Tshipise circuit office built and abandoned

Date: 20 March 2015 By: Phathutshedzo Luvhengo

One of the Limpopo Department of Education’s circuit offices, the Tshipise district office, was apparently abandoned and left to rot by the provincial department.

Tshipise is one of the three district offices in the province that were constructed in 2011 at a total combined cost of R106 million. The circuit offices had seemingly been abandoned by the department.  The other circuit offices are at Mapela and Bochum. R45 million was allocated for the construction of the Tshipise district office, whilst R33 million was allocated for Bochum District and R28 million for the Mapela offices.

According to the Democratic Alliances (DA) in Limpopo, the three multimillion-rand incomplete offices were left to fall into complete disrepair. This has prompted the DA to file a complaint with the public protector against the provincial department of education.

“I can confirm that we had filed a complaint against the department last week,” said the DA’s media officer, America Ngwepe.

The DA’s member of the provincial legislature, Jacques Smalle, said in a statement that the department had completely wasted R106 million. “These wasted funds could have been put to use in renovating existing schools, providing sanitation and purchasing textbooks. This warrants thorough investigations by the Public Protector,” said Smalle. He said it was absolutely unacceptable that a government department could build multimillion-rand buildings that have no use. “It is also clear that their viability was not properly tested before being put out to tender,” said Smalle.

Meanwhile, the DA has urged the acting education MEC, Jerry Ndou, and his department to cooperate with the Public Protector as that office probes this “tragic waste of public money”.

The departmental spokesperson, Mr Paena Galane, disputed the claims and insisted that construction on the site was stopped when some provincial departments were put under administration. He said construction was stopped because some of the service providers were being investigated for possible irregularities.

“When the national government took over, some projects were stopped, but now we are in the process of finalising everything on these sites, so that they will start being operational soon,” said Galane. He said it was the responsibility of the Department of Public Works to hand over the offices to the Department of Education. “Those offices will start to function as soon as they hand them over to us,” he added.

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Phathutshedzo Luvhengo

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