Our great public disgrace

I wonder if this government of ours will ever learn that work done by the private sector tends to be done properly while work done by government agencies so often contains elements of fraud, corruption and graft. And eventually leads to abject project failure.

In the suburbs of South Africa we have private sector policing companies, known variously as community patrols, security companies or armed response organisations. For those individuals that can afford the costs, armed response largely replaces the police force (at a national or metropolitan level).

For heaven's sake, even some of the police stations are protected by ADT?

Our public health sector has all but fallen apart and so the wealthy individuals use private medical aids to ensure proper medical treatment. Why this reliance on private clinics? Because the public health service is useless.

In the latest idiotic example of government reasoning, the government has now established the Housing Development Agency (a pipe-dream of former Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu who is now heading the Defence portfolio having failed dismally as a housing minister).

The Housing Development Agency was supposed to take over all the projects being handled by Thubelisha Homes – described as an albatross around the neck of Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale.

Thubelisha, established by Sisulu, was responsible for, among others, the flop that is called the N2 Gateway project. It cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of rands and left disheartened residents living in homes with gaping holes in the walls.

Itumeleng Kotsoane, director general of Human Settlements, was given R241,5m to shut down the technically insolvent Thubelisha homes. He appointed John Duarte as the chief executive of Thubelisha and provided him with the mandate to shut down the business.

In August this year Kotsoane also told the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) that structural defects at the N2 Gateway project were being attended to.

Apparently though, this was nonsense, since a site visit by Scopa in September showed that little repair work had been done, walls still had gaping holes in them, the electricity cables and plumbing pipes were exposed and some walls had actually collapsed.

In fact, Themba Godi, chairman of Scopa said that it was clear to the committee that they were being "deliberately misled" by officials from the Human Settlements Department.

Meanwhile John Duarte, given the specific task of shutting down the failed agency, set out to take over certain of the projects for his own private company and allegedly spent tens of thousands of Thubelisha's funds on flights to sites around the country so that his company PTY407 could take on the work that Thubelisha had started but never completed.

This was allegedly done at government expense. What a way to set up a new business: on the one hand, close down a company and on the other take over the "good" projects for your own account.

Now John Duarte just happens to be married to Jessie Duarte, the chief operating officer in President Jacob Zuma's office, and his task should be to close down Thubelisha in such a way that government, as its sole shareholder, gets the maximum benefit from these project closures.

At the same time he allegedly plans to take over, for his private benefit, some of the projects that might still be viable and run those from now on.

It seems to me that he'd be buying houses that are partly built, finishing them off by spending a couple of million on them, and then getting the full benefit of the existing contract without even going through a tender process.

That seems like a pretty good get-rich-quick scheme to me.

And, I think that that represents a rather severe conflict of interests by anyone's standards. Yet the government, along with Human Settlements DG, Kotsoane, doesn't seem to think there is anything wrong with this arrangement.

The full details of all these dealings were exposed in the Mail & Guardian article published last week.

For me the main problem is that government, instead of learning from the blunders made by Lindiwe Sisulu and her cohorts who established the Thubelisha agency, has promptly repeated the blunder by creating, under the same minister, a new Housing Development Agency to repeat the mess made by Thubelisha.

Some readers might say that I'm being unfair because the Housing Development Agency must be given a chance to prove its worth or otherwise. But I ask myself why?

There is already ample evidence throughout the country – and in many different government departments – that government-controlled agencies such as this simply do not deliver value and certainly don't get the work done efficiently and properly.

Private sector companies, responsible to real shareholders, with limited funds and tough business practices, ensure that work is done properly and quickly. ADT and Chubb would not have a business if we had an efficient police force. Discovery and Medscheme would not be in business if the health services functioned properly.

The list of private sector businesses that have taken over public services and made them work is almost endless.

So why the reticence by government – and Human Settlements leader Tokyo Sexwale – to stop the creation of government agencies to handle work that is better done by privately owned companies?

Government's goal is quite clear: to provide low cost houses to millions of homeless people around South Africa. Government's records of achievements in this field are at best poor, if not hopeless.

And the controlling bodies for these projects have been the individual agencies formed by government – and in some cases by the provinces and the local authorities as well.

What's the common denominator in the poor record of housing delivery, housing quality and housing sustainability?

Simple: it's the government and its many agencies.

In my opinion virtually all these agencies are useless, are incapable of adjudicating and awarding tenders, cannot pay contractors on time and cannot ensure a decent standard of workmanship either.

Whether for housing or for computer infrastructure.

Government agencies all have a poor record of performance, service delivery and administration.

And we, as the even poorer taxpayers have to keep footing the bill.

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