My work engagements require me attending meetings across the province, many of them in government-owned buildings. I am appalled at the condition of most of these premises, the lack of care and maintenance and the apparent lack of concern for hard earned infrastructure, designed to last for generations.
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The most recent of my experiences was an inspection of the Ugu Sports and Leisure Centre, for an upcoming Chamber event, which barely a few years after construction, looks shabby and decrepit in the extreme.
It is just astounding to me that the issue of care and maintenance for significant municipal, provincial and national assets is ignored, either wilfully, or purely from the lack of understanding of the importance of this function.
Emergency procurement
While the most common excuse is lack of funds, this excuse is hard to accept – when any of these venues host high level government functions, it is usual to see rapid and major (albeit cosmetic) work carried out in preparation. Bearing in mind that most of this work would have been carried out on an ‘emergency procurement’ basis, generally at hugely inflated cost, the lack of foresight and planning is disappointing.
It is unlikely that local communities will value and preserve assets in their communities if the owners themselves show scant regard for their care and maintenance.
The second excuse is that many government owned buildings are managed by the Department of Public Works, while located in local or district municipalities. While this may be the case, it is incumbent on local authorities to hold the DPW to account, to ensure that buildings within their boundaries are maintained to a standard that does not compromise their reputations in the community.
Community buy-in
In partial defence of the local municipalities, the ‘parachuting’ of projects into their boundaries by provincial or national government without any reference to the budgets available for ongoing care and maintenance is also a factor. The worse affected are ‘vanity’ projects foisted on local municipalities by high ranking politicians, that often have little or no community buy-in.
After matriculating, Vijay Naidoo studied Economics in the UK. Upon his return, hejoined the family construction business as MD for 10 years.
He subsequently joined his sister in their furniture manufacturing business as director for quality assurance and operations. He was responsible for all quality aspects of their products, and led the project to the business achieving an ISO 9000 quality accreditation. As an export focused business, this was important for our international competitiveness.
Mr Naidoo has an abiding interest in quality management and productivity improvement, particularly in manufacturing.
More recently, he has focused a lot of his time on giving back to the community by way of mentorship of small businesses and sitting on the executive of the South Coast Chamber of Commerce. He also sits on the Board of the Ugu South Coast Development Agency.
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