Minister Dean Macpherson: Reflection on one-year in office, provides update on key investigations & EPWP

Minister Macpherson reflects on one-year in office, provides update on key investigations & EPWP

(Note to Editors: The following remarks were delivered by the Minister of Public Works & Infrastructure, Dean Macpherson, during a press conference at the GCIS Imbizo Centre ahead of his Budget Vote on Wednesday, 9 July 2025)

• The Minister of Public Works & Infrastructure, Dean Macpherson, hosted a press conference to reflect on his first year in office.
• During the briefing, he provided key updates on important investigations underway, lifestyle audits and ghost employees and EPWP reform.
• The Minister also announced when he will be visiting the families of victims of the George Building collapse to communicate the outcomes of an investigative report.

“When I took office a year ago, I wanted to reshape the Department from being a passive custodian of broken buildings and stalled projects to one of being an economic delivery unit in South Africa, tasked with rebuilding public trust, infrastructure, and economic momentum.

We came up with a bold vision: to turn South Africa into a construction site, and to anchor this vision to attract additional private sector infrastructure investment during the term of the Seventh Administration.

That is why today's briefing focuses on what we’ve done in the past year to lay the groundwork, to build a strong foundation for the department that will allow us to turbocharge infrastructure investment and delivery, as well as reimagine our public assets.

During this press briefing, I would particularly provide an update on four areas that we have intensely focused on over the last 12 months:

• Investigating failed or mismanaged projects and understanding why they fail
• Repurposing public assets for the public good
• Cleaning up the system through lifestyle audits and ghost employee detection
• Reforming the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP)

Investigating failed or mismanaged projects

When I arrived in the department, it became clear that we needed to take a deeper dive into why so many government projects fail to get off the ground and fail to be completed.

We wanted to investigate some of the most glaring examples of waste, mismanagement, and dysfunction, not to assign blame for its own sake, but to learn from what is going on and to put a stop to it, as well as start to hold people accountable for this.

The first was the Telkom Towers debacle, where a roughly R600 million purchase was made between 2015 and 2016 to house the SAPS national head office, but it has not yielded any returns.

Instead, we continue to pay security to prevent further vandalism.

The draft investigation reveals a significant loss in terms of the value of the property owing to a series of damages to its infrastructure, and whether the project is still viable.

The report should be finalised by the end of July, and where individuals have been implicated, we will not hesitate to act.

The second investigation focused on the PSA Oxygen Plant project, managed by the Independent Development Trust on behalf of the Department of Health.

This was meant to be a flagship health infrastructure initiative built with donor funds, providing 60 hospitals with on-site oxygen capacity.

Instead, it became a cautionary tale, with the draft report confirming many of my suspicions.

Despite the fake-news campaign, AI-altered voice notes, and social media bots, which sought to discredit the investigation, members of the board and me, we fought on regardless.

The last round of interviews will be completed with stakeholders in the coming days, and the report should be concluded by the 25th of July.

We intend to release both reports publicly in the spirit of transparency and hand them over to law enforcement agencies for criminal prosecution.

The incoming IDT board will also take over the process which was launched to conduct lifestyle audits on senior management.

And I also expect the board to fully ventilate the alleged irregularities with the IDT’s office lease, as well as present a financial turnaround for the entity.

Repurposing public assets for the public good

At the same time, we’ve begun to reimagine how this Department thinks about public assets and property.

For too long, the state has sat on thousands of unused buildings and parcels of land that are not put to either economic or social use.

This, while government departments are in some cases paying R120/m² in private leases, while our own buildings cost just R26/m².

This is ironic because demand for these assets has never been greater.

From Human Settlements, to Social Development to Provincial Governments, we want to ensure that the state's assets are used in partnership with various spheres of government and entities.

Since taking office, we have taken important steps to turn idle assets into functional community infrastructure.

Let me give a few examples:

• Seventeen properties have been handed over for use as shelters for victims of Gender-Based Violence and substance abuse, including two in Malmesbury just this morning. In the preceding 5 years, the department had only managed to transfer 1.
• In Nkandla, working with the local municipality and Premier Ntuli, we handed over a previously unused government property that will now be used for local economic development and job creation.
• In Cape Town’s Castle of Good Hope and the Union Buildings in Pretoria, we ensured public access to public property, while providing safe and humane shelters to those affected, including access to medical care, EPWP work, and personal development programmes.

I look forward to further unpacking the groundbreaking initiatives we will be taking during the budget vote this afternoon, especially on how we are restructuring the Property Management Trading Entity and its assets to become an investable portfolio for private sector funds.

This will mean, the state will finally start to generate revenue from its assets, either through co-development models or through investment into a property fund of A-grade property assets.

There is strong demand and interest both domestically and internationally in this plan.

In the budget speech this afternoon, I look forward to further unpacking how Infrastructure South Africa will turbocharge infrastructure investment in the months ahead.

The agency has been hard at work, across all fronts, to help realise the vision of turning South Africa into a construction site.

This includes a new partnership with AgriSA and AgriBiz to address the deteriorating condition of South Africa’s road network.

This initiative will follow a data-driven approach, with the primary outcome being the identification of priority roads that require upgrading based on actual agricultural distribution.

These projects will then be packaged to raise funding and support their implementation.

The Free State province will serve as a pilot site, and the entire workstream will be formalised under the Strategic Integrated Project for Agri-Logistics, or SIP 11.

Lifestyle audits and ghost employee detection

Alongside fixing physical infrastructure, we are also cleaning up our internal systems.

Trust in public institutions depends on the public’s belief that we hold ourselves accountable for the work that we do.

