Statement by Brett Herron, Member of the Western Cape Legislature and Secretary-General of the GOOD Party
18 August 2020
A-G ASKED TO INVESTIGATE CAPE TOWN’S LUDICROUS R44M TENT HIRE BILL
Who scored the contracts for the Strandfontein homeless persons internment camp?
Answers to questions posed in the provincial legislature to Western Cape MEC for Local Government, Anton Bredell, have revealed tens of millions of Rands of wastage on the City of Cape Town’s disastrous homeless persons internment camp.
The facility operated from the beginning of April until mid-May 2020, a period of about six weeks.
It was roundly condemned by organisations including the globally respected Medicins Sans Frontieres as inhumane and degrading. Bredell has now revealed some of the costs. I will be asking follow-up questions to prise more information from the MEC, and will refer the matter to the Office of the Auditor-General for investigation.
According to Bredell’s answers to date:
- The total cost of the ill-conceived operation amounted to at least R53m
- That’s approximately R26 500 per person (most of whom did not even stay at the camp throughout the six-week period), or a nightly rate of R520 per person to sleep in a marquee on a muddy field
- 90% of the cost, or R48.4m, was incurred by the City’s Safety and Security Directorate
- It cost R43.8m to hire the marquees, and R3.5 million was spent on security
- Transport came in at a cool R450 000, or about R225 per person per bus ride
- Matrasses cost an additional R376 000, water and sewage another R238 000 and “decontamination”, R18 000
At least one women was raped in those tents, and another allegedly gang-raped.
Guest houses or hotels would have cost less, supported the local hospitality industry, and provided better, safer accommodation. And using Uber would have halved the transport bill while supporting local drivers.
The internment camp absorbed 90% of Cape Town’s spending on the homeless during the first phase of the State of Disaster. The city also spent R4.3m funding shelters.
That the Strandfontein camp was ill-conceived was obvious from Day One. I visited the camp on the day it was established, and was almost besieged by homeless people begging me to help them leave.
I do not believe the camp was set up out of concern for homeless people. Instead, it was an vehicle for Mayor of Cape Town Dan Plato and MMC JP Smith to opportunistically implement their ideological dream to remove poor people from the inner city to the fringes of the Metro, where they are out of sight.
From the figures MEC Bredell was forced to reveal, it appears the camp may have also served the purpose of funnelling money to so-called Covidpreneurs.
Bredell has yet to disclose who the tents were procured from or what process was used to select contractors, but the R43 million rental price tag appears grossly inflated.
For R43.8 million, the City could have bought and renovated a 13 000m2 warehouse to create additional permanent shelter spaces.
Many unanswered questions remain. In the meantime, I am requesting the Auditor-General to investigate whether the costs of the camp represented fair value for ratepayers and whether lawful contracting processes were followed.
Ends…