R30 million spent on an old age home that remains completely empty

It has been over six years since the gates shut to the Tembisa Old Age Home, a move that has left elderly residents without the proper care and nurses in limbo.

Situated in the East Rand of Gauteng in the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality, the Tembisa Old Age Home was built in 2012 and opened its doors two years later in October 2014.

The Tembisa Old Age Home, hailed as a “state-of-the-art facility” in Gauteng, South Africa, was constructed at a cost of around R30 million.

As early as the 2007/08 financial year, Kgaugelo Lekgoro, then Gauteng’s MEC for Social Development, highlighted the severe disparity in elderly care, noting that only one in nine old-aged homes in the province were situated in townships.

Lekgoro pledged that the department would “start building old-age homes in the 20 poorest townships on an incremental basis from one financial year to the next”.

Opened in October 2014 by Gauteng MEC for Social Development, Faith Mazibuko, and Ekurhuleni MMC for Health, Makhosazana Twala, it was designed to provide frail-care residential services for up to 59 beneficiaries above the age of 60.

Residents were among the most vulnerable as only applicants who were in a frail condition and did not have anyone to care for them during the day were considered.

The nursing staff complement comprised 12 care workers, two enrolled nurses, two auxiliary nurses and one professional nurse.

Since its inception, it has been run with the assistance of the Gauteng Department of Social Development, which provided funding to the Non-Profit Organisation (NPO).

“It served as a crucial space for the elderly, among the most vulnerable in our society,” remarked a nurse from the facility, who spoke to BusinessTech on condition of anonymity due to fear of repercussions from the Department.

“There is a severe shortage of care homes for the elderly in Tembisa. This offered hope. It didn’t last long,” she added.

The site closes

After only four years of operation, the vulnerable elderly residents were sent back to their families or relocated to other facilities in 2019, leaving dedicated staff without jobs as “renovations took place.”

According to former Gauteng Social Development MEC Morakane Mosupyoe, at the time of the facility’s official handover, there were no visible structural defects.

However, the City of Ekurhuleni’s Real Estate Department “identified serious structural defects” during the assessment of the facility in May 2019, which led to its closure.

The assessment engineers found that no lintels were installed above door and window frames and openings, and as a result, the brick walls had sagged, creating a danger of the walls collapsing.

The Gauteng Social Development Department tasked the City of Ekurhuleni with tracking down the contractor to fix the latent defects, but was unable to locate him, concluding that the company “doesn’t exist any more.”

However, in 2021, the Sunday Times tracked the contractor down within a day. BuildAgain Projects 203 CC director Ravine Perumal said he had never been contacted by either the city or the department.

He said the business is active and has been in operation for more than 20 years.

“There was a full professional team involved in this job, and we built it according to the drawing that was provided to us,” he said.

“If there are structural damages or whatever the case may be, then that must be investigated properly. It opens a can of worms, and unfortunately, we would have to go back there.”

“The department evidently did not conduct a proper assessment of the facility before and during the handover, which also indicates a severe lack of project management experts from the department,” said DA MPL Refiloe Nt’sekhe.

The expectation among staff was that they would be recalled once the necessary repairs and certification processes were finished.

“They told us that, when they finish renovating and get the compliance certificate, they will call us back. Since then, they haven’t called us,” recalled the nurse.

What’s next for the Tembisa Old Age Home?

In a recent Q&A session in the provincial legislature, Mazibuko told Nt’sekhe that it has not been opened to beneficiaries because her department has not appointed NPOs to manage the facility, which also faces structural challenges.

Nt’sekhe called this “confusing” because Mazibuko said at the tail-end of 2024 that about R744,000 had been used to fix the infrastructure challenges that had led to the closure.

She stated that the Department has received an Occupational Certificate from the municipality and is already engaging with the Tembisa community regarding staffing and finding an NPO to manage the facility.

She further committed to ensuring that the facility is officially opened in 2025. However, halfway through the year, the doors to the facility remain shut.

As such, the elderly residents and over 30 staff remain in limbo in an area suffering from critical shortages of such facilities.

Nt’sekhe labelled this a “troubling practice of abandoning building facilities and making them inaccessible to the residents of Gauteng.”

“This pattern of neglect undermines the purpose of such infrastructure and deprives the community of essential resources that could improve their quality of life,” she added.

The Gauteng Department of Social Development did not respond to BusinessTech.

Images of the idle Tembisa Old Age Home