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A communal property association of South Africa’s most expensive land claim is allegedly shutting its doors even tighter to exclude hundreds of beneficiaries.
The R1.1 billion Mala Mala Game Reserve land claim has failed to benefit most of the claimants because the government handed it over to 960 families from the Mhlanganisweni community in 2014.
Some of the beneficiaries have accused the Nwandlamharhi Community Property Association (CPA) of mismanagement, a lack of transparency and withholding dividends due to them.
The CPA, concerned community members claim, is helping only a handful of beneficiaries while the rest are excluded and are not even allowed to attend annual general meetings so that they can get updates on the association’s financial statements.
Despite the beneficiaries’ concerns about discrimination having caught Parliament’s attention, the CPA appears unlikely to change its ways.
The exclusive and luxurious nature reserve – in the Sabi Sands Game Reserve adjacent to the Kruger National Park – generates about R8.4 million a year in rental income for the CPA and about R2 million in the form of a tourism levy, from which most of the beneficiaries do not receive a cent.
Two weeks ago, according to a video recording City Press has seen, the CPA’s security guards refused beneficiaries entrance when they held a meeting at Lilydale.
Zamani Mathebula said it was the second time security guards had denied him access to a meeting.
In March last year Mathebula was allegedly assaulted when he tried to force his way into the CPA’s meeting.
He is among eight concerned beneficiaries who have filed papers at the Pretoria High Court, asking it to order Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane to conduct a forensic investigation into its former treasurer Derick Mthabine and his alleged associates in the CPA.
The court is expected to pass judgment on this matter soon.
“The CPA has excluded most of the beneficiaries. We heard only last month that the CPA was paying out R60 000 to some of the beneficiaries they like,” Mathebula told City Press.
“Their security guards prevented me and other beneficiaries from going to the meeting. They continue to run the property for a small group.”
In court papers Mathebula and his co-applicants ask that the department place the CPA under administration and help beneficiaries convene an annual general meeting to elect a new executive.
They demand the CPA’s attorneys furnish records of the community’s funds held in their trust account and that they be interdicted from releasing or using this money until the dispute is resolved.
Mathebula said the CPA was damaging relations with nearby game reserve owners. A case in point was the decision to construct a new lodge next to the Notten’s Bush Camp.
“There’s no community resolution to build such a lodge 900m from Notten’s Bush Camp. We cannot create bad relationships with other businesses, but the CPA has once against taken a unilateral decision,” he said.
CPA spokesperson Joshua Dlamini referred questions to its attorney, Loiuse du Plessis, who was not available for comment.
Parliament decided in June that a forensic audit be conducted to look into how the R1.1 billion deal was finalised.
Mala Mala was valued at R750 million, but an out-of-court settlement resulted in the game reserve eventually being sold to government for R1.1 billion.
The commission on the restitution of land rights and the high court believed the price was excessive, but the claimants lodged an appeal.
It was then that an out-of-court settlement was reached.
The forensic investigation will examine the verification process used to determine who the original beneficiaries of the deal were.
