Construction of a new primary school in Macassar, adjacent to False Bay Primary, has been brought to a halt by dozens of members belonging to the Macassar Business Construction Consortium (MBCC), who are adamant that more should be done by the department and contractors to employ local consortiums.
Also referred to as Macassar Primary No 2, designed to accommodate a total of 1 360 learners on the anticipated completion date of February 2024, the handover of the R92 million project site took place on Friday 21 January this year. “Construction work was stopped on Monday 15 August,” said Bronagh Hammond, Director of Communication for the Western Cape Education Department. “Empowerment targets prescribe that a certain percentage of construction work must be spent in the employment of local labour as well as local subcontractors.
“It is, however, not feasible to employ all the local labour and all the local subcontractors that might exist in a designated area.
“The stoppage is the result of local subcontractors wanting to benefit from the planned construction.”
According to Joanne Ryan, a member of the MBCC, there are many sub-contractors in the area who submitted their profiles but were not given the job.
“We have handed a memorandum of demands over, particularly for the contractors to consider more local sub-contractors for jobs,” she said. “Until our demands are met we have forced the closure of the site.”
Some sub-contractors, such as Raymond Jansen, are employed by the contractor on site, but not in the position they had anticipated. “I want to provide sub-contract services, and not just general builder work,” he said.
MBCC had initially given Emcon – the contractors awarded the tender to build the school – seven days in which to respond.
The deadline lapsed a week ago and, according to Ryan, the consortium is still awaiting feedback.
Meanwhile, construction of the school has been temporarily suspended.
“We’re engaging with DTPW to enable resumption of construction work,” Hammond said. “It is not clear at this stage when this will take place.”
The Emcon construction company was sent a request to comment on the matter, but referred the enquiry to its legal team, which had not responded at the time of going to print.
