The children and youth of Kagiso Township do not have access to proper sporting facilities and continue to be forced to commute to nearby suburbs to access such services, yet the state-of-the-art Kagiso Memorial and Recreation Centre has been abandoned and is still not fully operational.
The Kagiso Memorial and Recreation Centre has a world-class sporting facility that should be used by the community for different sporting codes such as gymnastics, basketball, aerobics, and squash. There is also a music recording studio that is gathering dust.
This facility has been neglected and left to crumble by the Gauteng Department of Sports, Arts, Culture and Recreation (SACR).
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The DA conducted an oversight inspection at the Kagiso Memorial and Recreation Centre today as part of the DA Heritage Month Campaign. We discovered that this facility is not fully functional, and some people are using it as a physical fitness centre and charging the community a fee.
We received numerous complaints from community members who claim that they are charged a monthly subscription to use the physical wellness centre.
Making residents pay to use gym equipment owned by the department is a criminal act. We propose that the community should report those people to the department.
Furthermore, the toilets and showers are not working, and the kitchen equipment has never been used.
The heritage artefacts are being stored in a temporary storage room while the R14 million budget allocated for a heritage component disappeared with a service provider.
The DA demands that the Gauteng MEC for Sports, Arts, Culture and Recreation (SACR) Mbali Hlophe, must prioritise fixing the infrastructural defects at this facility. This facility must be handed over to Mogale City Local Municipality so that it can benefit the community.
We will also be tabling questions to the MEC demanding answers about the R14 million that disappeared with the service provider. We want to know who the service provider is and what has the department done so far to force the service provider to deliver services or to pay back the money. Thereafter, we will be laying criminal charges against the service provider demanding that it should pay back every cent owed to the department.
We will not allow incompetent service providers that fail to deliver on community projects to steal money meant to better the lives of our people. We will continue to fight to ensure that such service providers face the full might of the law and be blacklisted to do business with the government.