R25 million spent on a multipurpose sports facility which is now an empty piece of land overgrown with weeds

The Emfuleni Municipality spent R25 million to build a multipurpose sports facility. However, nine years later, it is an empty, overgrown piece of land.

Construction on the multipurpose sports facility began in 2017, promising the community a state-of-the-art centre.

In 2020, former Gauteng MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA), Lebogang Maile, said that phase one of the project had been completed.

According to Maile, this phase included constructing various layers of earth materials and installing stormwater drainage systems.

He added that the first phase of the project cost R24.2 million, accounting for more than half of the total project cost.

Five years after Maile’s statement, the Palm Springs multipurpose sports facility remains incomplete, with construction halted indefinitely.

Kingsol Chabalala, a member of the Provincial Legislature, said the facility is currently nothing more than an empty, weed-covered piece of land.

“The municipality does not have a timeline for completing phase 2 of the project due to a funding shortfall,” Chabalala said.

Only after CoGTA, through the Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) office, approves the funding will the municipality be able to provide an accurate completion date.

“The outstanding construction work is estimated to take 24 months,” Chabalala said in a statement.

He said that the half-finished project exposed the ANC in the Emfuleni Municipality’s failures in execution, planning and oversight.

What is particularly concerning is that this issue has been on the agenda for many years, leading to social action last year.

In 2025, the DA submitted a petition to the Gauteng Provincial Legislature (GPL), demanding that the municipality complete the sports facility.

It also called for those responsible for this failure to be held accountable. However, the petition was rejected by the ANC-led Petitions Committee.

“We subsequently appealed to the ANC Speaker of the GPL, but despite numerous follow-up requests, our appeal has been ignored,” Chabalala said.