One of these mechanisms is through lifestyle audits.

On lifestyle audits:

• In 2022/23, we completed audits on 48 senior managers
• We have now launched a wider process, focusing on 400 high-risk officials across finance, ICT, procurement, leases and projects
• The first batch of 69 audits began in March and will be finalised by September 2025
• The next batch will follow from October 2025 to March 2026, and the remainder by March 2027
• These audits are being conducted independently, in partnership with the Special Investigating Unit, and include asset verification

We are also reviewing the ghost employee phenomenon.

Our Anti-Corruption Unit is currently auditing the PERSAL system across the Department and EPWP to detect any fictitious employees drawing salaries without working.

With the help of interns, we are conducting physical verification, ensuring that every person on the payroll exists, works, and contributes.

This is painstaking work, but it is necessary.

We must ensure that we have a competent and present workforce to achieve our goals.

Reforming the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP)

The EPWP is one of the largest public employment programmes in the country.

Over the last 20 years, it has served as an important poverty alleviation tool for the community.

However, we think that it is time it progresses to its next iteration, which is focused on skills and opportunity for permanent employment.

From September 2024 to present, I have led a national EPWP Listening Tour, meeting with workers, implementers, NGOs and provincial departments.

Four provinces have been completed so far, Eastern Cape, Gauteng, Northern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, with the remaining five scheduled before year-end.

All too often, I have heard from participants and community members that the program has become associated with political patronage, irregular recruitment, and gatekeeping.

There is a lack of transparency in how people are appointed, which creates frustration and tension in communities.

Often, Municipalities are not equipped to be able to execute the program, and we have had to stop transfers to those that do not comply with audit and financial controls.

Our view, therefore, is that EPWP must be refocused around transparency, training and opportunity.

Our new vision for EPWP includes:

• Longer project durations, allowing for real skill development
• Fairer compensation
• Enterprise development and support for EPWP graduates starting small businesses
• Monitoring the impact of constructed assets and their value to communities
• Pilot biometric attendance systems to improve accountability and recruitment
• Greater alignment between national and provincial departments, especially for maintenance and infrastructure projects
• A new partnership with Harambee Youth Accelerator, focusing on skills pipelines in the renewable energy and maintenance sectors

Our aim is to ensure that EPWP participants exit the programme with more opportunity than when they first entered it, and with a certificate, a skill, or a viable economic path - not just a stipend and a memory.

George Building collapse

I want to end this briefing with a sombre reflection on a national tragedy, the collapse of a five-storey building in George on 6 May 2024, which claimed 34 lives and injured many more.

On 2 June 2025, I received the final report from the Engineering Council of South Africa, commissioned through the Council for the Built Environment.

It details a pattern of preventable errors, regulatory failures, and professional negligence.

When I received the report, I committed to three things:

• To study it thoroughly
• To ensure the findings are acted upon
• To personally present it to the affected families

That visit was scheduled for this coming Saturday, but due to the funeral of former Deputy President David Mabuza, I will now be meeting with the families in George the following Saturday, 19 July.

The Council for the Built Environment and the Engineering Council of South Africa will also brief the public on the outcome of these reports at the conclusion of the meeting with the families.

I do, however, want to caution some political parties, who are determined to sink the investigation that will hold people responsible by demanding reports, that the Police have asked us to handle with care for fear of risking the investigation.

While you may get a headline here and there and a TV interview, please put the families first and the pursuit of justice instead of your own narrow interests.

I can assure the public that the families I have met with in George support our approach and don’t even know these parties that claim to speak for them.

We will do what is right because we want to see people held accountable for the deaths of 34 construction workers.

I will also be taking a report to Cabinet on the findings and recommendations so that we tighten up our laws and regulations.

This collapse was entirely preventable.

Accountability cannot be optional when lives are lost due to human error.

Conclusion

Fellow South Africans,

This past year has not been easy, but it has been incredibly rewarding.

The Department of Public Works and Infrastructure is in better shape today than it was 12 months ago.

That’s not to say it's perfect, but we are on the right track.

And the exciting thing is that we are only getting started.

This afternoon, I will table our Budget Vote in Parliament.

There, I will outline our next chapter, focused on five key pillars:

1. Fighting corruption and strengthening governance
2. Accelerating infrastructure delivery
3. Restructuring our asset management systems
4. Reforming the Expanded Public Works Programme
5. Driving digitisation across the department

I have often said that becoming a Minister has been the most difficult job I have ever had, but it has also been the most rewarding job I have ever had.

I want to take this moment to express my deepest appreciation to the team that has walked this path with me.

To Director-General Sifiso Mdakane, thank you for your steady leadership and unwavering commitment to public service.

Over the past year, you have been instrumental in helping to reimagine this Department, not as a relic of bureaucracy, but as a dynamic vehicle for economic delivery.

Your dedication to governance reform and your support for our strategic vision have been invaluable.

To Mameetse Masemola, our Acting Head of Infrastructure South Africa, thank you for helping to cultivate a renewed national passion for infrastructure.

Under your stewardship, ISA is becoming the engine room for high-impact infrastructure projects, capable of attracting investment and transforming communities.

Your technical insight, collaborative spirit, and ability to think boldly about South Africa’s potential have set a new standard.

And the entire Department of Public Works & Infrastructure, and my personal office, thank you for your dedication to building a better South Africa.

Enquiries:
James de Villiers
Spokesperson to the Minister
Cell: 082 766 0276
E-mail: james.devilliers@dpw.gov.za

Lennox Mabosa
Chief Director: Communications
Cell: 084 775 2975

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