A stalemate has kept Joza's brand-new sports centre out of action just six months after the completion and opening of the state-of-the-art building.
A stalemate has kept Joza's brand-new sports centre out of action just six months after the completion and opening of the state-of-the-art building.
Makana municipality claims that the R39 million Extension 6 indoor sport centre is not ready for games.
Makana municipality communications officer, Yoliswa Ramokolo, said: "There are inadequate areas of the building that we're not happy about, which we discovered after an evaluation.
"We won't use the building until the company comes back to fix everything."
Ramokolo said that if the building was used, the municipality would be "forfeiting the agreement we had with them that states that they must fix everything before the end of March."
Phelelani Ngcuka, chief executive officer of VDZ Construction, which built the centre, said, however, that there is no such agreement between the company and Makana municipality.
“They haven't approached us and we never signed such agreement," he said.
Ngcuka said according to terms and conditions regarding a latent defect agreement, the municipality is entitled to order VDZ to fix any defects at the centre within three months of the project's completion.
According to a source at the municipality, who declined to be named, Makana municipality had, however, forfeited its chances of claiming repairs from VDZ when it failed to submit a snag list within the three-month period.
Ngcuka confirmed this claim.
He said the snag list forms part of the terms and conditions stipulated in the standard joint building contracts committee (JBCC) contract, which is overseen by the Master Builders Association (MBA), the construction industry's governing body.
Branch manager of Port Elizabeth's MBA, Jeff Andrews, referred Grocott's Mail to Izizwe Consulting Engineers as the principal agents presiding over this contract.
Izizwe's Chris Qwane said he was not at liberty to provide the media with the contract without the municipality's permission.
Questioned about the contract, Ramokolo referred Grocott's Mail to the acting municipal manager, Mandisi Planga.
He promised to look into the matter once he had had a chance to establish the facts.
Ngcuka said that VDZ Construction was owed "well over R800 000" in outstanding payments.
"The municipality owes us lots of money and that money has nothing to do with latent defects, it is simply money that is overdue. I tried to claim it but I was sent from pillar to post with officials saying they can't find paper trail."
According to the source at the municipality, the municipality reserves the right to withhold a portion of the value of the contract, paying it to the company once the items of the "snag list" have been addressed.
Planga said he would "look into" Ngcuka's claim that he is owed money.
This is not the first time that tensions between the two parties have delayed the sport centre.
The project was marred by controversy before it even began.
In 2011 the King Williams Town-based construction company took Makana municipality to court after it stripped VDZ Construction of the tender it had won, and gave it to a different company.
The municipality argued in court that it disqualified the company on grounds that one of the documents submitted was a photocopy instead of the original.
The municipality said it discovered this in the final stages of the bid-adjudication process.
Judge Duncan Zolani Dukada ruled against the municipality and the tender was re-awarded to VDZ Construction.
The centre was opened last year October by Eastern Cape Premier, Noxolo Kieviet, who warned officials and the public to keep the centre busy with activities so that it didn't become a white elephant.
