De Lille takes landlord to court to have Treasury offices reopened

The Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Patricia De Lille has had enough with “overcharging” landlords in government buildings. 

The department claims they are making progress in paying service providers who say government departments don’t pay on time. The public works and infrastructure department says they are making progress and are now paying service providers within 30 days.

The department reportedly had a backlog of over 11,000 payments.  

Speaking to eNCA on Sunday, De Lille says paying leases on a month-to-month basis is irregular and something the Auditor-General found. 

De Lille explains that in March 2021 they sent out an advertisement calling on landlords to renew their contracts with the departments. 

“Some did come forward, some did not come forward. Then October last year, I instructed the department to stop paying month to month leases as from the 31 of December 2021.”

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This decision helped the department to regularise the number of lease signed contracts. 

De Lille said some contractors wanted to remain on the month-to-month payment, however, she says this method led to the overpayments.

The minister states this also led to corruption as many were overpaid, “and now that we have put our foot down to say you will no longer milk government with high leases. We spent R500 billion a year on [renting] from the private sector.”

The department started negotiations with all the landlords and had mostly favourable responses. 

De Lille reiterated they can no longer be allowed to be overcharged. The public works department paid R875 million to all its service providers in the month of February, De Lille says the system in place is able to detect irregular and prevent irregular expenditure.

Rent arrears

Bothongo Property Management Group locked some of its buildings early this week over rent arrears. De Lille says this is illegal and they are turning to the courts on Monday as they were not made aware the buildings would be locked. 

“They even denied access to Treasury offices. We will be going to court on an urgent basis to force them to open the building and to force them to come back to the table and charge government reasonable prices.”

The minister added that National Treasury spent at least R1 million on rent and decided to no longer pay this high amount.

De Lille concluded she had engaged with Bothongo Property in the past and they have reached agreements in the past. The landlord claims government owes over R130 million.

Complied by Sandisiwe Mbhele

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