Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi’s government has wasted over R104 million in the past five years paying rates and taxes for 41 vacant, decaying, and underutilised government buildings. Instead of investing public money in repairing broken schools and fixing clinics, the Gauteng Department of Infrastructure Development continues to pay millions every year to sustain empty buildings.
This information was revealed through the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) submitted by the Democratic Alliance (DA). This revelation lays bare the extent of wasteful expenditure in the Gauteng Department of Infrastructure Development and Property Management.
The records show that the City of Johannesburg alone accounts for nearly R100 million of these payments, while the City of Tshwane adds millions more, and all this for assets that are under state neglect.
These findings also follow earlier revelations that the department pays over R34 million every month, which is R408 million a year and more than R2 billion in five years to rent private buildings for the 11 Gauteng departments. This clearly paints a picture of a government that has lost control of its property portfolio and continues to bleed public funds without accountability.
There appears to be a lack of transparency on the part of the Infrastructure Development MEC, Jacob Mamabolo, who seems to stop short of full disclosure regarding Gauteng’s buildings. Why is it necessary to rent offices when the province owns buildings to house all the departments, which could save it millions?
We need to know who authorised the rental contracts in question and who benefited from them, because it clearly is not the people of Gauteng.
The DA in Gauteng calls for a section 18 Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) inquiry to determine which officials authorised these payments and why no corrective measures were implemented despite clear evidence of wasteful expenditure.
The people of Gauteng are paying the price of a government that has lost its moral compass, one that funds empty buildings instead of essential development.
The DA in Gauteng will not rest until every cent is accounted for and every official responsible for this waste is held to account. A DA-led Gauteng Provincial Government would have long fixed the abandoned buildings and ensured that departments occupy their own offices, saving money on rentals and paying rates and taxes on empty buildings.