South Africa’s richest province spends R183 million a year to rent ten buildings

The province of Gauteng spends R183 million every year leasing privately owned office buildings to accommodate ten education district offices.

This has raised questions around the availability of government-owned buildings which could accommodate these offices and reduce the substantial rental bill.

The Gauteng Department of Education has 15 district offices, with 10 currently housed in private buildings rented by the provincial government.

Gauteng MEC for Infrastructure Development, Jacob Mamabolo, previously said no suitable government-owned buildings were available for this purpose.

He made this claim before the Gauteng Provincial Legislature on 8 September, in response to a question from Provincial Legislature Member Michael Waters.

Waters later requested that the MEC provide evidence supporting his claim, asking him to reveal how many provincial buildings remained vacant or underutilised.

In response, the MEC said the Department of Infrastructure Development and the Gauteng Infrastructure Financing Agency were conducting a needs analysis and accommodation assessment.

Waters said this response presented a clear contradiction to Mamabolo’s earlier statements and raised questions about where his previous claims came from.

“How could the MEC assert that no suitable government-owned buildings were available when his own department is still evaluating whether such properties are appropriate?” Waters said.

“A follow-up question specifically asked if unused or underutilised provincial buildings had been evaluated, when each evaluation took place, and what the results were.”

Waters asked these follow-up questions in order to determine whether any of these buildings would be suitable to house one or more education district offices.

According to Waters, however, the MEC did not answer any of these questions and simply responded that the assessment process was still ongoing.

Waters called on Mamabolo to immediately disclose the full list of all vacant and underutilised provincial properties, and the evidence on which his previous claims were based.

“Gauteng taxpayers should not be expected to keep shelling out millions of rands each on private accommodation,” Waters said.

“Particularly when the provincial government has yet to determine whether suitable government-owned buildings are available to use.”