Business continues as usual at the Puma garage on Bell Street

MBOMBELA – The filling station closed recently after an interdict was granted against the landlords of the premises, Brick on Brick, as well as Yaqeen Trading, which holds the filling station retail licence. Business on the site is now being conducted by Puma Energy.

The interdict against the filling station was previously granted to Pine Glow Investments, the owner of numerous fuel stations in the Mbombela area operating under the Caltex brand, along with the three other local owners of similar fuel stations in the city, on August 20. These fuel stations are all located within a three-kilometre radius of the new Puma garage.

The Puma garage commenced with temporarily operations on June 30 after many legal battles. According to the landlord’s legal representative, Jonathan Stephens, the site ironically previously hosted a Caltex garage operated by Pine Glow Investments for some 20 years, but they were ordered to vacate the property in 2012 on judgement of the Pretoria High Court, after the landlord sought their eviction from the property.

The Caltex site was ultimately decommissioned in October 2014.Stephens said that in October 2014 the landlord obtained a new site licence. This is when all the trouble started.The garage allegedly did not obtain the correct environmental authorisation from the Mpumalanga Department of Agriculture and Land Administration (Dardlea) to use the site as a fuel station.

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According to the legal representative of Pine Glow (and others), Pierre Kruger, Dardlea did not adhere to the constitutional principles and granted environmental authorisation without the right procedures being followed. “No attempts were made by them to prove the viability of a new gas station by expert study or to investigate the impact of a new gas station on other gas stations,” Kruger said.

On these grounds, they appealed to the court earlier this year. Their appeal was wavered and they have now appealed to the High Court. They obtained the interdicts on the same grounds and the fact that Pine Glow (and others) appealed against the licences that were granted to Brick-on-Brick (and others).

“Even though this appeal means that issuing of licences have been suspended, they still went ahead with construction and a portion of the station was opened,” Kruger said. The issue of healthy competition was also argued. However, Stephens has indicated that this appeal was dismissed by the MEC in January 2018, that the landlord and Yaqeen Trading have since taken the interdict granted by

Judge Malesela Francis Legodi on appeal, and that their clients are confident of ultimate success in the matter. Dardlea did not respond to any of Lowvelder’s questions.

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