Buffalo City wastes millions on vanity projects while essential infrastructure crumbles

Infrastructure at the ill-fated Water World project on East London’s poorer West Bank stands vandalised and decaying. The contractor walked away in April 2023 following a dispute. It has reportedly cost ratepayers R125-million so far, and it would take more than R40-million to rehabilitate and complete. Photos: Steve Kretzmann

• The latest Auditor-General’s report, for the 2023/24 financial year, reveals that Buffalo City racked up R1.32-billion in irregular expenditure, about 10% of its total budget.
• The City has R10.55-billion in irregular expenditure over the past five years, yet there have been no investigations and not a single cent recovered by the municipality.
• Two projects to increase tourism form part of this irregular expenditure.
• Meanwhile, failure to treat sewage and maintain infrastructure is polluting East London’s natural scenic tourism attractions.

Just off the back straight of East London’s famed Grand Prix racetrack, a R103-million-budgeted project to promote tourism and uplift the City’s West Bank area lies in ruins. The abandoned Water World project has a large semi-circular tidal pool with islands and play ships. It has numerous shallow children’s pools and slides suitable for a range of ages, a skate park, climbing wall, and an amphitheatre. It also has ample parking and trading areas.

Together with the racing circuit, which hosted the country’s first international Grand Prix prior to World War II and is still used for national races, Water World was to be a drawcard for the West Bank, which has historically been seen as the wrong side of the tracks, or in this case, the Buffalo River.

The project was meant to be completed by the end of 2021 but came to a halt in April 2023, following disputes with the contractor – Mvusuludzo Projects.

Security was appointed about six months later. In the meantime, much of what was built was vandalised or stripped, including two JCB diggers. Almost R1-million in building materials, such as bags of cement and marbelite, were left to the elements.

Ratepayers have reportedly shelled out R125-million on the project. It was so badly managed that the municipality could not reclaim R10-million on the performance guarantee from the contractor, because the insurer was not an authorised financial services provider. This failure to check basic requirements was reported to Parliament in January by Eastern Cape acting business unit leader for the Auditor General, Thobile Ntetha.

He also reported that the municipality failed to impose R2.3-million in penalties on the contractor for not meeting extended completion deadlines. Ntetha said it would cost at least another R42-million to fix and complete the project.

Parliament was told the Bid Adjudication Committee was not properly composed. As a result, the entire contract was irregular.

For the same reason, the controversial Court Crescent recreational park project, nicknamed the “stoep” by locals, was irregular.

Dubbed “the stoep” by locals, the Buffalo Municipality spent R100-million on this esplanade project. The Auditor-General ruled that the entire contract was irregular.

Situated on the city’s scenic esplanade, “the stoep” involved about 1.5 hectares of paving, trading stalls, ablution facilities, children’s play areas, a spray park, and outdoor gyms.

The R88-million contract rose to R100-million, and a consultant was paid more than R12-million. The contract was also not awarded to the bidder that scored the highest points, Nthetha told Parliament. The project opened in November 2023, more than three years behind schedule.

The Daily Dispatch reported the park has since been targeted by vandals and thieves who have ripped out lamp posts and cables, and the public toilets were closed for five months because the City lacked funds for toilet paper and cleaning supplies. The trading stalls were never allocated, and have been taken over by homeless people.

While these tourism projects have depleted the City coffers, essential services such as sewage treatment and infrastructure are failing, resulting in pollution of the city’s natural attractions – its beaches and rivers.

Beach closures

East London’s best known natural attractions, Nahoon beach and river, have been regularly polluted by sewage spills. So far this year there have been at least ten spills into the Ihlanza River – nicknamed the Turdy River – which flows out at Nahoon beach, near the Nahoon River mouth. Four of these were serious enough and of long enough duration to necessitate the municipality closing the beach for days at a time.

These spills have been documented by Dean Knox, whose company, Jonginenge Eco-Adventure, operates from the lifesaving club building at Nahoon beach.

Knox documented seven spills in 2024, with continuous spillages in November and December keeping the beach closed for four out of six weeks during “prime tourist season”.

Spillages such as these were “tourism killers”, says Knox.

While some of the sewage spills Knox has documented were due to vandalism, cable theft, and blockages in the sewer line caused by people throwing foreign objects such as rags and rubble into the sewerage system, others were caused by the lack of a backup generator during power outages. According to the Auditor-General, a lack of upgrades to manage increasing volumes has also played its part.

The Auditor-General identified the municipality’s failure to prevent pollution of a “water resource” as a material irregularity.

The Auditor-General said the pipeline for sewage pumped to the East Bank treatment plant is inadequate and has not been upgraded in line with an increasing population.

