ADM’S plans to move to Chintsa on hold for now

Cash-strapped municipality set to return to old offices in East London in new year

We do not say that they will be completed by the end of February, hence we will have to move to a much cheaper building in the meantime

Long-term plans for the Amathole district municipality to construct its own headquarters in either Chintsa or Stutterheim to avoid paying millions in rent for its plush offices in Chiselhurst, East London, seem to have fizzled, at least for now.

The cash-strapped municipality is set to return to its old offices in the city — in Cambridge and Caxton streets — early in the new year.

In May 2021, the district municipality announced it was relocating to the scenic Great Kei coastal hamlet of Chintsa, 30km from East London.

The municipality had said it would vacate its lavish Chiselhurst offices, which it rents for R36m a year, or R3m a month.

At the time, the municipality said land had already been identified in Chintsa.

Then mayor Khanyile Maneli said: “Our offices should be located in Amathole — in one of our local municipalities.

“It is a council resolution that must be implemented — it is long overdue as we cannot continue to pay rates in BCM.”

The announcement had major implications for ADM staff and followed then finance minister Tito Mboweni’s call to officials to save money.

He said the municipality’s financial challenges were “largely self-inflicted”, including the offices it could not afford.

Earlier, in 2015, ADM expected to move to new premises in Stutterheim after council instructed then manager Chris Magwangqana to approach the National Treasury for funds.

A council report tabled in July 2015 indicated that ADM had to move both because its current offices were outside its geographical jurisdiction, but also because many of its offices were scattered among different buildings. “This is not a good working environment. The public found it difficult to get parking and the buildings were not disabled-friendly,” the report said.

ADM has occupied its Chiselhurst offices since 2014 and has a two-year lease effective from March 2021.

However, addressing the national parliament this week, new mayor Anele Ntsangani said ADM could not afford to build new offices. Instead, it would move back to its old building when the Chiselhurst lease expired in February.

When ADM representatives appeared in a virtual hearing before parliament’s Cogta portfolio committee on Tuesday, MPS from different parties lambasted the district for its lavish offices.

They urged ADM to vacate the premises quickly, saying failure to do so would “continue eating up your meagre coffers”.

Ntsangani told MPS that the problem was not the reluctance of the municipality to move but the provisions of the lease.

Another problem was that the “old” offices were being renovated very slowly.

“We do not say that they will be completed by the end of February, hence we will have to move to a much cheaper building in the meantime.”

Speaking to the Dispatch on Wednesday, Ntsangani said R30m had been set aside to renovate the Caxton Street building, and another municipal building in Cambridge.

Since the municipality vacated the Caxton Street building in 2014, it had remained vacant and had been severely vandalised.

Though Ntsangani shot down council proposals to relocate to Chintsa, he said there were still plans to move ADM’S headquarters to one of its local municipalities at some stage.

“But the challenge now is that we need to raise sufficient funds before we can construct our own building.

“We just cannot take a loan to build — we want to save and use our own money.”

Chintsa would not be ideal, because future demarcation could see it included within BCM, and that was something ADM wished to avoid.

He said the council decision in 2021 to move its offices to Chintsa “needs to be reviewed”.