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The High-Altitude Centre to be situated in Belfast in the Emakhazeni Local Municipality was projected to cost R5.2 billion on completion while the Cultural Hub, to be built in White River, would cost a projected R3.8 billion.

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Sizwe sama Yende

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It is only a matter of day before the Mpumalanga public know if newly appointed Mpumalanga, Mandla Ndlovu, will be able to plug a multi-million rand drain through which funds were being channeled to white elephants.

Ndlovu will deliver the State of the Province Address tomorrow and it is expected that he will come up with solutions to stop the haemorrhage of public funds to the Athletes High Altitude Centre and the Cultural Hub.

Former Mpumalanga premier, David Mabuza, announced these projects in 2011, but 12 years later, no sod has been turned. These projects were designed to be implemented with both government and private funds, but no investor has ever shown interest.

The High-Altitude Centre to be situated in Belfast in the Emakhazeni Local Municipality was projected to cost R5.2 billion on completion and would cater for soccer, swimming, rugby, running, boxing, wrestling, basketball, and cricket. It would also cater for less popular sports such as judo, karate, kayaking, cycling and gymnastics.

The Cultural Hub, to be built in White River, would cost a projected R3.8 billion.

It is a no-brainer that the projected costs have increased multiple times over the past decade due to inflation.

Sellers of the land and transactional advisors had been the only beneficiaries while the government has been dithering on beginning the projects or cancelling them altogether.

The Mpumalanga Department of Public Works, which is responsible for implementing the projects, did not respond to written questions sent on July 23.

Departmental spokesperson, Bongani Dlamini, promised to respond on Tuesday this week but he did not. “I’m waiting for DCSR (Department of Culture, Sport and Recreation) [to give me a breakdown of expenditure]. They are finalising and promising to give me before the end of business today [Tuesday]

Details about how much the government had been spending on the projects are sketchy. Dlamini was asked to supply a breakdown of the total amount that had been spent.

The People’s Eye is only aware that by 2020, government had spent  R112.3 million to purchase land for the High-Altitude Centre and to conduct an environmental impact assessment, and for designing the buildings, drawing up a master plan and drafting a bankable feasibility study.

In 2021, R86.9 million was allocated for the construction of a 7 million-litre reservoir in as well as a bulk water supply pipeline construction for the centre.

For the 20.9 hectares of land to build the Cultural Hub about R143.8 million was spent. According to the 2023/2024 3rd Quarter Report of the Mpumalanga Department of Culture, Sport and Recreation, another R 1.6 million has been paid recently to a transactional advisor to do and submit a third version of the revised bankable feasibility study.

Conservatively, R344 million of taxpayers’ funds have been spent on the two white elephants. However, these costs do not present the whole picture and they are definitely more.

DA caucus leader, Bosman Grobler, said that the party expected Ndlovu to also indicate when the agri-hubs in Mkhondo (Piet Retief) and Dr JS Moroka (Siyabuswa) would be completed as well as the Middelburg Hospital and Mkhondo Boarding School.

The agrihubs are worth about R60 million.