R57 Million Down the Drain: Inside Buffalo City’s Derailed Olympic Pool Project

In the heart of Mdantsane, a community that has produced world-class boxers and athletes, there was once a swimming pool. Built decades ago by the apartheid government, it fell into disrepair and was shuttered in the 1980s. In 2017, the promise of revival arrived: R22 million allocated to reconstruct an Olympic-size pool with diving facilities, a beacon of hope for a community plagued by poverty, unemployment, and drugs.

Nine years later, that hope has drowned. The project has cost taxpayers R57 millionand there is still nothing to show for it.

A Saga of Delays and Shoddy Work

The reconstruction of the NU2 pool in Mdantsane was supposed to be a straightforward infrastructure project. Instead, it became a textbook case of municipal failure. Progress was glacial from the start. By 2024, the Buffalo City public accounts committee had seen enough and ordered an investigation.

The forensic probe was conducted by EY (Ernst & Young) . Its findings were damning: the delays were caused by the service provider’s shoddy work, and the cost to the fiscus had ballooned to R57 millionmore than double the original allocation.

23 Officials Implicated

The EY report, which has been seen by The Citizen, implicates 23 municipal officials in the scandal. The municipality’s disciplinary board completed its own probe and tabled a report on 29 January, but the disciplinary process has not yet begun.

The report recommends that “council must provide a monthly progress report to the disciplinary board on the progress of the disciplinary processes against the identified employees/officials.”

To date, none of that has happened.

Political Outcry

Anathi Majeke, DA chief whip in the municipality, expressed frustration at the lack of action.

“Regarding recoverability, the municipal manager should institute those processes. So far, we have not been apprised of this,” she said.

Majeke pointed to the Municipal Finance Management Act, Section 32, which obliges the manager to recover misused funds and institute disciplinary proceedings. She also noted that implicated service providers should be blacklisted and, where fraud is suspected, reported to the police.

“The worrying thing is the swimming pool has not been completed yet. An Olympic-sized pool for the community of Mdantsane has been another development of money that has been wasted with nothing to show for it. In a community riddled by drugs, poverty and unemployment, this is a wasted opportunity.”

Themba Godi, leader of the African People’s Convention and former chair of Parliament’s standing committee on public accounts, was equally scathing.

“It should not be difficult to find the culprits… the paper trail should be very easy,” he said. He described the saga as “the incompetence and the corruption of ANC councils, where money was given to friends via dubious tenders.”

Municipality Silent

The Citizen approached Buffalo City municipal spokesperson Bongani Fuzile for comment. He declined, claiming the questions were based on a confidential document.

The Bigger Picture

The Mdantsane pool is not an isolated incident. It is a symptom of a deeper malaise: municipalities across South Africa haemorrhage billions in irregular, wasteful, and fruitless expenditure each year. Projects are awarded to connected service providers, oversight collapses, and communities are left with empty promises and depleted coffers.

For the people of Mdantsane, the R57 million represents not just lost money, but lost opportunity. A facility that could have trained young swimmers, kept children off the streets, and provided a source of pride remains a hole in the ground.

And the officials responsible? They remain in their posts, the disciplinary process stalled, the paper trail gathering dust. Until that changes, the pool is a monument not to development, but to impunity.

{Source: Citizen}

Follow Joburg ETC on Facebook, Twitter , TikTok and Instagram

For more News in Johannesburg, visit joburgetc.com