The Portfolio Committee on Public Works, has in its week long oversight visit in the Eastern Cape, visited on Monday (13 August 2018) the sites where Grosvenor and Port St Johns harbours are planned to be built in the OR Tambo District.

At the sites the committee received presentations on plans to build the harbours from the National Department of Public Works, the provincial Department of Roads and Public Works, Ingquza Hills and Port St Johns Local Municipalities. The presentations highlighted, among other things, future developments that will deliver positive spin-offs that will include fish farming, heritage preservation and tourism that will create employment in the area.

Although the committee welcomed the presentations, but it expressed its unhappiness on the lack of details especially on project time-frames and budget from the National Department of Public Works’s presentation. The committee instructed the department to provide those details on (Friday 17 August 2018) before the committee goes back to Parliament.

The committee will today visit Mthatha’s Centuli Clinic and IT34 Road Project. It will visit the Centuli Clinic for the second time. The first visit was on 14 September 2017 where the committee expressed grave concern about the fact that the clinic remained closed because the Department of Public Works owed the contractor payment.