Parliament Probes R430m Paid for Stalled Syferfontein Mega Housing Project
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South Africa's Parliament has demanded answers over about R430 million paid to a consultancy for the stalled Syferfontein Mega City housing development southwest of Soweto, which has been idle for about a decade.
Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Human Settlements is probing the Syferfontein Mega City housing project southwest of Soweto, which has remained stalled before construction despite about R430 million having been paid to Lesedi Technical Engineering Consulting, formerly known as LTE Consulting.
The project covers about 3,500 hectares in the West Rand and was planned as a large mixed-use development with more than 60,000 potential housing units, as well as commercial, retail and social facilities. The committee heard an update from the Gauteng MEC for Human Settlements on the inquiry, including questions about the R430 million paid to LTE, owned by Thulani Majola, and the financial management of the Gauteng Partnership Fund.
The City of Johannesburg informed the committee that LTE had not contacted the relevant landowner or requested the power of attorney required to proceed with the township establishment process. Committee member Thulani Gamede questioned why substantial payments had been made when critical conditions for the project had not been secured.
Township establishment and environmental approvals were among the prerequisites in the project's readiness process, and questions were raised over whether some of those approvals had since lapsed and who was responsible. The site falls within the jurisdictions of Rand West City and the City of Johannesburg, and the provincial government attributed some of the delays to an administrative backlog involving powers of attorney.
Since 2014, LTE has received more than R938 million for more than 25 housing projects in Gauteng, according to information presented to the committee. Projects including Diepsloot East, Simunye Extension 2 and Bikoville were cited in earlier reports. The committee also examined Nonkwelo Investments, which secured a loan from the Gauteng Partnership Fund for a project that was not fulfilled; the fund said it had pursued recovery processes involving land provided as security, with the process under way since 2020.
For Syferfontein, the immediate questions remain who was responsible for the lapsed approvals, why substantial public funds were spent before the project was ready to proceed, and how much of the money, if any, can still be recovered.