assertion
17 November 2006
It is with great displeasure that the North West Provincial Legislature has
noted the attacks on the Portfolio Committee on Developmental Local Government
and Housing and most recently on the august House itself from the Department of
Developmental Local Government and Housing.
In an attempt to clarify where this all started, it is probably most
sensible to start at the beginning. In the course of its oversight function
this committee chaired by the honourable Mahlakeng Mahlakeng has led
delegations to the Bojanala, Central and Bophirima regions to "investigate"
certain allegations and verify progress into housing delivery in the North West
Province.
The first oversight visit was made to Taung in the Bophirima region in early
April (5 - 8 April 2006) to see for themselves the extent of the devastation
caused by the floods. The aim of this oversight was not only to show their
constituents their support but also to get a sense of the damage. The latter
was for the purposes of supporting the department should they require
additional funding, outside of the normal budget voted for in the House, to
repair the infrastructural damage that had taken place in the area. During and
towards the end of the oversight visit, the committee had already come to the
conclusion that an amount of R500 million would be required to repair the roads
and bridges washed away by the floods and to rebuild the approximately 2 000
houses that were either damaged or completely washed away.
In early August 2006, in the House during a sitting, a number of Members of
the Provincial Legislature (MPLs) from different political parties brought up
the issue of the construction company, Toro ya Africa and the fact that it had
been awarded a number of large projects. Projects which they felt were
disproportionately large compared to the size of other projects. The committee
felt that it would be amiss of them to leave this issue unattended and decided
on an oversight visit to the Bojanala region in particular Rustenburg where it
was rumoured that there were large Toro ya Africa projects. At the same time a
suggestion surfaced that there may be some irregularity with the awarding of
the Toro ya Africa project in the southern district, Matlosana Municipality in
Klerksdorp, in particular. The committee decided to combine these oversight
visits into one and went on a "fact finding mission."
This decision for some reason sparked an uproar which resulted in an
unprecedented assail on the committee by the Department. The first statement
released by the communications unit of the Legislature where the honourable
Mahlakeng was quoted as saying, "As the committee it would be amiss of us to
put our heads in the sand and pretend we are not aware of the many questions
being raised regarding Toro ya Afrika. Moreover, some of these questions were
raised in the House itself by Members of Provincial Legislature. So we are here
to get a sense of the projects undertaken by Toro ya Afrika and other
construction companies doing the same work."
"Ours is to get an idea of what is happening, call in Toro ya Africa,
National Homebuilders' Registration Council and the Department at a later date,
and then prepare a report which will be presented in the House for debate. We
are not conducting an exhaustive forensic investigation by any means. If we
identify a need for this it will come later. Before this process is complete we
cannot say what will happen or what the Legislature will do."
A further statement went on as follows, "In Rustenburg after meeting with
the local municipality who confirmed that there were no Toro ya Africa housing
projects in their locality, the committee decided to visit two housing
projects. The decision to visit housing projects which were not Toro ya Africa
was based on a need by the committee to be able to compare between
contractors.
Representatives of the Rustenburg Local Municipality present could not,
however, unambiguously answer whether or not Toro ya Africa had been
subcontracted by any of the companies awarded the housing projects to
implement."
The projects visited were Boitekong 23 where the contractor was Homes 2 000.
1 073 out of 1 075 units had already been built and the project was ahead of
schedule although the committee noted the poor quality of both the building
materials and workmanship. Residents in these houses also complained of various
issues which prompted the committee to commit to schedule an oversight visit to
this and other housing projects with a specific focus on the quality of the
houses. The committee also visited Sunrise Park where the contractor is Foxway
and 635 out of 1 200 units had been built. This project is behind schedule.
In Klerksdorp the committee met with representatives from housing, civil
engineering, municipal manager's office and the parliamentary speaker. At this
meeting the Matlosana Municipality mentioned that there were suspected
irregularities in the appointment of Toro ya Africa on some projects. To this
end the council formed an ad hoc committee to investigate whether proper
procurement procedures had been followed in the appointment of Toro ya Africa
on housing projects. This ad hoc committee found that indeed there was some
irregularity and recommended the institution of a forensic investigation. The
results of this forensic investigation were expected to be available by mid
October. To date the committee has still not received these results nor been
given access to the documentation as requested.
