Lotto’s R26 million half-built Limpopo old age home

Estimated reading time: 10 minute(s)

Photo: Limpopo Mirror

• R26 million was given to a mystery non-profit organisation by the National Lotteries Commission to construct an old-age home in rural Limpopo.
• The home is half-built and seemingly abandoned, with no visible progress in two years.
• Local residents say a clinic or a recreational centre would have been better than an old-age home.

The construction of a multimillion-rand Lottery-funded old age home in a rural Limpopo village has been abandoned. Now thieves are stripping the buildings and stealing material from the site.

Since 2017, almost R26 million has been paid to Mushumo Ushavha Zwanda, a dormant and non-compliant Gauteng-based company, by the National Lotteries Commission (NLC) to fund the building of the home.

Maila village locals say they were never consulted and do not believe that an old age home was necessary as families in the area traditionally took in and cared for elderly relatives.

Musandiwa Leonard Sidimela, a director of Mushumo Ushavha Zwanda, admitted to GroundUp that they had not visited the site at Maila village, about 30 kilometres southeast of Louis Trichardt, for at least 20 months. But he blamed their absence on Covid-19.

The Maila village project is one of six old age homes that the Lottery proactively funded in six provinces around South Africa. Each received an initial R20 million grant in 2017 and since then, millions more have been pumped into them. They are mainly located in rural villages.

Every single one, including those in North West Province, Northern Cape, Mpumalanga and Gauteng, has been dogged by problems. Most, if not all, are still unfinished three years later.

“The money was chowed”

“The money was chowed,” said a concerned member of the community to local community newspaper Limpopo Mirror when he showed a reporter around the half-built structures at Maila village in December 2019.

A fence around the property served no real purpose as the gates were open. A signboard in front of the buildings, which proclaimed that the home was “National Lotteries Commission Lotto Funded”, was hanging from a rusting frame, held up by a single screw.

A year later, a reporter visited the site again, but found that no progress had been made to finish the home. In fact, the buildings were in an even worse state.

The fence was breached and thieves had helped themselves to building material lying around the abandoned construction site. Lewd graffiti was sprayed on some of the walls.

In April 2020, months after NLC spokesperson Ndivhuho Mafela told GroundUp that engineers were assessing the project, there was still no evidence of activity at the old age home.

And when reporters visited the site in October 2020, after lockdown restrictions were eased, they found that the situation was much worse. The site was clearly abandoned and buildings were being vandalized.

And when a reporter again visited the site last week, the half-finished, roofless buildings were in an even worse state than before. The “Lotto Funded” sign had fallen off its frame and was lying face down in the dirt. Pallets of bricks and timber roof trusses that were previously laying around the site were gone.

“A bakkie comes here to collect materials,” said a resident who asked not to be named as he was concerned about his safety. “There is a big white truck that came to fetch lots of timber not so long ago. It might have been a week or two ago.”

This story was originally published by GroundUp follow the link to read the full article.