SA ‘construction mafia’ slammed

RAMAPHOSA: THIS IS ‘RADICAL ECONOMIC ROBBERY’

Disrupting construction sites and making demands isn’t how radical economic transformation will be achieved, he says.

road-building projects have come to a virtual standstill due to the violent conduct of these groups.

JSE-listed WBHO chief executive Louwtjie Nel last week said hardly any projects got started without being disrupted by these groups, which he says aren’t bona fide business forums.

Virtually every major construction project in KwaZulu-Natal has been similarly affected.

Cox Yeats Attorneys have won about 30 court interdicts against such groups in the province.

While these incidents started in KwaZulu-Natal, with the Delangokubona Business Forum playing a prominent role, they are now prevalent in other provinces.

Sanral’s Louw Kannemeyer said the situation had arisen due to local communities misunderstanding a National Treasury regulation about subcontracting, implemented in April last year.

Last month, Treasury said it had received complaints in certain provinces and at municipalities about abuse of the requirement that 30% of public procurement contracts be subcontracted to designated groups, as required by the preferential procurement regulations.

According to Treasury, groups in some instances demand the 30% stake in cash. It warned that organs of state using procurement preferences not provided for in the framework – including ring-fencing contracts for service providers and suppliers who live in a certain geographical area – were noncompliant and that such expenditure would be classified as having been irregularly incurred.

On Saturday, Ramaphosa weighed in on the matter, the SABC reported. He referred to people hijacking policies and distorting radical economic transformation by disrupting sites and demanding 30% of project’s value, describing these practices as “radical economic robbery”.

Malusi Zondi of the Federation for Radical Economic Transformation, acknowledged that most of their business forum members were former criminals. He said they were working to professionalise their members and were organising themselves.

Road-building projects have come to a virtual standstill due to the violent conduct of these groups.

SA National Roads Agency