The committee were further informed that due to the sensitive nature of the
forensic investigation, no documents were available to the committee for their
perusal. The document the committee was given access to is council resolution
8/2/2/1/1, which confirmed the appointment of Toro ya Africa along with Kosh
Contractors and Let's Trade to build 5 000 units in the informal settlements of
Jouberton, Kanana and Khuma. The Portfolio Committee on Developmental Local
Government and Housing were surprised at the seemingly disproportionate
allocation of this project. Toro ya Africa were allocated 1 753 units in
Jouberton extension 24 and 2 599 units in Kanana extension 14 to the value of
R103 348 293,12; while the other contractors (Let's Trade and Kosh Contractors)
who had tendered were each awarded 332 and 316 units respectively. The combined
value of these projects is just over R15 million.
"As the committee, while we do not feel we covered everything, we are
satisfied that we got a sense of what is going on. We are pleased that the
Matlosana Local Municipality has instituted the forensic investigation as a
sign that they also want to see this matter resolved and put to rest as soon as
possible. We are aware that there are Toro ya Africa projects in other
municipalities and we may want to go there at a later date."
"I must hasten to add that we do not necessarily think there was anything
irregular here but the disproportionately large size of the projects awarded to
Toro ya Africa in Matlosana caused us to raise our eyebrows. As the committee
we are very interested in seeing the results of the Matlosana Municipality
forensic report. We feel that due to the lack of some information and lack of
clarity in other areas we cannot come to any concrete conclusions," said
Mahlakeng.
From 5 to 8 September 2006 the committee undertook a further oversight visit
to Taung. The aim of this visit was to see the progress made since the
committee's visit in April with regard to the post flood reconstruction and in
particular the rebuilding of the houses. Also under consideration were the
comments received from the Mayor of Taung alleging that she did not know why
the province (Department) has removed housing from the council's jurisdiction.
These projects were allocated to Toro ya Africa by the Department.
These statements were issued by the communications unit of the Legislature
and the second oversight visit resulted in a vociferous media statement, issued
by the Department on 7 September 2006 entitled, "North West Legislature is
sowing confusing," peppered with phrases such as "the committee issued media
statements have sowed confusion, committee made insinuations", " created
impression that Toro ya Afrika has projects in Rustenburg, "committee does not
have a mandate on such matters." "Committee went overboard to try to gain media
publicity and misleading the public continued to make damaging statements on
issues they did not have the expertise to talk about, went overboard issuing
media statement on its unscientific observation Toro ya Africa used by
politicians to score political points" and so it goes on.
This peculiar statement even went to so far as to link (in the most
convoluted manner) the fact finding mission of the committee with the suicide
of former mayor of Matlosana, Jaycee Nxamakele. This strident statement was
leaked to the committee chairperson by a (bemused) journalist who had received
it and wanted the "other" side of the story.
It was noted that this statement mentions Toro ya Africa no less than ten
times which begged the committee to ask (with fast fading amusement) whether
the statement was issued by Toro ya Africa's public relations company or by a
government spokesperson. When the Department was contacted regarding this
statement, the Legislature was informed that it had been unsanctioned and an
apology was issued.
The committee felt comfortable that it was the end of the situation and
proceeded to table the report of its findings on the Taung oversight visit on
12 September 2006, where it was unanimously adopted by the House including the
MEC of the Department of Developmental Local Government and Housing.
This adopted statement was sent to the Mail and Guardian on 28 September
2006 by the communications unit and later to all other media houses on 31
October 2006. The Mail and Guardian ran the story on 3 November 2006 because
the journalist in question was still gathering information so as to run a
comprehensive story.
It would seem that the publishing of the Mail and Guardian story reignited
the conflagration and a further statement was released by the Department on
Monday, 13 November 2006. This statement which has increased its ferociousness
geometrically continued to vilify the committee and this time the Legislature
as a whole, where it reiterated that the report(s) issued by the Legislature
were "factually incorrect and misleading" and that "any allegation is obviously
from people not qualified to judge the quality of houses." The Department
further asserted that "the Legislature's communication unit is in the habit of
issuing inaccurate information to the media."
The Legislature wishes to set the record straight and perhaps remind the
Department of its (the Legislature's) constitutional mandate. The Department
reports to Legislature and not the other way round as would seem to be the
impression given by the Department.
