Swimming SA under investigation over Franschhoek High Performance Centre debacle

The establishment of a Franschhoek High Performance Centre has been in the pipeline for close to a decade under Swimming South Africa (SSA). Yet there is nothing to show for it but a few derelict buildings and weeds.

Now SSA will face the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) to explain where more than R50-million in funds have disappeared to.

The project has been brought to a halt with corroding half-built infrastructure outlining what was intended to be built.

Faeces-covered bathrooms, vandalised walls, broken gates, swimming pools holding shallow puddles of sewage water, shattered windows and patchy knee-high grass form what is supposed to be the Franschhoek High Performance Centre.

This is all on the property of Franschhoek High School, one of the oldest government schools in the country.

SSA received funding from World Aquatics (around R8.5-million), the National Lotteries Commission (about R35-million) and The Sports Trust (about R6-million) to finance the project. The total cost of the project was set to be R111-million, with further private investment also supporting the project.

Promising venture

Once the Franschhoek High Performance Centre was up and running – which a section of it was, for a short period in 2023 – it aimed to be self-sustaining.

The income was to have come from star international junior athletes who would have received scholarships from World Aquatics. They would have occupied refurbished hostels at Franschhoek High School and been educated at the school, in a language of their choosing and in a curriculum they preferred.

The Franschhoek High Performance Centre would have been a hotbed for talented swimmers, at the time one of only four High Performance Centres worldwide accredited by World Aquatics. Other centres have since been approved.

The project, as initially laid out by sports development programme Train Camp, was perhaps too ambitious. The High Performance Centre was to be SSA’s national training base, while also housing SSA’s high school development programme, which aims to accelerate transformation in swimming.

Graham Hill, who was the South African national swimming coach for more than a decade and a former coach of Chad le Clos, was attached to the programme.

SSA collaborated with Train Camp, a company that had made big promises, to fulfil Franschhoek High School’s vision for sports facilities.

“The goal for the Aquatics Centre is to create a national training centre for South African swimming, and a training destination for international teams and clubs,” the original plan laid out by Train Camp read.

“To achieve that goal, the Centre will feature a heated 50m pool that is compliant with [World Aquatics] training specifications and standards – and able to host training camps, regional events and water polo matches.

“The existing 25m pool at the school is being refurbished and enclosed to create an indoor facility for warm-ups, winter training and access by the public through Train Camp’s membership programme.”

Broken relationships

The relationship between SSA, Franschhoek High School and Train Camp soured.

Accusations of corruption, stealing of funds and blackmail flew between the parties.

“Swimming South Africa will coordinate the overall project,” SSA’s 2023/23 annual report read. “Final details and agreements are still subject to negotiation and will be finalised in the current year.”

That was in 2024. In August of that year, the school terminated its lease with Train Camp. In turn, Train Camp established a developer’s lien against school facilities, including two hostels, claiming that the school had not fulfilled its contractual obligations.

Sources told Daily Maverick that the hostels and the few operational facilities had temporarily been in use before Franschhoek High School terminated its lease agreement with Train Camp.

Afterwards, the place was torn apart, some sources saying by Train Camp, leaving some windows at the hostels shattered in the process.

Toilets and sinks have been removed from bathrooms, furniture has been removed and doors have been unscrewed from their hinges.

Attempts to speak to Train Camp officials have been ignored.

At the time, SSA CEO Shaun Adrianse told News24 that the “first phase of the aquatic centre has been completed”, but the opening planned for March 2024 had been delayed due to storm damage in the previous September.

“The floods in 2023 resulted in damage to the first phase of construction of the aquatic complex, which had to be repaired. The initial plan was to open the centre in March 2024. We have revised the completion date to April 2025.”

It’s now nine months after the revised completion date, and the planned Franschhoek High Performance Centre is in poorer condition than before construction started.

Systemic failure

Train Camp now appears to exist only on social media. Its offices on the school grounds are empty, with dust piling up on counter tops.

“The team that developed the Train Camp brand and operating model secured the site in Franschhoek and was instrumental in concluding the agreement with World Aquatics,” Train Camp explained on social media to concerned residents about their falling out with SSA.

“However, the World Aquatics Development Centre is required to be administered by the national federation and Swimming SA (SSA) elected to support its obligations via grant funding from the National Lotteries Board – which raised a number of administrative challenges.

“There is a disparity between Train Camp’s vision and fundamental financial model and the one pursued by the federation – and since October 2022, Swimming SA and its partners have undertaken to complete the facilities.

“Any queries about progress are best directed to the federation. The Centre in Franschhoek will not operate under the Train Camp brand – which has renewed its focus on athletes and training camps,” Train Camp said.

SSA has not responded to multiple requests from Daily Maverick for comment on the Franschhoek High Performance Centre.

The National Lotteries Commission’s (NLC) email response by NLC Commissioner Jodi Scholz to the squandering of the about R35-million it provided to SSA is as follows:

“The Swimming SA matter is currently on the list of SIU (​​Special Investigating Unit) investigations, therefore the NLC will not provide any commentary response at this stage until the matter is … finalised and [a] report is provided by the SIU.”

According to the SIU, SSA received its funding from the NLC in 2023: “…the investigation is at an early and sensitive stage, so we cannot delve into the details of the probe,” SIU spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago told Daily Maverick.

Sinking ship

Train Camp and Franschhoek High School began their collaboration after the sports development company sponsored the school’s first XV rugby team kit in 2018.

Alongside the swimming programme, Train Camp had planned to run a rugby development programme at the school, with the aim of nurturing future black Springboks.

The plan for the swimming programme was to initially enrol international World Aquatics scholarship pupils at the school and begin the programme from the 2023 academic year. The aim was for the programme to benefit the local community, and to help lower school fees at Franschhoek High School via the income generated by the project.

The Franschhoek High Performance Centre received initial support from the Western Cape Education MEC David Maynier. But in a recent communication with Daily Maverick, the Western Cape Education Department appears to know few details of the project.

“The school previously signed a contract with an organisation, Train Camp, that was due to develop a high-performance sports centre at the school,” spokesperson for Maynier Kerry Mauchline said.

“However, due to funding challenges, the project was not completed by the organisation and the contract was terminated.

“We are advised that Swimming SA is now assisting in the completion of the project, subject to sourcing the required funding. The timeline for completion has thus not been confirmed yet.”

The state of the Franschhoek High School facility can only be described as post-apocalyptic after plans for a facility where top-flight sporting prowess could have been developed went awry – a project that never took off and never reached any acclaim.

It achieved only promises that, to this point, remain as empty as two swimming pools filled with shallow sewage water. DM