A decade of talk, five years of building and nothing to show for it as Franschhoek High School, where Swimming SA's High Performance Centre was to have been built, is a decaying wasteland.

The establishment of a Franschhoek High Performance Centre has been in the pipeline for close to a decade under Swimming South Africa (SSA). Yet there is nothing to show for it but a few derelict buildings and weeds.

Now SSA will face the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) to explain where more than R50-million in funds have disappeared to.

Keep up with the latest headlines on WhatsApp | LinkedIn

The project has been brought to a halt with corroding half-built infrastructure outlining what was intended to be built.

Faeces-covered bathrooms, vandalised walls, broken gates, swimming pools holding shallow puddles of sewage water, shattered windows and patchy knee-high grass form what is supposed to be the Franschhoek High Performance Centre.

This is all on the property of Franschhoek High School, one of the oldest government schools in the country.

SSA received funding from World Aquatics (around R8.5-million), the National Lotteries Commission (about R35-million) and The Sports Trust (about R6-million) to finance the project. The total cost of the project was set to be R111-million, with further private investment also supporting the project.

Promising venture

Once the Franschhoek High Performance Centre was up and running - which a section of it was, for a short period in 2023 - it aimed to be...