M&G Ranking

Patricia de Lille has struggled with legacy issues since 2019; however, relevant stakeholders and MPs are growing impatient that they remain unsolved. 

Staff vacancies, slow personnel transformation, faulty budget reporting and long-term mishandling of state assets all continue to impair the performance of the department. Just a sample of the resultant cost was highlighted when De Lille revealed through a parliamentary question that her department had to foot the bill for rates and services of 1 300 illegally occupied properties.

After the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic — and the wreckage of the economy — the department has taken on the economic reconstruction and recovery plan. To that end ,De Lille has served as a good figurehead: talking up a R340-billion commitment from the private sector, the promise of new projects worth R600-billion to pitch to the market and hinting at new research and development into President Cyril Ramaphosa’s dream of building the first “new city” during democracy.

The counterweight to that talk is that the department’s portfolio committee remains concerned about underspending — R193-million was noted in the last tabled quarterly budget report. Although the pandemic remains an obvious cause for construction slowdown, MPs are unwilling to accept that as an excuse.

Concurrently, the auditor general — despite issuing an unqualified audit — has lamented unresolved noncompliance issues dating back to previous financial years.