Home Affairs spent R343.9 million a year on leased buildings

The Department of Home Affairs spent R343.9 million to lease 214 buildings from private owners in the 2023/24 financial year.

These buildings were leased through the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure, which also managed all the leases.

This was revealed by the Department of Home Affairs in a parliamentary reply to EFF MP Thapelo Mogale last week.

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Leasing buildings has cost the department up to R40 million annually for the department’s head office in Pretoria, R15 million for the offices at Cape Town International Airport and Brits storage, respectively, and R19 million for their offices in Rosslyn.

The department said it was engaging with National Treasury on cost savings for the head office building in Pretoria.

“In this regard, a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) has been registered, a suitable site has been identified in the Salvokop precinct (state-owned land), and bulk services have been procured,” said the department.

“The feasibility study identified a unitary payment shortfall, and the department is engaging with National Treasury to address this shortfall.”

The department also registered 15 capital works projects with the Presidential Infrastructure Coordinating Council in 2021.

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“The purpose of this initiative is to construct purpose-built Home Affairs offices on state-owned land, in partnership with the private sector, as part of the Government’s capital investment drive.”

Hijacked government buildings

Last year, the Ministry of Public Works and Infrastructure was tasked with conducting a government-wide investigation into hijacked buildings in the country’s metros.

The ministry was responsible for identifying all hijacked buildings in the country and determining the appropriate actions for these properties.

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Out of 29,000 buildings in the Public Works Department’s asset register nationwide, the department has started a process to recover approximately 1,260 properties flagged as being illegally occupied under Operation Bring Back.

“Each metro or municipality will need to indicate how many properties it has on its asset register, the state of those assets, what they are used for, and their current status. Depending on the status of these properties, the Ministry of Public Works and Infrastructure will recommend the necessary actions,” the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure said at the time.

On Thursday last week, Public Works Minister Dean Macpherson announced he would commission an independent report into the purchase of the former Telkom Headquarters building, acquired in 2016 for R696 million and later renovated for R250 million.

The building has been left vacant for the past eight years.

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“It is disheartening that so much public funding has been spent to purchase and renovate the building, only for it to be vandalized and occupied by criminal elements. We cannot spend more than eight years trying to determine how to secure public property while it deteriorates into lawlessness,” said Macpherson.

He added that his department would fast-track the process of securing public investments and utilising them to avoid wastage of public funds.