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- Police Minister Bheki Cele has been working from home for the past four years due to the state of the building that houses the SAPS headquarters in Pretoria.
- Last week, the building was evacuated and closed after it was found to be unfit for use.
- The public works department will also be conducting a forensic investigation.
Police Minister Bheki Cele says he has been working from home for the past four years due to the state of the Telkom Towers building, which houses the police's headquarters, according to GroundUp.
Briefing the Portfolio Committee on Police in Parliament on Wednesday, he referred to the building as the "terrible towers".
The Department of Public Works has launched an internal investigation into the mismanagement of the Telkom Towers complex as well as other properties owned by the department in Pretoria's city centre.
Last week, staff were evacuated after the building was declared uninhabitable. This followed an inspection by labour department officials, police management and Solidarity trade union a week ago.
READ | 'Unfit for human use': Cop building in Pretoria evacuated, closed but core policing not affected
The Auditor-General's office reported that only one of the nine buildings in the complex, bought by the government in 2016 for about R700 million, had ever been used by SAPS.
The Telkom Towers complex debacle dominated Wednesday's committee meeting.
Cele told MPs: "The thing is a disaster…We paid more money trying to fix that thing than the money that we paid for buying it."
He revealed that he has been working from home for the past four years due to the state of the building. "Police don't have a place to work," he said.
Cele told MPs:
Committee chairperson Albert Seabi (ANC) said: "Last week, we had the distressing news that the Telkom Towers complex had to be evacuated. It disrupts our services. The state of the building provided to police has been an area of concern. We were hopeful for meaningful intervention. Our officers must be enabled to fight crime."
"We are sitting with a minister who does not have an office," said Ntaoleng Peacock (ANC).
"We want to know when these police stations are going to be completed.
She said:
Ockert Terblanche (DA) agreed with Peacock. He added: "It's not only Telkom Towers in a crisis. We cannot have senior officials here dealing with buildings. They must be out on the street. I left the police 14 years ago, and the service from public works is even worse than when I left."
Public Works director-general Sifiso Mdakane told MPs that he "felt bad" that Cele didn't have an office. He said that arrangements for alternative accommodation for SAPS members are being made. "Our technical teams specifically looked at government buildings. We looked at the CSIR and Prasa to assist us with accommodation. That will give us enough time to fix the things that were raised."
ALSO READ | Police union cries foul on safety of SAPS headquarters
Mdakane committed to return to the committee with a detailed report in two weeks.
Speaking to GroundUp before the meeting, Public Works Minister Sihle Zikalala said the department's forensic investigation into Telkom Towers "will start soon" to determine "where things went wrong".
