National Department of Public Works is holding up delivery 

By the time a story hits the news, those involved have usually seen it coming for a long time. Yet, while one watches the oncoming train bearing down, one often feels like someone tied to the railway track - helpless to stop it.

I experience this feeling regularly, particularly when trying to address problems that require urgent and co-ordinated decisions from different spheres of government. The complex bureaucratic processes usually take years to complete. Add to this the customary inefficiencies, and before you know it, the problem has become a crisis.

The Grabouw school crisis is a topical example. 

Soon after winning the 2009 election, our administration in the Western Cape became aware of the overcrowding in schools in Grabouw and the urgent need for two new schools, one primary and one secondary. 

The provincial Department budgeted for a new school, and identified an ideal piece of land for the purpose, belonging to the national Department of Public Works. The Province then approached the national Department and formally requested a transfer of the land to start construction as soon as possible.

However, three years later, we are still waiting for an answer. During this time there have been three different national Ministers of Public Works: Geoff Doidge, Gwen Mahlangu-Nkabinde and Thulas Nxesi. While Ministers changed, the Department's characteristic unresponsiveness and inefficiencies endured. Since 2009:

• The Province has sent 7 formal letters to the national Department, as well as countless telephone calls and emails from provincial officials to their national counterparts;
• Robin Carlisle, provincial Minister of Public Works, met his former national counterpart, Geoff Doidge to request the transfer;
• I also had a meeting with former Minister Doidge to discuss the issue (among others);
• Repeated unanswered follow-ups to Gwen Mahlangu-Nkabinde when she succeeded Doidge;
• The cancellation of four scheduled meetings with Minister Mahlangu-Nkabinde.

Our appeals have continued since national Minister Thulas Nxesi's appointment in October last year, including a meeting and numerous additional meeting requests from my office.

During February and March, when approximately 600 additional pupils arrived unexpectedly at the already overcrowded school, Umyezo Wama Apile, a crisis was unavoidable. When protests erupted in late March I managed to speak to Minister Nxesi early one morning, calling him on his cell-phone before he left for work. I told him bluntly that the much anticipated crisis had arrived. 

His response was that the issue was "still in process". I have heard nothing since, despite follow up phone calls to his office and numerous requests to meet to stress the urgency.

I therefore read with interest a recent news report quoting the Minister saying: "Nobody wants to associate himself with this Department. Our major clients, like the Department of Education and the police, are running away from us because they don't get the service they expect."

Actually, no, Minister. Your Department has been running away from us and our on-going requests to transfer this land, or at least grant us a right of access, so we can start building the urgently needed school. That is the central reason for all the subsequent problems, and the protests that spiralled out of control in March.

The Elgin Grabouw Civic Organisation (ECGO) that organised the protests and the ANC politicians that used them (including Cabinet Ministers Trevor Manuel and Marius Fransman), should approach their colleague Minister Nxesi and his department if they are serious about looking for solutions.

Because of the three year delay, the Provincial government has been forced to find short term solutions, including transporting and accommodating 200 Grade 11 and 12 learners to the Cape Teaching and Leadership Institute in Kuilsriver while a temporary school is being built. The temporary building will cost an estimated R3.6 million over and above the nearly R40 million budgeted to build the new school.

On Friday 12 April provincial Minister of Public Works Robin Carlisle and provincial Minister of Education Donald Grant wrote to national Minister Nxesi once again highlighting the urgent crisis in Grabouw and requesting urgent occupation of the land, while we await consent to transfer, so that construction of the school can start immediately and be completed by 2013.

Minister Nxesi was given 14 days to respond to the letter. To date there has been no formal reply.

If Minister Nxesi fails to respond by our deadline and grant us access to this land we will invoke the Intergovernmental Relations Framework Act, to declare an intergovernmental dispute with the National Department of Public Works.

However, Grabouw is also not an isolated incident. There is another crisis brewing in Du Noon, where there is a critical need for a new community health centre. The clinic currently operating in the area cannot adequately meet the needs of the community.

Our government identified a piece of land in 2009, which also belongs to the national Department of Public Works, as an appropriate site for a new health centre. The Province has budgeted R80 million for it.

After repeated requests to the national Department, the only progress since 2009 is permission to access to the land for planning purposes.

In light of the critical need for health services in Du Noon, and the inability of the clinic in the area to meet this demand, the City of Cape Town has been forced to implement another costly short term solution, transporting patients to the clinic in Tableview some distance away.

The current melt-down in the national Department of Public Works is harming the poor in every province, because they suffer most when schools and clinics cannot be built. We must draw a line.

My only regret in the Grabouw and Du Noon sagas is that we continued waiting so long for positive responses from the national Department and did not invoke the constitutional mechanisms to declare a dispute a long time ago. That was the only delay from our side. And we will not allow it to happen again.

This article by Helen Zille first appeared in SA Today, the online newsletter of the leader of the Democratic Alliance.

Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter