GOVERNMENT has so little control over its property that not even State House belongs to it.The Registrar of Deeds, Dana Beukes, yesterday blew the lid on the real state of affairs of Government fixed assets at a Parliamentary Committee hearing, while Works officials either feigned ignorance or downplayed their lack of control over the situation.
Beukes said Government had failed to ensure that much of the property it supposedly owns is registered as such with his office, nor had it transferred property inherited from the colonial dispensation into the name of the present Government. As a result, Beukes said, State House and the country’s army bases, for example, were still legally documented as belonging to the South African government.The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Accounts demanded an updated asset register from the Ministry of Works, Transport and Communication and answers as to how the fixed-asset management division planned to spend the millions budgeted over the next three years.Government’s failure to have its property surveyed, especially in the case of houses, means that these too are not registered with the Deeds Office.”I don’t know how Government has been re-allocating property.It’s a risky business if the property is not registered first.Government cannot say, ‘this is our property’,” said Beukes.He explained that the very office in which he works is not registered as a separate entity and forms part of a block which includes an adjacent school.Many of the Government houses built next to each other in Windhoek are also considered one entity with one erf number and not registered as individual Government properties with the Deeds Office.Beukes said from his office’s records, it was very difficult to gain an accurate picture of exactly how much property Government owns.Property in an unproclaimed area, he said, would naturally also not be registered with the Deeds Office.The committee was also told that Government could be challenged for its lax attitude of not entering into lease agreements with tenants of its properties.Beukes said this could be done as easily as registering a lease with his office.He said Government could find itself in quite a pickle, should prescription laws kick in which would automatically give the property to tenants of longer than three years whose rent had not been collected, or those who had lived in the property for at least 30 years without a lease.Works Undersecretary Ben Kathindi appeared visibly surprised.”The claims are coming.People are talking about it.Government will sit with their pants around their knees,” warned Beukes.On the illegal occupation of State property, Kathindi passed the buck to the Police, to whom he said the cases had been handed over.He said since the Minister’s announcement that squatters move out or face eviction some months ago, the keys of four out of 14 properties in Windhoek had been handed back to Government.”People vacate [the houses] and give the keys to their friends and relatives,” said Kathindi, adding that his Ministry was not informed when civil servants left the service or transferred to another Government Ministry.Kathindi arrived at the hearing late, bringing with him his Ministry’s version of the fixed-property register.The committee took particular issue with the Ministry’s plans to spend more than N$1 million this financial year to get its asset register on track.Beukes said he failed to understand why the Ministry of Works was once again conducting an audit of Government property as this had already been done by a Cabinet-instructed committee in 1994 and could only be updated.Former Works Deputy Director for Fixed Assets Robert Kalomoh said he could not say whether that document had been used by the fixed-asset management department, as was only appointed there in 1997.He was recently transferred to Railway Infrastructure Management and said he could thus not answer many of the questions posed to him by the committee.Kathindi maintained that the fixed-asset management division was grossly understaffed and consultants needed to be hired to perform basic operations.”The level of decision making [in this division] is so important that it warrants a director,” said Kathindi.He said at least five posts were vacant and had been frozen in that division, and that it was being run by three very junior staff members.In each of the financial years 2003-04 and 2004-05 the fixed asset management had a budget of N$1 million.A further N$2 million is being budgeted for the next two financial years.”What is this money for if you have got all that information in the book?” committee Chairperson Johan de Waal wanted to know.Former Works Minister Moses Amweelo, now also on the public accounts committee, scrambled to defend his former subordinates from the sharp questioning of the committee.He said surveyors in other Government ministries were too tied up with their own work to help with the surveying that needed to be done by Works.”They need an independent person to survey and speed up the process,” said Amweelo.Amweelo also owned up to appointing a committee during his time as Works Minister, which was partly tasked to work on the fixed asset register.But he maintained that they were also looking at “other issues”, which he did not name, and were not repeating the work of other committees who in the past had drawn up an asset register of Government properties.As a result, Beukes said, State House and the country’s army bases, for example, were still legally documented as belonging to the South African government.The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Accounts demanded an updated asset register from the Ministry of Works, Transport and Communication and answers as to how the fixed-asset management division planned to spend the millions budgeted over the next three years.Government’s failure to have its property surveyed, especially in the case of houses, means that these too are not registered with the Deeds Office.”I don’t know how Government has been re-allocating property.It’s a risky business if the property is not registered first.Government cannot say, ‘this is our property’,” said Beukes.He explained that the very office in which he works is not registered as a separate entity and forms part of a block which includes an adjacent school.Many of the Government houses built next to each other in Windhoek are also considered one entity with one erf number and not registered as individual Government properties with the Deeds Office.Beukes said from his office’s records, it was very difficult to gain an accurate picture of exactly how much property Government owns.Property in an unproclaimed area, he said, would naturally also not be registered with the Deeds Office.The committee was also told that Government could be challenged for its lax attitude of not entering into lease agreements with tenants of its properties.Beukes said this could be done as easily as registering a lease with his office.He said Government could find itself in quite a pickle, should prescription laws kick in which would automatically give the property to tenants of longer than three years whose rent had not been collected, or those who had lived in the property for at least 30 years without a lease.Works Undersecretary Ben Kathindi appeared visibly surprised.”The claims are coming.People are talking about it.Government will sit with their pants around their knees,” warned Beukes.On the illegal occupation of State property, Kathindi passed the buck to the Police, to whom he said the cases had been handed over.He said since the Minister’s announcement that squatters move out or face eviction some months ago, the keys of four out of 14 properties in Windhoek had been handed back to Government.”People vacate [the houses] and give the keys to their friends and relatives,” said Kathindi, adding that his Ministry was not informed when civil servants left the service or transferred to another Government Ministry.Kathindi arrived at the hearing late, bringing with him his Ministry’s version of the fixed-property register.The committee
took particular issue with the Ministry’s plans to spend more than N$1 million this financial year to get its asset register on track.Beukes said he failed to understand why the Ministry of Works was once again conducting an audit of Government property as this had already been done by a Cabinet-instructed committee in 1994 and could only be updated.Former Works Deputy Director for Fixed Assets Robert Kalomoh said he could not say whether that document had been used by the fixed-asset management department, as was only appointed there in 1997.He was recently transferred to Railway Infrastructure Management and said he could thus not answer many of the questions posed to him by the committee.Kathindi maintained that the fixed-asset management division was grossly understaffed and consultants needed to be hired to perform basic operations.”The level of decision making [in this division] is so important that it warrants a director,” said Kathindi.He said at least five posts were vacant and had been frozen in that division, and that it was being run by three very junior staff members.In each of the financial years 2003-04 and 2004-05 the fixed asset management had a budget of N$1 million.A further N$2 million is being budgeted for the next two financial years.”What is this money for if you have got all that information in the book?” committee Chairperson Johan de Waal wanted to know.Former Works Minister Moses Amweelo, now also on the public accounts committee, scrambled to defend his former subordinates from the sharp questioning of the committee.He said surveyors in other Government ministries were too tied up with their own work to help with the surveying that needed to be done by Works.”They need an independent person to survey and speed up the process,” said Amweelo.Amweelo also owned up to appointing a committee during his time as Works Minister, which was partly tasked to work on the fixed asset register.But he maintained that they were also looking at “other issues”, which he did not name, and were not repeating the work of other committees who in the past had drawn up an asset register of Government properties.
