R562 Million Later – No Permanent WCED Head Office, No Inner-City Housing, and No Accountability

GOOD Statement by Brett Herron, GOOD Secretary-General & Member of the Western Cape Parliament:

The Western Cape Government has spent over half a billion rand on office space for the Western Cape Education Department (WCED),yet it still has no permanent headquarters. This alarming misuse of public funds was revealed in written responses to GOOD by current Infrastructure MEC Tertuis Simmers and former MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela, following parliamentary questions submitted in November 2020, and again in April and June 2025.

The Dorp Street Office Development was originally proposed in 2010 as part of the Cape Town Central City Regeneration Programme. It was intended to relocate the WCED head office from leased to owned office space through a Public Private Partnership (PPP), estimated to cost R1 billion. It was positioned as a flagship project to revitalise the city centre, with vague commitments to affordable housing and densification.

Yet despite purchasing several prime erven in Dorp Street at a cost of R81.7 million, and spending a further R13 million on consultants, planning, and transaction advisors, the project never got off the ground. The PPP was later deemed unaffordable and abandoned along with the regeneration programme.

Compounding the failure, the Dorp Street project was touted as the justification for the proposed sale of the Tafelberg school site, despite strong opposition due to its potential for social housing. The proceeds from that sale, estimated at around R130 million, were said to be earmarked for the Dorp Street development. In the end, the Province has spent R9 million trying to defend the sale of valuable public land, the Tafelberg School, for a project that never materialised, and both the Dorp Street sites and the Tafelberg School remain vacant and unused.

Instead of building the WCED head office, the government turned to expensive leased space.

Since 2020, the following additional costs have been incurred:

• R295.6 million for a lease 1 December 2020 – 28 February 2026 at the upmarket ENS House (18,434m²);
• R132.7 million for the refurbishment of the ENS House space (excluding ICT);
• R38.4 million for the refurbishment of off-site records facilities at Alfred Street (excluding ICT and specialised furniture).

This, with the abandoned Dorp street project, is a staggering R562 million spent with no delivery of a permanent public asset.

The DA-run provincial government opted for short-term leases and renovations instead of long-term investment in infrastructure, social benefit, or spatial transformation. Imagine what could have been achieved with that money if the WCED head office had been built on the Cape Flats, in communities that need investment, jobs, and infrastructure. A government complex of that scale could have acted as a catalyst, transforming a dormitory town into a thriving mixed-use neighbourhood. Retail, transport, and economic opportunities would have followed the influx of office workers and state services. Instead, we are left with a case study in poor planning, spatial injustice, and waste.

GOOD will continue to demand accountability for this half-a-billion-rand fiasco and will fight for the meaningful release of well-located public land for affordable housing and economic development.

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