The Electoral Commission (IEC) has failed in its first attempt to buy a national headquarters, it will continue leasing its current building while a new tender process runs.
IEC chief financial officer Dawn Mbatha told Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs on Friday, 9 October, that the first tender failed because of technical and compliance problems.
“We did go to market. The market did not yield the results. There were certain technical issues on which those tenders failed,” Mbatha said.
The IEC went back to bidders to explain what had gone wrong.
“It would have been very difficult for the institution to have awarded from that process if it was not compliant. It was going to become another issue that we would have had to deal with,” she said.
The tender has been reissued and closes on 10 December.
Mbatha said bidders were informed about the reasons for the earlier failure.
“Everything was disclosed. Everybody got a fair sense of what resulted in the non-compliance from that tender,” she said.
In the meantime, the IEC will remain at its current national office, which Mbatha said meets the required standards.
“The fact that it’s a lease, and that we have not acquired a new building, does not translate to it not being compliant,” she said.
Mbatha said the IEC extended the lease in line with legislative requirements and reported it to National Treasury.
“We can comfortably say there are no compliance issues with the current lease that we have with the national office to date. It has been reported and disclosed,” she said.
Committee chairperson Mosa Steve Chabane said the building had been raised in previous meetings with the IEC.
The discussion comes as the commission faces questions about its property costs and procurement practices.
Mbatha told the committee that the IEC incurred R3.4 million in irregular expenditure in the 2025/26 financial year.
“It was really an existing contract that was still being occupied,” she said.
She did not specify whether the contract related to the national headquarters or a local office.
Mbatha said the IEC had incurred no fruitless and wasteful expenditure. The commission is still asking National Treasury to condone the irregular expenditure.
DA MP Adrian Christopher Roos asked what the IEC was doing with the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure to reduce the long-term cost of commercial office leases.
Mbatha said commercial leases were unaffordable.
“Going the commercial route is completely unaffordable. It’s very difficult,” she replied.
She said the IEC would prefer to work with the state.
Mbatha pointed to National Treasury’s Instruction Note 13 of 2026/27, issued on 9 September. It allows the IEC and other entities to procure goods and services from other state organs.
The tender listing says the IEC wants to buy a building within 8km of Centurion Central. The commission’s tender documents list its current address as Election House at Riverside Office Park in Centurion.
The building has a history of procurement controversy.
In 2013, then Public Protector Thuli Madonsela found that the IEC’s procurement of a R320 million, 10-year lease for its Riverside Office Park premises was irregular.
In 2015, the IEC told the same parliamentary committee that the irregular expenditure linked to the lease would continue until the matter was resolved through legal means.
More than a decade later, the commission is still leasing its national headquarters and has yet to secure a building through its latest purchase process.
