AGSA releases a damning report on Ramkraal and flags R99 million paid to consultants 

The Auditor General of South Africa (AGSA) has released the much anticipated Ramkraal Project report albeit a little too late.

According to the report, it was Elzabe Rockman, former Finance MEC and current chairperson of the IPC deployment committee who requested AGSA to conduct a special audit into the procurement processes and financial transactions of the new proposed legislature precinct on the Ramkraal Site. 

The special audit covered the Legislature and the Department of Public Works in Free State for 2010-11 to 2013-14 financial years. 

What is interesting is that AGSA was not provided with all the information requested for this special report and below is what is still outstanding including SLAs for consultants appointed:

• Documentation on the appointment of the architect for additional services, including SLA.

• Evidence that the architect requested or obtained approval from the DPW concerning the appointment of subcontractors.

• SLAs between the DPW and the joint principal agent (JPA) for transactional advisory services.

• Documentation concerning the approval of the increased estimates of the total cost of the Ramkraal project.

• The submission to the National Treasury (NT) as well as the approval thereof.

• Signed copy of the feasibility report issued by the JPA, dated 3 August 2012.

• Evidence to illustrate that the project was implemented in line with the feasibility study

This is not new in the Free State Provincial Government, even bid documents disappear and this behavior is done with impunity, nothing new here. 

The AGSA found that:

Ramkraal Project was approved prior feasibility study being concluded against the MTEF framework and Treasury Framework 

The estimated cost as per unsigned dated 3 August 2012 was R645 million 

The budget suggests the project was not affordable 

At the time of the submission to National Treasury, an amount of R60.5 million had already been spent

A further R46.2 million was spent without a funding model in place from National Treasury

R24.6 million was spent when it became apparent the National Treasury was not going to fund the Ramkraal project

The appointment of consultants without the following processes

Security services were rendered from April 2013 to June 2014 yet investigations by AGSA confirmed that it was not safeguarded at all times, in contravention of National Heritage Act 25 of 1999 (NHRA)

Ramkraal was subject to vandalism when security was paid for

In conclusion, AGSA recommended that R99 454 415 paid to consultants be regarded as irregular expenditure and DPW should consider recovering R577 771 from civil and structural engineers as their rates were not in line with gazetted ECSA rates. 

Sources close to the situation at Ramkraal say R120 million was paid for the fence and the fence does not exist. 

The report was issued in June and three months later the ruling party and IPC have not released a statement. 

There is another project that failed in Bethlehem called Volkfontein Housing project that we still investigating, this will be followed up on. 

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