New response team identifies 38 KZN construction sites delayed due to fraud, other transgressions

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27-09-2024
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News 24
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• One of Public Works and Infrastructure's stated goals is to turn the country and KwaZulu-Natal into a "construction site".
• However, the province has severe obstacles to achieving this goal, with 38 "problematic" construction sites, which have delays averaging four years.
• The KwaZulu-Natal Public Works department has launched a rapid response team to tackle these delays, which are alleged to be caused by fraud, financial mismanagement, and payment delays.

The KwaZulu-Natal Public Works and Infrastructure Department's newly established interim rapid response team (IRRT) has identified 38 construction projects - worth more than R100 million - that are being delayed by alleged fraud and mismanagement.

The department has also instituted 13 forensic investigations into allegations of corruption, collusion, nepotism, and various other forms of financial mismanagement.

Some departments have failed to pay the provincial public works department up to R790 million for work done, forcing it to take out a R300-million overdraft "to keep afloat".

KwaZulu-Natal Public Works and Infrastructure MEC Martin Meyer has appointed the IRRT with a mandate to curb financial irregularity and to monitor and evaluate the problem construction sites in the province.

The IRTT is spearheaded by the acting department head, Vish Govender, and the team is expected to give him weekly updates on these projects.

The problems identified by the IRTT are adding to one of the department's biggest headaches, the construction mafia, which is standing in the way of its stated goal of turning South Africa into a construction site. 

In the response team's update, Govender revealed in an exclusive interview with News24, that there are 38 "problematic" construction sites dotted in regions the department has identified as eThekwini, southern KwaZulu-Natal (Pietermaritzburg to Kokstad), Midlands (Amajuba and uThukela), and the north of the province. 

Govender said most of the projects were delayed by fraud and corruption; project and contract mismanagement; late or no payments to contractors, "irrational" reasons by contractors for abandoning sites, such as finding of rocks on site.

The affected sites are mostly schools, public hospitals, and other community facilities.

Govender said 13 probes are focused "in the broadest sense [in] maladministration, fraud, corruption, collusion and material irregularities pertaining to the software licences for Archibus".

Govender said: 

These projects have a time-lapse of anything between 30% and 330%. And if we equate that in layman's terms, it will mean that the projects started in 2021 but in 2024, they are incomplete and abandoned.

"The abandonment of construction sites often means the department has to appoint and pay a new contractor. 

"However, even that process faces hurdles: one, its client departments, including education and health, owe public works R790 million and they fail to pay the department's invoice within the prescribed 30 days; and two, the department, partly as a result of that, fails to pay its contractors within 30 days."

Govender said:

We've run that bill up to R790 million. Coupled with that, we have taken an overdraft of [more than] R300 million in order to keep the department afloat.

At one point in late 2022, the provincial education department owed public works R172 million, according to the then-public works MEC Ntuthuko Mahlaba. 

This included the hiring of buildings, the refurbishment of schools, and miscellaneous projects such as water and electricity.  

"What has occurred when MEC [Martin] Meyer was appointed, he then decided, upon my appointment, that we undertake a situational analysis for two days to look at issues that caused delays in the projects," said Govender.

The analysis found that the department had "cat-napped" and wasn't responsive on some issues such as fraud and corruption, and contractors that abandoned projects due to financial issues, among other things.

He pegged the estimated value of the problematic sites at "more than R100 million". That's when the IRRT - comprising engineers, finance experts, project management specialists - was established. 

He said three sites have been immediately unblocked due to the IRTT's efforts.

Govender promised a timeline of 60 days for the IRTT to clear the blockages.  

He said because he is working alongside Meyer to clean up shop, he has been targeted in at least two "frivolous" attempts to get rid of him.

"These came from people who didn't want to leave their names or any details about their complaints," Govender said.