10 July 2000
The Minister of Public Works, Ms Stella Sigcau, MP, officially handed over the Atteridgeville Police Station to the South African Police Services on Monday 10 July at Atteridgeville, west of Pretoria.
She was accompanied by her colleague, Mr Steve Tshwete, Minister of Safety and Security who accepted the precinct on behalf of the Police Services.
The recently completed project was built by the Department of Public Works within schedule (18 months) at a cost of R7, 41 million. It came complete with 12 holding cells for the accommodation of prisoners.
It was a contribution by the Department of Public Works to President Mbeki's vision of integrated public service delivery -providing physical accommodation within cost, time and quality criteria in support of the national integrated crime prevention strategy.
On 29 June she visited for inspection the construction site of a R9 million Magistrate Court at Botshabelo near Bloemfontein due for completion in May 2001.
Speaking at the ceremony, Minister Sigcau said: " Six years ago, the new government inherited government infrastructure and in particular office buildings, prisons, police stations and magistrate's courts that had been neglected from a maintenance point of view".
Regarding maintenance of state-owned property Minister Sigcau expressed the Department's intention to raise adequate funds solely for maintenance purposes. She mentioned that the Department would this year invest more than R300 million in rolling out dedicated maintenance contracts as well as introducing facilities management for the first time in Government.
These innovations were part of continuos improvement strategies to keep state-owned property in appreciative conditions and reduce the current maintenance backlog estimated at over R10 billion.
Through the application of Affirmative Procurement Principles, 40% of the construction of the Police Station was carried out by the Previously Disadvantaged Individuals including 144 local labourers (job creation) and seven sub-contractors, four of whom were women (women empowerment).
For more information contact Lucky Mochalibane at:
Tel: 012-337 2057
Cell: 082 899 9775
Issued by Government Communications (GCIS), Pretoria for the National Department of Public Works