PROJECTS EXPIRED: R250m ‘WASTED’

Abattoirs, dairy farms, roads and heritage site stalled for years

At least a quarter of a billion rand ploughed into projects meant to benefit communities in the Eastern Cape has been wasted in the past five years.

A Dispatch team travelled across the province counting projects lying unfinished and abandoned.

These include abattoirs, dairy farms, roads and a heritage site.

Work began in 2016 on a R70m project in Butterworth, Mnqumashe Abattoir, that was supposed to be finished by September 2017.

However, the high-throughput cattle and sheep abattoir remains incomplete because the department of rural development & land reform failed to pay R800,000 it owed to a construction company. This was after the department had already spent R35.15m on the project. The outstanding balance is R24.84m.

This project was started when the department received an application from livestock farmers in Butterworth seeking financial assistance to recapitalise the dilapidated old Butterworth tannery into an abattoir.

In an internal progress report, the department says the construction was 60% completed.

A document signed by the department's infrastructure director Ncumisa Ntshona and provincial head Zolile Pityi states: “Performance guarantee by the contractor has expired ... currently the work has stopped on-site due to non-payment of the contractor’s invoice of March 2019 of R797,000.”

A consulting company for the project was appointed in 2014 at R3.16m. Fees have since been adjusted to R10.4m.

Another gaping hole is a mooted bridge and 10km access road at Gqunu village in Mhlontlo municipality. The value of this project is R72.6m. Five years down the line, the project is still unfinished.

Another incomplete project is construction of the R54.1m Zuurberg Heritage site in Addo.

Construction phase two of the Ncera Macadamia Irrigation system, to the value of R49m, has been approved but is yet to be implemented. The land lies cleared and ready for planting, with contour furrows ploughed. The Dispatch could find no record of money spent by the department on the project, though it was approved in 2015 and was meant to have started in the same year.

However, Joe Jongolo of Ncera Macadamia was upbeat. “The department is still very much committed to providing the bulk water supply, and they are in the process of appointing a contractor in the new year.”

A senior department official said the problem was “incompetent leadership”“It is all in the leadership. The more the project delays, the more money we pay ... We previously had TamTam Gobozi running these projects. She left without finishing any. Now we have Ncumisa Ntshona, who confirmed in a progress document that the department has failed to pay R797,000 to a contractor

— something that has stalled this R70m abattoir project. Really, how’s this possible to stall a project for so little money?” said the source.

The department failed to respond to questions sent last week. Two other collapsed projects were found in Cala and in Dordrecht, part of the Chris Hani District Municipality (CHDM) which were started more than five years ago.

In Cala an abattoir worth R5.5m has been vandalised. In Dordrecht, a R6.3m cheese factory has “collapsed”.

When the Dispatch team visited the Cala abattoir in September, all the copper pipes, windows, doors and expensive abattoir machinery had been removed. No-one was guarding what was left of the structure.

CHDM spokesperson Thobeka Mqamelo said the intention was to enable local farmers to access the market as part of the CHDM Livestock Improvement Programme. “The district entered into a private partnership agreement with a local farmer as the municipality could not run such an establishment on its own. The agreement, unfortunately, fell off after the partner passed away,” she said. “The project in question was budgeted at R5.5m and a security company is on-site.”

On the Dordrecht cheese factory, Mqamelo said the project collapsed after relations among the communal and commercial farmers who ran the project became strained beyond the point of possible reconciliation. The situation was worsened by the severe drought as milk production dwindled, she added.

“However, plans are afoot to ensure the project is operational as there is a lease agreement entered into between the local municipality and a local dairy,” said Mqamelo.