‘338 government buildings hijacked’

Public Works and Infrastructure Minister, Dean MacPherson says 338 government buildings across the country have been hijacked.

He briefed the media in Parliament on his first eight weeks in office.

The department owns about 88,000 buildings and is embarking on an audit to determine an accurate asset register.

MacPherson says a plan is needed.

He says, “There clearly is a need to conceptualise what the state wants to do with its assets. If there are 338 buildings that have been hijacked and I met with the mayor of eThekwini this week which also dealt with a number of bad buildings there, it’s clear that the state doesn’t use all of these buildings and never will. So, we then we need to be optimising them, rationalising them and disposing of them, call it what you will, but what we can’t allow is (that) our buildings contribute to crime,”  MacPherson adds.

VIDEO | About 338 government buildings in SA hijacked: