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FINANCE BUILDING TO BE DEMOLISHED

20/11/2014 04:38:00 BY Linda Jele

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MBABANE – The building housing three ministries, including that of Finance, will be demolished due to its old state.

This is the same structure that houses the Ministry of Economic Planning and Development as well as that of Public Service.
The building, according to the Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Finance Khabonina Mabuza, has gone past its lifespan and government needs a bigger and new structure to curb the problem of shortages of office space.

She said the reason why the structure needed to be demolished was because there was no other identified place where a new one could be set up and still be in the vicinity of all the government ministries. However, The Ministry of Public Works and Transport assured that the building was still safe for occupation and is yet to conduct a full assessment on the structure.

“Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Public Service Evart Madlopha and I inspected the building and discovered that, indeed, it has become old. There are some defects in the corners. The building was put up for a certain lifespan and it has gone past that. There is already a plan for the new structure but it still has to go through the relevant government structures before it is approved. We have also sent a request to the Ministry of Public Works to do a full assessment of the building and then we will see a way forward,” Mabuza said.

She said she could not recall, off-hand, the year government was supposed to have stopped occupying the building.
She said as soon as government gave the nod for a new structure, the building of a new and bigger structure will commence. She said the three ministries could not be separated because they worked together, especially on budget issues and they shared some duties.

When asked why the new building would not be placed in a different place, Mabuza said the Ministry of Finance was a critical one to all the government ministries and departments and needed to be easily accessible and close to all of them.

“We have to continue to be housed together with the other two ministries or at least have three separate buildings but they must use one entrance because some of the duties are shared. It was sort of a temporary structure as it is not made of cement alone. When I joined the civil service, the structure was already in place,” Mabuza said.

She said the new building needed to be bigger so that the problem of shortage of offices for all the ministries could be a thing of the past.
A buildings engineer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told this reporter that the Finance building was not built entirely on cement. He said it was built with metal pillars, cement blocks and some kind of carbon.

“Considering the material used in building, it is possible that it has already gone past its lifespan,” the engineer said.
PS Madlopha said only the Ministry of Public Works and Transport could respond to questions on the matter. Government Spokesperson Percy Simelane also referred all questions to the Ministry of Public Works and Transport.

“This does not necessarily call for a government position but a ministerial response. Building is under the Ministry of Public Works and Transport. They do not only keep building funds, but have building engineers who will answer directly,” Simelane said.

Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Public Works and Transport Cyril Kunene could only confirm that the Ministry of Finance did file a request to have a structural assessment of the building conducted. He said the Ministry of Finance would base its decision whether or not to have the building demolished and start a new building project after the structural assessment of the building had been conducted.
“We are in the process of assigning an engineer to conduct that assessment. For now we have nothing to make us believe that the building is not safe. The assessment will determine that. It must be borne in mind that the building was rehabilitated not long ago, where the roofing was changed, among other things. Government would not have undertaken a major rehabilitation exercise if it had not been expected that it still had a current lifetime,” Kunene said.