Wasted millions: KwaMhlanga abattoir and Tshwane resort left to rot

More than two decades after public funds were first committed to develop a public abattoir in KwaMhlanga, Mpumalanga, the facility has become a stark example of what Public Service Commission chair Prof Somadoda Fikeni called the “political economy of inefficiency”.

During his testimony before the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry, he said the country was a “cemetery of policies”.

He pointed out that SA’s problem was not necessarily a shortage of policies, laws or institutions, but a failure to translate them into tangible outcomes.

KwaMhlanga abattoir left unused for decades

The KwaMhlanga abattoir arguably provides a striking local example of the broader problem described by Fikeni.

The project was meant to benefit the public, millions were committed, the facility built, equipped and then left to rot.

The abattoir was already a funded municipal development in 2005, when the Thembisile Hani municipality told the parliamentary monitoring group that the project had received approximately R1.5 million from the department of provincial and local government’s local economic development fund, while Nkangala district municipality contributed more than R1 million.

The project was envisaged as a 20-cattle-a day abattoir, with goats also to be slaughtered, and was designed as a local economic development project.

An operator provided through the Agricultural and Horticultural Institute was expected to train local people who would eventually take over the operation after three years.

The municipality also planned an investigation into the feasibility of processing animal byproducts but, more than 20 years later, the facility stands unused.

Across the road is a wastewater treatment plant. Local residents say the location has effectively doomed the abattoir, with the odour from the wastewater works making it difficult to operate.

“A game meat dealer operated from the facility for several months before abandoning it. They cited the unbearable odour from the wastewater treatment works as the main reason for leaving,” said local resident Vusi Thubana.

Regulations governing general hygiene requirements for food premises allow an abattoir to be sited next to a wastewater treatment plant, but only if the facility can strictly prove that sewage odours, pests and airborne bacteria will not compromise safety and hygiene.

Further spending failed to revive project

Local resident Vusi Borholo, who worked on the early stages of the construction project, said the facility was a waste of public funds.

“What will happen next is we will start stripping the facility because it means nothing to us,” he said.

According to municipal documents, more than R2.5 million was subsequently spent on the abattoir, including new cold room facilities and efforts to mobilise farmers.

The 2005 municipal presentation, titled “Levels of service delivery in rural municipalities”, is significant because it shows that the abattoir was not a new idea in 2018.

It was already receiving public funding and had a defined economic development model more than a decade earlier.

The document records the planned operating capacity, skills transfer component and proposed slaughtering of cattle and goats.

On paper, the project had a formula for a successful local economic development initiative: public funding, private sector participation, skills transfer, livestock production and a defined processing capacity.

Thembisile Hani municipality had not responded to questions by the time of publication.

Tshwane resort highlights wider infrastructure concerns

This is not an isolated case. In Tshwane, the Ga-Mothakga recreation resort in Atteridgeville, west of Pretoria, provides another example of public recreational infrastructure barely delivering its intended benefits.

The City of Tshwane’s own 2024-25 oversight report records theft and vandalism of youth camps at Ga-Mothakga, alongside broader problems affecting the city’s resorts, including inadequate security, maintenance backlogs, overloaded septic tanks, blocked drains, flooding, roof leaks and insufficient lighting.

A Tshwane report has also previously recorded Ga-Mothakga as one of the city’s 12 resorts.

The city’s resort network recorded almost 97 726 visitors during the 2022-23 financial year and generated about R14.75 million in revenue, demonstrating the potential economic value of functioning recreational infrastructure.

However, the resort has been largely neglected, with the chalets stripped bare and roofing stolen.

The facility also houses the SS Mendi memorial, which honours the 616 South Africans, mostly black troops of the South African Native Labour Corps, who drowned when the SS Mendi sank in the English Channel on 21 February, 1917.

Tshwane metro spokesperson Lindela Mashigo had not replied to questions by the time of publishing.

Cost of failed infrastructure questioned

Tando Rulashe, a senior lecturer and programme leader for public administration at the University of Mpumalanga, said Fikeni’s argument about the political economy of inefficiency was particularly relevant to SA’s public administration challenges.

He said this raises an important question about whether persistent inefficiencies were merely consequences of poor planning and inadequate institutional capacity, or whether, in some instances, they are sustained by political, administrative and economic interests that benefit from dysfunctional systems.

“One of the fundamental problems is that we often confuse infrastructure development with actual service delivery. The government may spend millions constructing facilities, but when these remain non-operational, the intended public value is never realised.

“More concerning is that expenditure does not necessarily stop when a project fails. Public funds may continue to be committed to security, maintenance, repairs and eventual rehabilitation, without the infrastructure delivering its intended benefits,” Rulashe said.

He said the real financial burden of failed infrastructure extended beyond its original construction cost.

But he cautioned against attributing every failed infrastructure project to corruption or deliberate sabotage.

According to Rulashe, some failures were as a result of inadequate feasibility studies, poor site selection, weak project management, fragmented institutional responsibilities and insufficient operational planning.

“The concern becomes more serious when these shortcomings persist over several years without meaningful corrective action or accountability.

“South Africa already has an extensive legislative framework governing public expenditure.

“The difficulty often lies in translating compliance requirements into measurable developmental outcomes. We need to move beyond monitoring whether money was spent and projects completed, towards evaluating whether public investments are functional, sustainable and delivering value to communities,” he said.

He said Fikeni’s observations were important because they were an invitation to interrogate not only why government projects fail, but also who benefits from recurring expenditure, who bears the financial consequences and why the same administrative shortcomings continue despite established oversight mechanisms.

Rulashe said SA’s infrastructure challenges were not exclusively about insufficient funding, but also about how public resources are planned, managed and accounted for.

He said the success of public investment should be measured by the lasting public value generated.