A row has threatened to engulf the Rustenburg municipal council in the North West over a multimillion-rand housing project for Anglo-Platinum employees.
This is sparked by evidence that a contractor, Group Five, commenced work on the R350-million project at the end of last year without due council proclamation, raising suspicions among some councillors that ”money must have passed hands”.
Last week a sitting of the African National Congress-dominated council failed to ”condone” the seemingly irregular practice or even have Group Five’s request for condonement discussed, as opposition councillors felt they had only heard about the matter minutes before the meeting.
While the Sandton-based Group Five Housing and Development Services acknowledges, in a letter requesting condonement (of the irregular construction), ”that on certain of our sites we have commenced construction work prior to all the formal required Council approvals being obtained” and that the council ”has not signed building plans”. The company said it began construction with the full knowledge of the council. But Rustenburg executive mayor Thabo Mabe and councillors denied such knowledge.
When contacted for comment last week Group Five’s George Piagalis said that all procedures had been followed. Piagalis said the project was under pressure to deliver units and ”construction began with full council knowledge. We are prepared to sue against any allegation that there was something untoward.”
”We have decided on our own accord to cease all construction activity effective 27th April 2002,” read Group Five’s letter to the council. Mabe assured the Mail & Guardian that he had instructed the developer to ”stop building immediately until all the regulations were adhered to”.
However, when the M&G visited the sites at Cashan Extension last week construction workers ploughed on uninterrupted and assured the M&G they would be working ”overtime this weekend as well”.
In an unusual incident two weeks ago someone in the council became suspicious when minutes of the meeting of April 30 showed a decision on ”Group Five Developments” even though the matter had not been discussed. According to sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, not even the council secretary was aware of the addition and ”an error of such nature, if indeed it was an error, was completely unprecedented and it raised enough suspicions”.
The council allegedly then played down the addition in the minutes as an ”administrative error” that had since been taken out. But the sources insist that someone in the council had added the item ”without the secretary’s knowledge”, and they ask ”why and how”.
City engineer Nick Pretorious denied an allegation that he gave verbal permission for developers to build and said the only reason he could imagine for the disregard of council procedure was that the developer was pressed for time. He added, ”we have given the developer several notices to stop building, if it continues to build, the next thing would be a court interdict”.
The matter will be discussed at a council meeting next week, said Mabe, while the portfolio committee, chaired by the ANC’s Tshepo Maifala, ”is considering Group Five’s current request for condonement”.