Contractors paid 90% yet RDP houses incomplete in Tembisa

1 August 2019

I am outraged to learn that the Gauteng Department of Human Settlements has paid the contractors most of the money for the building of RDP houses in Winne Mandela in Tembisa, Ekurhuleni without finishing the project.

This was revealed to me by the Gauteng Department of Human Settlements and COGTA MEC, Lebogang Maile, in a written reply to my questions in the Gauteng Provincial Legislature.

According to MEC Maile, R4 594 370,56 was paid to Tampane Investments CC and Moshobane Cleaning Services JV from the period of 24 November 2016 to 5 February 2019 to build 29 RDP houses in Winnie Mandela in Tembisa.

The initial total budget for this tender was R5 953 357,54 which means that the contractor has received 90 percent of the tender money without completing the project.

Despite the fact that the contractor falls within the category of physically challenged contractors and had financial challenges, the Department gave them almost the entire budget for the project without monitoring their work progress.

It is completely unacceptable for the contractor to leave building sites without finishing a project and they must be blacklisted for their incompetence.

This clearly indicates that the Department will never learn from its previous unfinished projects where the contractors were paid the full amount and abandoned projects without completing them.

Furthermore, the Department has appointed another contractor to finish these RDP houses at an additional cost of R688 947,57. This is a total waste of public funds as this money could have been used to build another three RDP houses.

22 houses in Zone 1 will be completed on 30 October 2019 and 7 houses in both Zones 2 and 8 will be completed on 30 November 2019.

According to the beneficiaries of these houses who were promised that the new contractor would be on site in the middle of July, the contractor is still not on site.

We will continue to monitor the progress to ensure that these houses are completed within the stipulated timeframe.

We call on MEC Maile to adopt a holistic approach in managing the payments of the contractors to ensure that the department does not lose funds unnecessarily to contractors who are unable to complete projects.

Issued by Kate Lorimer, DA Gauteng Shadow MEC for Human Settlements and COGTA, 1 August 2019