It was supposed to be a good idea: save money on leases by buying a nine-building complex to house a police precinct in the Pretoria CBD.
Instead, what we have to show for R694m — plus R200m worth of renovations — are fetid water pools on a bathroom floor and basin taps pulled out of the wall; filthy carpets, broken ceilings and exposed cabling; a fire hose that was last serviced in July 2021. And don’t forget the rubbish strewn across the floor. That’s before you factor in dysfunctional ventilation equipment, broken lifts, a shortage of drinking water and unmarked or closed emergency exits.
Just a regular day at South African Police Service headquarters, the administrative centre of one of the most important functions of the government — providing safety and security for South Africans.
You’d think the cops had bought themselves a real fixer-upper, but the buildings “were functional at the time of purchase” in 2016, according to a presentation to the public works portfolio committee by the office of the auditor-general (AG) last week, first reported by GroundUp. An endless (and clearly botched) renovation and years of neglect seem to have done the dilapidation trick.
So it’s no real surprise that the police were ordered to leave Telkom Tower North and its annexe last week. After an inspection by the department of employment & labour, set in motion by trade union Solidarity, the buildings were declared “unfit for human use”.
Unsurprising, too, is that police minister Bheki Cele’s wing seems just fine. As Solidarity’s Renate Pieterse tells it: “The upper floor, where minister Cele’s office is, has been newly renovated and secured with good technological security devices. This while the rest of the 24 floors are considered unlivable.”
Perhaps this is the government’s new version of the trickledown effect
Perhaps this is the government’s new version of the trickledown effect.
Also unsurprising is that Cele has not set a foot in his new digs. There’s no fedora hanging behind the door; no police helicopter paperweight; no framed news clippings of the minister on the sleuth.
At least former police commissioner Khehla Sitole tried to test-drive his new office. He was told in April 2018 that the top floors would be ready for occupation just a month later. Having heard nothing to the contrary, he blithely moved in. Only to promptly move out.
There was, as it happened, no certificate of occupation, and no certificate of electrical compliance. There was no fire detection system, no functioning sprinklers. The malfunctioning lifts “posed significant high risks as there were reports of the lifts dropping to certain floors and members being trapped in lifts”, new police commissioner Fannie Masemola told the public works portfolio committee during a site visit in late 2022.
Masemola is, it seems, still shacked up with the presidential protection unit at the Maupa Naga building.
A similar thing happened with the central firearms register. Its new home in the Telkom complex’s ICT building wasn’t ready for occupation when it was ordered to move, so it was shunted into the north tower annexe in September 2021. This time, the compliance certificates were in place. Only, the building was uninhabitable. Think nonworking lifts, visible leaks, electrical boxes stripped of cabling, nonworking bathrooms and missing fire extinguishers, among numerous other ills, according to the police commissioner. So the unit remains at the equally dilapidated Veritas building in the CBD. Another bust.
It’s simply one in a series of failures that saw the empty buildings costing public works R400,000-R500,000 a month in security by 2019, according to a TimesLive report — and the state forking out R31,073,038.65 a month on rentals it had expected to can, Masemola said.
See, the building was apparently supposed to be ready in May 2018, then in July 2019. Then by April 2020, and March 2021, and September 2021. At the time of the portfolio committee’s site visit in 2022, some legal services staff were working in the building; the date of the annexe’s completion was set at December that year. Just last year, public works & infrastructure minister Sihle Zikalala triumphantly announced that “the building is compliant”. Ask the 900-odd people who work there now about that.
So, more than seven years after being bought, “only one (1) out of the nine (9) buildings are being occupied and utilised by SAPS as intended”, the AG noted. Make that none.
See, the building was apparently supposed to be ready in May 2018, then in July 2019. Then by April 2020, and March 2021, and September 2021
It’s no wonder the AG has found this to be a misuse of a material public resource.
An expensive exercise
It’s a colossal waste of taxpayers’ money, first, to buy buildings and then spend almost a third of the purchase price renovating them. Particularly when those buildings were already functional to begin with. Then, to basically leave them to rot.
It’s no recent lapse either; when the portfolio committee visited in 2022, it already noted issues with ventilation, cleaning, cable theft, fire hazards and poor maintenance.
There’s one central villain in all this. The department of public works & infrastructure basically has one job: it’s the custodian of the state’s immovable assets — which gives it responsibilities such as maintenance.
Tellingly, it’s completely schtum now about the whole affair. Though it did tell the portfolio committee in 2022 of delays due to community unrest (no details provided), procurement challenges and funding constraints. It also pointed out — all evidence to the contrary — that it “responds to all maintenance issues through its day-to-day call centre and maintenance regime”.
It’s a microcosm of government: poor communication, woeful delivery, endless delays — and the wanton waste of other people’s money.
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