Progress made in addressing leases shambles

THE Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality is making progress with the management of its leases, which have been in a shambles for years.

In the past, the city lost millions of rands in rental revenue after failing to properly monitor leases for municipal-owned buildings.

Presenting a report on the progress of the lease rectification project to the human resources and corporate services committee on Tuesday, project manager Kuvenderen Govender said the project was ahead of schedule, with nearly 200 leases recovered.

“We have picked up on various issues, not with the project, but with the handling of leases,” Govender said.

“We are enforcing stringent procedures and a systematic manner of handling the processes.

“The list of leases has significantly grown. We are still ahead of schedule, managing the risks and issues very successfully.”

Govender said the department knew of only 97 leases when the project started.

“As at end of June, we had discovered 188 leases – an additional 91 leases that have been brought forward and have been documented.

“We have uncovered a number of issues and inconsistencies with the management and monitoring of leases and we have [submitted] a few memorandums to the executive director,” Govender said.

Human resources and corporate services political head Dean Biddulph said he was very impressed by the progress thus far.

“We all know that leases were one of the areas where we were looking at a possible audit qualification, which I hope we may well have averted,” Biddulph said, congratulating the team.