After three years in the pipeline, there is still no clarity on a golf estate in town.
Hayes Matovich and Associates (Pty) Ltd (HMA) identified the Standerton Country Club as an ideal site to develop a primary residential, secure golf estate in the greater Standerton and Secunda areas in 2007.
In considering the opportunity, the land upon which the golf course is situated and the land adjacent thereto, was required for the development.
A portion of this land was, and still is, owned by the Lekwa Municipality.
With the full support of the country club and its members and having undertaken the necessary feasibility studies, HMA formalised the project by securing commitment of the landowners.
The project was launched at a gala event at the country club on 11 June 2011, where representatives of the municipality were present In the case of the municipality, this commitment was later formalised into a ‘Land Purchase Agreement’ after HMA was awarded the public tender to buy and develop the land owned by the municipality.
This tender highlighted the exact nature of the project, together with the anticipated benefits to the municipality and greater community.
It included a payment to the municipality for the land at a value substantially higher than the market value at that time, the establishment of a ‘Community Social Trust’ that would be used to finance social upliftment and skills development projects within the municipality community, the creation of 300 plus employment opportunities for the local community and the creation of a first-class sporting facility that undoubtedly would put Standerton on the SA ‘golf map’ and attract increasing numbers of golfing tourists to the town.
The municipality chose not to perform in terms of its agreed and legal obligations of the Land Sale Agreement.
Although requested by HMA and its legal term on many occasions to explain why, no written response was ever received from the municipality.
HMA continued with every means to rescue the project and tried to understand what problems were behind their ‘non-performance’.
In a meeting with the in-house legal representative of the municipality and its representative, who had administered the land tender process, HMA was advised that the municipality had changed its mind as to awarding the tender to HMA unless they committed to guarantee that 60% of all services to the development would be contracted with entirely black-owned, local business.
It was explained by the HMA to municipality that such a scenario, albeit not a condition of the Land Sale Agreement, was never feasible as there simply were not any such contractors in Standerton that had the expertise or capacity for a job of this scale.
The response from the municipality representative, who also happened to own a ‘Project Management’ company ‘on the side’ and used the e-mail address of this company when communicating on official municipality matters, was that they could use his black-owned project management company as the contacting company on all services required, which would then be outsourced to the rightful contractors.
Court proceedings are underway.
“The only time we hear from the municipality is when they file their defence in court,” Mr Rob Hudson of HMA said.
Mr Sipho Mkwanazi, spokesman of the Lekwa Municipality, said the matter is sub iudice and handled by the respective lawyers.
He emphasized that it was untrue that the municipality has not responded to HMA’s correspondence.
