The Minister of Public Works, Mr TW Nxesi says state land should be used strategically to improve service delivery. The Minister was speaking in Patensie, in the Eastern Cape on the 30th of April 2014, where he donated a portion of land known as Farm 815, to the Kouga Local Municipality together with the Waste Water Treatment Works.
The Port Elizabeth Regional Manager, Mr Johan Van Der Walt, who accompanied Minister Nxesi to the handover ceremony, said the Waste Water Treatment Works formerly served only the needs of the Patensie Prison Precinct, including the prison employees. The members of the community under the Kouga Local Municipality which had no Treatment Works of its own were not benefiting from the Waste Water Treatment Works. Following this handover, the municipality will now be able to provide bulk water services to the public.
The Minister said the Department embarked on a series of technical feasibility studies and consultations with all stakeholders and found, among other things, that the growing municipality urgently required a waterborne sanitation system to replace the existing bucket and septic tank system; and that the cheapest and most effective option was to expand the present prison Treatment Works to serve both the prison population and the local community.
He says as part of the Turnaround Plan for the Department of Public Works (DPW), the Department has focused on the improvement of property management capacity in the DPW.
“For the first time in South Africa, we have a reliable Immoveable Asset Register. We now know what we own. The task now is to develop a coherent Asset Investment Management Plan. To achieve this, we have also had to operationalize a Property Management Trading Entity (PMTE) – and to professionalise its activities. This is the core of the business of Public Works,” explained Minister Nxesi.
The Minister said there could be absolutely no doubt that South Africa was a better place to live in today, than it was in 1994.
“In general, I want to make the point that as Public Works, and as government, we have to use state land strategically to improve service delivery and to leverage these assets for economic and social development, and job creation. Gone are the days when we disposed of state land – without preconditions and so often it landed in the hands of speculators and private developers,” clarified the Minister. He added that it gives him great pleasure to donate the property to the Kouga Local Municipality.
