The poor management of state-owned buildings costs the country’s taxpayers millions of rands annually.
The Department of Public Works and Infrastructure owns about 81,000 buildings, 703 of which are vacant. Only the property tax on these unused buildings amounted to R36 million in the 2018/19 financial year.
In addition, there is a major backlog with the maintenance of buildings and it is estimated to cost about R74 billion to fully renovate all the buildings.
To aggravate the problem, various government departments’ monthly rents are outstanding for a period of longer than five years. This amount is about R600 million. Treasury owes itself R127m in arrears.
If the Justice, Correctional Services and Higher Education Departments can pay their rent, the other departments can do so.
This crisis needs urgent attention and is resolved. The FF Plus will ask that the relevant portfolio committee deal with this to ensure that the outstanding fees are collected bef
Continue reading…