South Africa’s Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure, Dean Macpherson, believes his department overpaid for the now-derelict Telkom Towers in Pretoria.

This is according to the department’s spokesperson, James de Villiers, who told Newzroom Afrika that the buildings still have Telkom’s logos despite the department spending R250 million to renovate them.

Combined, the purchase price and renovation costs amount to R945 million. The buildings are currently overrun by criminals and remain unoccupied.

“What the Minister of Public Works is really concerned about is that he doesn’t believe that the value paid for the building is market value,” said De Villiers.

“Neither does he believe that the public service got value for money with the R250 million spent on the refurbishment of that building.”

“Bear in mind that in the past eight years, the R250 million has been spent, but we have not even removed the Telkom signs from the building,” he added.

He noted that the South African Police Service (SAPS) headquarters, which was meant to move into one of the four buildings, has yet to move in.

“In the minister’s view, this is public money that was not well-spent, and we, therefore, need to launch an investigation to understand exactly what went wrong and how we can avoid this from taking place in the future,” said De Villiers.

The department still plans to renovate one of the four buildings for the SAPS headquarters. De Villiers said the SAPS will move into the building within eight months.

He said the fate of the remaining three buildings has yet to be determined. However, he also noted that the minister has called for all public ministries to move their headquarters to publicly owned buildings in Tshwane’s city centre.

De Villiers said this would eliminate the need to pay expensive leases and save taxpayers money.

To this end, he said Minister Macpherson had already denied a request for one of the country’s major ministries to rent private building space at an exorbitant cost.

Dean Macpherson, South Africa’s Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure

Macpherson recently conducted an oversight visit to the Telkom Towers buildings, for which the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure paid R695 million in 2016.

He was joined by the City of Tshwane’s executive mayor, Cilliers Brink, who said the visit revealed that the building wasn’t properly ventilated, didn’t have working lifts, and various health hazards.

As a result, a technical determination was made to withdraw the occupation certificate.

Brink said criminals had moved into the building and started stealing office and gym equipment.

“Employees who park their cars at the precinct find that their cars are stolen from the parking lot,” he said.

Macpherson said it was disheartening that criminals have been allowed to occupy and vandalise buildings on which a lot of public money has been spent.

“We cannot spend more than eight years trying to establish how to secure public property while it deteriorates into lawlessness,” he said.

The minister said he would commission an independent report on the purchase of the Telkom Towers and its subsequent renovation. He hopes the investigation will help answer the following questions:

• What drove the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure to buy the Telkom Tower buildings, and was the purchase necessary?

• What process did the department follow to appoint contracts and vet contractors?

• Were the Telkom Towers the best option for the SAPS?

• Should any public officials be held accountable for the consequences of the purchase and renovation of the building?

• Are there grounds for the department to recover funds paid to contractors for work not done, or not done according to certain standards?

• What is the best way to proceed, considering the building’s current state?

• How can such a situation be prevented in future?

SOURCE:R945-million Telkom Towers crackdown – MyBroadband