
• The department is also moving staff from rented spaces into state-owned properties, supported by an ongoing audit of departmental assets, which is 80% complete.

The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Public Works and Infrastructure is forging ahead with blacklisting contractors and subcontractors who take money and disappear with construction work not done. 

The department noted that there are companies that take money, run away, re-register under different names, and come back to bid for work with the department.

MEC for Public Works and Infrastructure Martin Meyer said the department was coming after those who thought they got away. 

"We will blacklist all of them (contractors and subcontractors). We will never again do business with people that do not want to do business with us in an honest and fair way," said Meyer. 

Meyer was speaking during the official opening of the department's new Ilembe district office in KwaDukuza on Wednesday. 

The R63-million office project was also subjected to contractor abandonment, after a contractor had been paid an upfront portion before work started.

The new structure will house staff from the departments of provincial public works and infrastructure as well as transport.

According to the public works department, sharing the same building is part of a solution-based undertaking to make better use of its buildings and assets. 

Addressing officials and staff during the official opening, Meyer said he was angered to learn that the Ilembe office project had also fallen prey to contractor abandonment.

He said that planning was at an advanced stage to have a central database which will hold the details of the errant contractors.

Meyer said this would help other departments keep track of contracting offenders as they tend to simply change names and reappear elsewhere wherever there are projects. 

He said:

We can't have people that do this, run away with our money and come back to do business with us again, and do the same thing again. It's the people of KwaZulu-Natal that suffer as it's their money.

He said there would be provision for these companies to appeal.

Meyer said that once the contractor had been blacklisted, they had to write an appeal to external departments. 

The department said its staff would be moved out of rented office spaces and into department-owned spaces.

Meyer said this will further come into effect once an audit on all buildings and land owned by the department is complete. 

"The audit process is at 80% completion, and it's expected that full findings will be shared soon," said Meyer.