By Lynda Loxton

Cape Town - Stella Sigcau, the minister of public works, yesterday said she hoped to at last have a firmer handle on the value of all state property by the end of the 2003/04 financial year.

Speaking during the debate on her budget vote in the national assembly, she said the finalisation of the valuation of the state property portfolio would be accompanied by a government-wide immovable asset management framework to establish a set of minimum norms and standards.

"This will help deal with any inconsistencies and inefficiencies in the manner in which government assets are managed within different organs of government," she said.

A formal and definitive asset register of state properties would encourage the better use of properties and the disposal of those that had no strategic value.

It would also prevent "fraud and corruption through the detection and reduction of fictitious maintenance [and] abnormal costs for similar types of properties", she said.

In 2002/03 her department had sold 835 properties covering 63 544 ha, with an estimated market value of R55.2 million. Of these, 803 properties (63 140 ha) had been sold for land reform purposes, 19 properties (359 ha) for low-cost housing and related infrastructure and 13 properties (45 ha) with a market value of R24.7 million had been sold for commercial purposes. Two properties valued at R983 000 had been acquired in exchange for state land.

Sigcau said her department had set up an asset procurement and operating partnership system unit that specialised in delivering infrastructure in partnership with the private sector.

It was involved in three projects for government departments in the Struben Street Boulevard precinct, which would contribute to the urbanisation renewal initiative in Pretoria.

During the debate, she was alternatively praised and criticised for the calibre of work done by her department, with some MPs particularly critical of the standard of maintenance of the parliamentary villages in Cape Town, schools, hospitals, magistrate's courts and police stations.

But Moses Chikane of the ANC said he had been encouraged by the progress Sigcau's department had made in meeting the stringent financial control, accounting and reporting standards set in the Public Finance Management Act.

He wished, however, that the department could do more to deal with the "monster" of urban decay in most major towns and cities as businesses fled.