Services needed, not empty buildings

The only good thing that can be said about the construction of the Gauteng provincial archive building is that the original plan may have had the right intentions, but the implementation was suspect. The yet-to-be-used building in Krugersdorp’s Kagiso Extension 6 was originally budgeted to cost the provincial government R312 million. But this has now ballooned to R341 million. As the construction of the monolith has been in limbo for three years, halted long before the doors have been officially opened, this figure is almost certain to rise even further.

The blame game among the ANC ministers in the provincial government is already in full swing with Gauteng sport, arts, culture, recreation and heritage MEC Faith Mazibuko launching a scathing attack last year on MEC for infrastructure development Jacob Mamabolo, laying her department’s failures squarely at his feet.

The debacle has been put down to a lack of coordination between the provincial departments, resulting in yet another empty shell to go along with the empty Kagiso library, next to the archives building.

It would be churlish to point out that there are surely more urgent projects than these, for the residents of Kagiso deserve a library just as much as any other community in the province.

But we would hasten to add that an unfinished and empty library is worse that having none at all, standing as a mute monument to wasting public money and blatant incompetence.

There is an old saying that you should cut your coat according to the cloth and it is clear that this has not been the case. In an economic climate where wasteful expenditure should be an anathema, grandiose planning must take a back seat to reality.

The money the province gathers from the public should be headed firmly towards the benefit of its citizens, not empty edifices.