The refurbishment of the Welkom cargo airport in the Free State has been thrust into the spotlight as contractors battle for legitimacy.

The owners of King Michaels company claim its idea was hijacked and handed to a competitor after it won the tender to refurbish Welkom airport.

The Chief Operating Officer of King Michaels, Rachenepe Molefe says they followed protocols and complied with tender requirements. They accuse the Matjhabeng Municipality of ignoring the appointment letter and service level agreement issued by Lejweleputswa Development Agency in 2022.

Molefe says instead of supplying them with a lease agreement as stipulated in Clause 1.21 of the service level agreement, the Matjhabeng Municipality stalled and failed to explain its decision.

Molefe says Matjhabeng Municipality was involved in the whole process.

“To our surprise, there is, within the document, the service level agreement, where it says, upon signature of this document, within seven days, we must be given the lease agreement for the airport so we can start the project. This has not happened. We have been asking the Matjhabeng Municipality, as we are legitimately appointed as King Michaels PTY Ltd. While we have not received the lease agreement or any answers.”

Welkom Airport | Battle for legitimacy halts Welkom Airport refurbishment project

He insists the airport project belongs to them and says they had the initial idea and want to see it through to the end.

“We have engaged with numerous flight schools that we partnered with, so we can have a flight school. We didn’t look for what most people look for. We thought we wouldn’t focus on pilots and cabin crew but on the other fields within aviation, such as Air Traffic Control, flight engineers, and there are a lot of things that can be done, and that was our plan.”

King Michaels chairperson, Dr Kgosi Monnakgotla says this has affected their investors’ trust in them, even though they assured their investors that the project would commence.

“The delay, as you have alluded to, has caused a lot of development breakdowns in terms of the return of investment for investors and our showcase that we have the capacity to do this work. It has put dents in and opened up negative holes. Our intention was to resolve part of the employment problems of communities by now. At least we would have created about 5 000 job opportunities from 2022.”

The Economic Freedom Fighters in the Free State says Matjhabeng Municipality needs to explain.

The Democratic Alliance leader, John Steenhuisen says, “I’m very concerned about the Airport, it looks like this is a classic case of jobs for pals and crony cadre networks here. And airports that should be providing lifeblood and tourism and all sorts of things, but now it’s caught up in a corrupt network.

“There really is no need to have a full and thorough investigation because we cannot hope to grow our economy with corruption networks siphoning money that should be spent on projects on the ground, rather than into pockets and networks,” Steenhuisen adds.

The Matjhabeng municipality declined to comment, saying it wants to focus on delivering services to its residents.

Matjhabeng Municipality plans to refurbish the old airport