The Democratic Alliance says they are extremely concerned that the Gauteng Department of Social Development now has to pay R500 000 for repairing the structural defects at the Tembisa Home for the Aged as the contracted company no longer exits. This information was revealed in a reply to my written question tabled in the Gauteng Provincial Legislature (GPL) to the Gauteng MEC for Social Development, Morakane Mosupyoe. Built-in 2012, the Tembisa Home for the Aged only opened its doors to elderly residents two years later in October 2014.

According to the Mosupyoe, at the time of the facility’s official hand-over, there were no visible structural defects. However, the City of Ekurhuleni’s Real Estate Department identified serious structural defects during the assessment of the facility in May 2019 which led to its closure.

The assessment engineers found that there were no lintels installed above door and window frames and openings, and as a result, the brick walls had sagged, creating the danger of the walls collapsing at any moment.

The department evidently did not conduct a proper assessment of the facility before and during the hand-over, which also indicates a severe lack of project management experts from the department.

Had a proper assessment been conducted before accepting the facility, such defects could have been identified and fixed by the contractor at no cost. Furthermore, Mosupyoe states that the contract company no longer exits, and the department has started the process of procuring the service provider to fix the identified structural defects at an estimated cost of R500 000. The work will be completed before the end of July 2021.

DA says It has now become a norm for Gauteng Provincial Departments to sign off on projects without conducting proper assessments, resulting in costing taxpayers millions of rand to fix the defects that could have been corrected by the contractor. They aslo added that they will continue to monitor the progress of the work being done to fix the structural defects.