“Uncontrollable expansion of informal settlements have further overwhelmed the current reticulation systems,” stated the Auditor-General. Sewage spills in Nompumelelo, a township within the Nahoon catchment, were also noted.

The municipal manager was notified of the material irregularity on 23 May 2023, and responded on 8 June 2023, advising the Auditor-General of the reasons for the sewage pollution, and the plan to address it. But a follow-up visit almost a year later (on 29 April 2024) revealed that pollution continued along the Nahoon sewer line, violating the National Environmental Management Act.

Knox said the municipality has since upgraded the Ihlanza pump station, which has been the source of many of the spills onto Nahoon beach.

Drinking water source contaminated

Sewage treatment works are supposed to treat wastewater and then release the treated effluent into rivers or directly to the sea. The minimum standards for treated effluent are such that a person should be able to paddle or wade in it without ill effects. Not one of Buffalo City’s 15 sewage treatment works meet this minimum standards.

As a result, East London’s main source of drinking water, the Bridle Drift Dam on the Buffalo River, is being contaminated by untreated, or partially treated, effluent.

The Potsdam and Mdantsane sewage works release effluent directly into the Bridle Drift Dam, while Schornville and Zwelitsha sewage works in Qonce (formerly King William’s Town) release effluent into the Buffalo River upstream of the dam.

The effluent quality from the sewage works are captured on the Department of Water and Sanitation’s Integrated Regulatory Information System (IRIS). All sewage works are mandated to test their effluent and upload the results to IRIS at least once a month.

With 0% compliance across all four effluent quality indicators, it appears the Potsdam and Schornville plant are not even reporting their effluent quality.

Mdantsane and Zwelitsha appear to have some functionality, with results for chemical and physical compliance reported, but both have 0% for microbiological compliance, which is the presence of faecal bacteria such as E. coli in the effluent released into the dam.

Beyond the sewage spills polluting the Nahoon estuary and beach, the East Bank and Gonubie sewage works release effluent straight into the sea. Both of these fail to meet the effluent quality standards, despite East Bank being the best-run sewage works in the municipality.

The stream of effluent flowing into the sea from the Gonubie sewage works is visibly untreated. it is black and stinking. The surrounding beach is strewn with plastic.

The lack of sewage treatment is clearly evident in the stinking black water the Gonubie sewage treatment works releases into the ocean. All 15 of the municipality’s sewage treatment works fall far short of minimum standards.

Water and electricity losses

Buffalo City bought about R2.3-billion worth of electricity from Eskom in the 2023/24 financial year. Of this, almost a quarter (R556-million) was lost. The Auditor-General notes that 14% of the City’s electricity is lost due to theft, faults and billing errors, a further 10% is simply unaccounted for.

The Special Investigating Unit is investigating procurement irregularities in the electricity department.

The municipality also lost 38% of the water it purchases from Amatola Water. This amounted to R148-million in water losses, an increase of R4.5-million from the previous financial year. While theft, faults, and billing errors accounted for about R58-million of this, the bulk of the losses were due to leaks.

Government’s national No Drop Report published in 2023 noted Buffalo City lacked a proper strategy to manage water consumption against demand, and did not have a comprehensive business plan or budget to properly repair and maintain its reticulation system.

A longstanding water leak has resulted in deep potholes forming on Buffalo Street in the East London city centre. The municipality loses almost 40% of the water it buys from Amatola Water.

Profligate spending

The Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality racked up R1.3-billion in irregular expenditure in the 2023/24 financial year, representing 10% of its total budget. Following a write-off of R1.6-billion, this brought the accumulated irregular expenditure over five years to R10.6-billion.

Over the 2021/22 financial year, which was the period of the last local government elections in which the ANC took 59% of the vote in Buffalo City, irregular expenditure amounted to R5.4-billion, about half the municipality’s total budget.

As of the Auditor-General’s latest report, not a cent of the accumulated R10.6-billion had been recovered or was in the process of being recovered. There was also no investigation by the municipality to determine liability for this expenditure.

A pile of refuse on the corner of East London’s Oxford Street and Park Avenue. The garbage had been there long enough for it to have been burned by informal scrap reclaimers. Illegal dumping and a lack of sufficient refuse removal and cleaning is evident throughout the city.

A climbing wall is one of numerous abandoned attractions at the incomplete water world project on East London’s West Bank. The project, from which the contractor walked away in April 2023 following a dispute, has reportedly cost ratepayers R125-million so far, and it would take more than R40-million to rehabilitate and complete.

Support independent journalism
Donate using Payfast