What lurks inside

Millions of rands worth of Ballito town planning documents are lying scattered on the floor, dirty, unorganised and unsafe.

This is the state of the town planning container office, which is deteriorating behind the forgotten Ballito municipal building “upgrade” site.

According to KwaDukuza municipality spokesperson Sifiso Zulu, the files left behind in the container were not critical for daily use.

“There was an arrangement with the previous contractor to leave some of the files behind, since the building was supposed to be renovated in six months. The arrangement was that some of the file cabinets will not interfere with the building upgrade. Files that were identified as important were removed from the building and we leased office space to store them. All the files that were left behind, do not affect our operations,” said Zulu.

The planned six month upgrade to the building, which started in January 2014, has turned into a close to two year, expensive downgrade.

Ballito councillor Colin Marsh said concerned residents phone him constantly about the nasty site.

“This place has been an embarrassing eyesore for way too long. The municipal manager and the mayor need to wake up and realise that Ballito is a tourist destination. What do tourists think when they see this?” said Marsh, while walking on the dirty town planning documents.

Salt Rock councillor, Malcolm Hubner said the state of a record room usually reflects the state of a business.

The Ballito town planning record room tells a clear tale of chaos.

“Whether or not these documents are crucial for daily use does not matter. The point is they are the public’s documents, they were paid for and they should be looked after accordingly,” said Hubner.

Marsh said another tender is about to go out for yet again a new contractor, after the last contract with Turbomax was cancelled in January 2015.

According to Zulu, the contractor and consultant who were working on the project were dismissed due to non-performance.

“The relevant departments are currently dealing with how to recover the monies from these service providers. Currently the municipality has appointed new consultants who have assessed the building and requirements for it to be completed – this exercise has been completed and the municipality will be considering the proposal, as well as identifying necessary resources.”

He said the job will go out to tender once all the necessary approvals have been received from KwaDukuza council and resources have been identified.

Furthermore, he said a consultant has been appointed to oversee the alterations, repairs and renovations to the building.

“The construction commencement date is set for November 1 and completion date is set for August 1 next year. The building should be open for use on August 8, 2016.”