EDITORIAL | R15m stadium is yet another monument to wasteful expenditure

It’s not often that SA’s attention focuses so intensely on Komani (formerly Queenstown) in the Eastern Cape, but this week the country’s spotlight has very much been aimed there.

This thanks to the controversy around the R15m Lesseyton Sports Facility in the Enoch Mgijima municipality, as ordinary citizens and politicians alike slated the multi-million price tag.

Photographs published this week showed what appeared to be a poorly built sports field in the municipality.

Eastern Cape cooperative governance and traditional affairs MEC Xolile Nqatha has asked the municipality to give him a full report on the project, while One South Africa Movement leader Mmusi Maimane slammed the project.

“They are calling a chicken shed a stadium for R15m,” said Maimane.

The municipality has defended the project, saying that the pictures did not show the true extent of the work that had to happen, as reported in Sunday Times Daily. .

It’s easy to get caught up in the outrage over the R15m stadium, but it’s what the seemingly very overpriced sports complex stands for that really matters.

This is not just about one sports stadium; it’s what it speaks to in a broader local and national context that really bites.

In June, SowetanLIVE reported how Twizza, the biggest employer in Komani, where the Enoch Mgijima council is based, threatened to uproot if the municipality — which has been placed under administration since 2019 — carries on failing to supply basic services.

For the financial year ending in June 2020, unauthorised expenditure across the country’s various municipalities stood at R14bn.

Ken Clark, owner of Twizza and Crickley Dairy, said Komani would soon end up like Lichtenburg in the North West, which had seen dairy company Clover shutting its doors due to a lack of municipal services.

Administrator Monwabisi Somana said for any municipality to be put under administration, it showed that the rot was deep. He confirmed the mismanagement of the municipality and the deteriorating provision of services.

Somana said some of the issues the municipality encountered included political interference in the business of the municipality and the lack of technical expertise in critical departments.

But it’s not just about Komani or the municipality. The anger around the stadium is about the countless other projects that SA taxpayers have been fleeced by, with millions — or billions, depending on how far back you want to go — of rand having been forked out by the government for various projects. Whether willingly or because of sheer incompetence, there is no doubt that we, the South African public, have seen our rates, taxes and levies squandered.

The stadium saga — and everything it stands for — comes exactly a month after auditor-general Tsakani Maluleke, briefing parliament, painted a grim picture of the state of finance and accounting in the country’s municipalities.

For the financial year ending in June 2020, unauthorised expenditure across the country’s various municipalities stood at R14bn.

In June, Maluleke reported a staggering R26bn in irregular expenditure at municipalities in the 2019/20 financial year — with this irregular expenditure incurred in 246 of the 278 municipalities across SA. Maluleke said the figure could be higher as some financial statements were not completed for different reasons, including non-submission and late submission.

The bad news continued. Audit outcomes remained poor in municipalities, with only 27 receiving clean audits, 89 unqualified, 66 qualified, six adverse and 12 disclaimed, while audits in 57 were not completed.

Clearly, the problem goes deeper than one stadium in a rural area in an Eastern Cape local council. South Africans are fed up with waste, especially now when livelihoods are stretched to the limit and unemployment leaves millions wondering about their next meal.

There is no defence for waste, and a full investigation must be done into what happened at the stadium. If any wrongdoing is found, severe action must be taken and every wasted cent recovered. Doing anything less than this would be unacceptable.