Unsafe police headquarters — Auditor-General issues damning report on Telkom Towers

The report came just hours after workers at the Telkom Towers office complex were evacuated after it was declared unfit for human use.

Unsafe police headquarters — Auditor-General issues damning report on Telkom Towers

The national headquarters of SAPS in Pretoria have been declared unfit for human use and have also been flagged by the Auditor-General this week.

The Telkom Towers complex was bought by Public Works in April 2016 for nearly R700-million, according to the office of the Auditor-General.

But nearly eight years later, the complex has been underused and staff were recently evacuated from the premises due to safety concerns.

An Auditor-General presentation to MPs on Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Public Works and Infrastructure on Wednesday revealed that only one of the nine buildings in the complex has ever been used by SAPS.

Eight of the buildings have been vacant, costing the government at least R592-million. This has been flagged by the Auditor-General as a material irregularity.

Several MPs voiced concern that the matter had not been resolved despite them raising it on numerous occasions since 2019.

Just hours after the meeting in Parliament, SAPS released a statement confirming that staff had been evacuated from the only building it had been using at Telkom Towers. The building will remain closed until further notice.

Auditor-General flagged issues months ago

In Parliament, the Auditor-General noted that 12 material irregularities had been identified in its report. Of these, 11 caused significant financial losses while the 12th was the misuse of public land.

Londoloza Songwevu, a senior audit manager who led the presentation to the committee, said that four of these irregularities have been resolved as well as one that wasn’t at Telkom Towers.

According to the Auditor-General, the buildings were fully functional at the time of purchase and were meant to become the central headquarters for SAPS in Pretoria. The complex was intended to alleviate the pressure on the budget to lease private buildings.

Songwevu said service delivery had been affected. “Over and above those [financial] losses, service delivery is impacted in the sense that SAPS is unable to conduct their business as they would have envisaged when the move first came about,” he told MPs.

Songwevu said they flagged Telkom Towers as a material irregularity in late 2023 but wanted to give the new director-general time to respond to the matter. He told MPs they were also concerned about the increasing number of material irregularities.

At the end of the presentation, the Auditor-General made recommendations, including that the portfolio committee “evaluate and monitor the effectiveness of consequence management [disciplinary] systems employed by the departments and entities to deal with instances of material irregularities”.

Committee chairperson Nolitha Ntobongwana (ANC) said the information presented by the Auditor-General would be included in the committee’s end-of-term “legacy report”.

Ntobongwana also referred to an oversight visit in 2022. At the time, the committee had raised concerns about officials being “underprepared” during their visit and denied entry into some of the offices.

SAPS’s office of horrors

The closure of the police headquarters took place after Labour Department officials, accompanied by police management and officials from the trade union Solidarity, visited the building on Tuesday.

Johan Böning, of Solidarity, described the deplorable state of the SAPS office. He said they had received several complaints from police members, including a lack of clean drinking water, poor and broken air conditioning and ventilation, broken and dirty toilets, closed and unmarked emergency exits, and broken lifts.

After the office’s closure, police management claimed their primary concern was the “well-being” of employees, and that it was on the instruction of National Commissioner General Fannie Masemola that all of the staff left the premises.

“SAPS is in continuous engagements with the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure whose responsibility is the repair and maintenance of state facilities,” national police spokesperson Brigadier Athlenda Mathe said.

She said arrangements are being made for the functions carried out at the building to be performed at alternative premises. She said “core policing” had not been affected by the “temporary” closure.

In response to questions from GroundUp, Mathe said on Friday that she was aware of the Auditor-General’s findings. “However, the finding was vehemently opposed and rejected. It was not a deliberate act from SAPS to continue using the leased buildings instead of the state building [Telkom Tower],” she said.

“Unfortunately, only Telkom Towers North was said to be ready and a certificate of occupation as well as a certificate of compliance was issued to SAPS which led to the occupation of Telkom Towers North. The other buildings were never handed over to the SAPS,” she said.

Mathe added that SAPS had written to Public Works several times requesting a project execution plan relating to the other buildings. “To date the project execution plan has yet to be received by SAPS from Public Works.”

This meant that the only building that was somewhat functional now had to remain closed until further notice due to it being unfit for purpose.

GroundUp sent questions to Public Works spokesperson Lennox Mabaso on Friday. This article will be updated once it has been received. DM

First published by GroundUp.