Central SA
Millions spent on renting Sassa’s offices─── TSHEHLA KOTELI 07:37 Thu, 28 Jul 2022
Millions of rands are being spent on the rental of the South African Social Security Agency's (Sassa) offices across the country.
The Minister of Social Development, Lindiwe Zulu, revealed the information when asked how many offices are owned and rented by Sassa or the National Department of Public Works and Infrastructure (NDPWI). Zulu’s reply only showed that there are at least two provinces that Sassa owns property in, one province being the Northern Cape, with two properties each valued at more than R3 million according to the estimation of construction costs. The other province is Limpopo, with the total value of properties valued at more than R171 million.
A question asked by a member of the DA in the National Assembly, Alexandra Abrahams, also detailed how much each property owed, is valued at, the amount spent on rental for each property, and the name of the lessor. The reply shows that in Central South Africa, Sassa only owns two offices in the Northern Cape - the Churchill local office and Dithakong local office - with a total value of R6 453 622,56, while each is valued at R3 226 811.28.
The detailed reply of Zulu further shows that Sassa has occupied offices in each province for free. In the central of the country; there are at least 24 offices under the Northern Cape Region, 9 offices under the Free State Region, and 6 offices under the North West Region. The reason why Sassa operates at those offices for free seems to be because some of the offices are owned by the municipality that the specific Sassa office operates in. Some are owned by different governmental departments (provincial and national).
When it comes to rental, each province in the country has properties that are being rented for operations of Sassa, with the largest amount of rental being spent in the Eastern Cape Region (at least 41 offices), amounting to R49 486 507,36 annually (R4 123 875,61 monthly). However, the highest in Central South Africa is the North West region with rentals (at least 27 offices) amounting to R39 214 978,20 annually (R3 214 978,85 monthly), followed by the Northern Cape region (at least 28 offices) at R10 262 306,40 annually (R855 192,20 monthly), and the Free State region’s rentals (at least 14 offices) are sitting at R9 191 561,43 annually (R765 963,45 monthly).
