Durban: Ongoing issues with the construction mafia will be a priority discussion when business meets President Cyril Ramaphosa and the Presidential eThekwini Working Group today.
The group is co-led by Director-General in the Presidency, Phindile Baleni and senior ANC leader Mike Mabuyakhulu. It was established in February to deal with issues in eThekwini, including governance and financial sustainability, safety and security and tourism revitalisation.
In August, five people believed to be members of the notorious construction mafia gangs that have been disrupting construction sites in and around Pietermaritzburg were arrested as part of a national crackdown on syndicates that have targeted business in the country.
Melanie Veness, chairperson of the Association of South African Chambers, said there had been a massive change in the province with structures responding to incidents of business intimidation.
“The minute you start dealing with it, then people think twice about whether they should go ahead and behave inappropriately … It is pure criminality, and the minute the government takes a particular position and starts to respond, then we see a difference.
“It makes a difference when business knows that they have government support, that they are able to stand their ground because in the past, perhaps they couldn’t count on this.”
Andrzej Kiepiela of the KZN Growth Coalition said challenges with the construction mafia and its impact on business remained a priority. He said the four priority issues that will be discussed with Ramaphosa include the impact of construction mafia, infrastructure development, collapsing water and sanitation infrastructure and corruption.
Kiepiela said the collapse of water and sanitation infrastructure had an impact on the city’s beaches and the tourism sector. He said the coalition had held a number of meetings since August with Baleni and Mabuyakhulu on the issues in the city.
Martin Meyer, KZN MEC for Public Works and Infrastructure, said his department was setting up a community liaison office that will engage swiftly with communities to “close the area that the construction mafia guys function in”.
“We will go to the communities the moment we start a project, where we will bring up the plans, get the community empowered, and make sure that they are getting the fair share of the work and not these guys who are coming from the outside and only take for themselves.
“We have seen a lot more action from the SAPS and the NPA (National Prosecuting Authority) where people are being arrested and being charged and very strong and firm action is being taken.”
Meyer said the national Department of Public Works and Infrastructure will hold a national dialogue on extortion in the construction sector in KwaZulu-Natal this month. “Minister Dean Macpherson has put together this dialogue that we have requested and the whole purpose of this is to bring the private sector, the construction industry, the nine provinces, the ministers of justice, police and public works all together so that we can have one approach.”
The Presidency said the meeting of the Presidential eThekwini Working Group will allow Ramaphosa to be updated on the work being done to support and accelerate efforts by the municipality to improve service delivery, improve business confidence, and reposition eThekwini as an investment and tourism hotspot.
“The working group represents an intergovernmental collaborative approach to addressing challenges in local government, and includes active participation from all levels of government, the private sector, state-owned enterprises, organised labour, and civil society.”