All statements issued by the communications unit of the Legislature were
sanctioned initially by the chairperson and later by the committee as a whole.
The Legislature is under no obligation to check its findings with the
Department to make the information more palatable to either the media or the
Department.
The committee has a constitutional commitment to report honestly on its
findings to both the House and the public at large. The information in the
reports comes from the observations of the committee and the interviews done
with the people living in the houses built. The committee and the House adopted
the reports without questions or queries, including from the MEC.
The Legislature therefore finds it both strange and distasteful that the
Department after adopting the reports goes out into the public domain
"rubbishing" the reports. The reports were issued to the media un-amended with
the dates of the visits clearly stated as these reports become public documents
after adoption.
The media statements issued by the Department of Communications were in fact
based on the findings and perhaps "unscientific" observations of the committee.
These statements are perhaps viewed as "misleading" by the Department because
they do not support what the Department is stating as fact.
For example, the committee visited Taung from 5 to 8 September (and not
overnight as claimed by the Department) and when the committee was there in
September only 60 houses had been built. If, two months later, the number of
houses had increased to 242 as claimed by the Department then the findings of
the committee were accurate at that time. Where in this process was the report
of the committee misleading and inaccurate one would ask?
Members of the public who live in the houses, who are interviewed in all
oversight visits complained to the committee that the houses are falling down
around their ears; that walls did not seem to be straight and let in the
elements; and that the brickwork seemed unstable. This we hasten to add is not
limited merely to houses built by Toro ya Africa but by other contractors as
well. It does not require an engineering degree as the Department asserts to
know that the house you are living in daily feels unsafe and is plagued by a
number of structural problems.
Finally on the issue of the communications unit of the Legislature being the
habit of "issuing inaccurate information to media," "to score desperate
political points," all media statements issued by the Legislature's
communication unit were written with the chairperson's input and approval. The
suggestion by the Department that this "habit" is prevalent suggests that the
politicians on the committee deliberately set out to lie to media and the
public at large. This allegation is particularly disturbing as the information
disseminated by the committee is easily proven even if it is completely
unpalatable to the Department.
With the increasingly vicious attacks on the Legislature in the media, the
Legislature decided to call a press conference to clear the name of the
institution and the committee. What the Department and its perhaps slightly
overzealous spokesperson have failed to realise is that the committee has been
doing its work as required by the Constitution. The aim of all the oversight
visits including and excluding the Toro ya Africa issue is to verify how far
the Department has come in terms of service delivery.
The MEC does not seem to unambiguously state to the Legislature whether the
statements issued by the Department were in fact sanctioned or if it was a spot
of "private enterprise" and "initiative" from an over eager and over protective
member of his communications team. The Legislature hastens to remind the MEC
and the Department in case it had slipped their minds that they are accountable
to the House.
Perhaps the Department is not aware that by attacking a report that has been
adopted by the House it is fact attacking the House itself. The findings of the
committee are just that, the findings of the committee and if the MEC had a
problem with the reports he should have stated so in the House, and not in the
media. The MEC is a member of this august House and we suggest that he pays
closer attention to statements issued in his name or that of the Department
directed at the Legislature.
The Legislature will not brook disrespect from any one member. The
Legislature is the highest law making body in the province and no one
Department or member is above that. The Legislature expects a retraction from
the Department, an apology to the committee and an apology in House for the
manner in which the Department has conducted itself regarding this issue.
The committee and the Legislature have never at any point attacked the
Department its credibility or ability to carry out its mandate. The Legislature
has always been mindful of the fact that it serves the people of the North
West. The committee and Legislature expects the Department to focus on service
delivery and not on countering the work and reports of the committee with
discordant, unprofessional and unnecessary attacks in the media.
We hope this brings both clarity and closure to this matter. We are
confident that the North West Provincial Legislature, the Portfolio Committee
on Developmental Government and Housing and the North West Department of
Developmental Local Government and Housing will look forward and renew the
always cordial working relationship that preceded this objectionable and
slightly too drawn out encounter by focusing on delivering on their separate
but associated mandates.
Contact:
Roberta Makhambeni
Media Liaison Officer
Tel: (018) 392 7158
Cell: 082 779 4641
E-mail: roberta@nwpl.org.za
Issued by: North West Provincial Legislature
17 November 2006
