Despite R57m in maintenance, Gqeberha police barracks remain ‘a horror show’

Standing in the passageway of the Sterrenberg building of the Algoa Park police barracks, Minister for Public Works and Infrastructure Dean Macpherson looked through the window of a flat that had been gutted by a fire in 2020.

Other than the unit’s front door being boarded up, no repairs have taken place. The inside of the flat is still scorched, with paint peeling from the walls and the remains of a burnt-out mattress on the floor.  

The walls in the corridor of the ground floor are still covered in a layer of soot, and melted plastic light fittings droop from the ceiling.

“This is a disaster,” Macpherson said, seemingly gobsmacked by the state of the barracks.

This gutted unit is just one example of how the facility in Nelson Mandela Bay has been left to rot, with no evidence of maintenance despite reports of millions of rand being poured into its upkeep.

“What I saw here at Algoa Park is deeply disturbing. This is a residential accommodation for police officers, but what is before us is more a horror show than a place that is fit for human habitation,” Macpherson said.

The concerns around the two blocks of flats, namely Gamtoos and Sterrenberg next door to the Algoa Park police station, have been a contentious issue for years, but were brought back into the spotlight in June when the DA in Nelson Mandela Bay conducted an oversight visit prompted by concerned residents.

No access control, dark corridors, broken lifts, rat-infested garages, fire hydrants that have not been serviced since 2021, flats hijacked by residents not in the police service – a laundry list of issues compounded by a lack of management and maintenance.

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Since then these issues have been raised with the department as well as the police, with each in turn pointing fingers at the other as the guilty party.

However, standing in the dark lobby of the Gamtoos building on Tuesday morning, Macpherson said his department could not run away from its responsibility as the custodian of state-owned buildings.

That said, Macpherson stated that the budget had to come from the coffers of the SAPS, which is where the “conundrum” lies.

“As the custodians of all state assets we are responsible for them and their maintenance, but that becomes difficult if we don’t have that budget.

“That doesn’t mean we can just put our hands in the air and say there is no money, so nothing can be done. We need to liaise and ensure that we can commit those budgets over multi-year programmes.

“We must take accountability and responsibility,” Macpherson said.

After DA mayoral candidate for Nelson Mandela Bay Retief Odendaal wrote to the minister about the condition of the facility, Macpherson responded in August saying that officials from his department had conducted assessments, and that initial estimates for repairs were in the region of R38-million.

For context

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Reporting back to the minister on Tuesday, after further profiling the barracks and its history, a department official stated that R57-million had been poured into the facility across two maintenance projects in recent years.

She said R34-million was spent between 2011 and 2012, while a further R23-million was spent between 2017 and 2019.

Despite these amounts being spent, the lifts had not been operational for seven years having been decommissioned after it was found that residents dumped their trash down the shafts, and the fire hydrants had not been serviced in the past five years.

“I cannot see where that money was spent. I would like to know where that money was spent and on what,” the minister said.

“Simply throwing money at a problem solves nothing. Without a management plan it can actually exacerbate the problem. We need to know where that money went, and we need to ensure that we don’t repeat the same mistakes.”

Macpherson was joined by Eastern Cape deputy police commissioner in charge of Support Services, Major-General Nolitha Tito.

While she did not make any remarks regarding budget availability for the upkeep of the barracks, or about allegations that non-SAPS members were occupying the buildings, she said the department alone was not at fault, adding that the police members living there lacked discipline “like in the old days”.

“The conduct of our members is obviously in question, and many behave like they are not police officers. There is clearly a lack of discipline among the members staying in the barracks.”

Having visited the facility before, Tito said many of the units were in good condition as the residents looked after their families and took care of their own property. However, she said it seemed they lacked care and discipline when it came to the communal areas.

She hoped that a solution could be found in collaboration with the department soon, citing fears that the Algoa Park barracks might suffer the same fate as the Botha Sigcau Building in Mthatha, which was gutted by a fire in March this year.

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At the time of the fire the historic government building was abandoned after it was deemed unsafe for occupation due to an extensive list of maintenance issues, many of them similar to the faults now evident at the police barracks.

Macpherson said the first step in restoring the facilities would be to conduct a full audit of the people occupying the barracks, and whether or not they met the criteria to live there, which would take place over the next 14 days.

Subsequently, the department would compile a “rectification plan” to address the most obvious health and safety issues, including access control, fire safety equipment, dysfunctional lifts, lighting and several other key points.

Ultimately, he said, the department and SAPS would conduct “bilateral engagements on funding”.

“I just cannot accept that this is what our assets look like. Our assets must be respected, we must be proud of our assets, and they must serve the country’s interests. And this is certainly not in the country’s interests right now,” Macpherson said.

Odendaal, who initially raised the issues around the barracks with Macpherson, said he was eager to see how the department would address the situation.

“I am convinced that the police have lost control of who is staying in these flats, and that is why it is important that we see the outcome of that audit so that action, and possibly evictions, can take place.

“The barracks is just one example of problem buildings in Nelson Mandela Bay, and we hope to see this example, as well as the broader issue, addressed,” Odendaal said. DM