By Teboho Letselela
MAHIKENG MAIL - MAHIKENG: It has been almost 13 years now that no proper verdict or ruling has been made on the infamous Marang Estate Project at Unit 3 in Mahikeng, where a mixed housing project was meant to be built, consisting of over 2 400 affordable rental units.
Year after year, different provincial Premiers came and left the leadership office, with the Marang Estate project remaining unresolved as the “elephant in the room”, pending finalisation of investigations into the matter.
In December 2012, North West Province entered into an agreement with a developer to build the 2 400 units and contributed and approved a disbursement of an amount of R54 689 544 to the developer during the course of the first phase of the project.
The Social Housing Regulatory Authority (SHRA) also entered into an agreement with the developer for the RCG funding in the amount of R301 476 000 to deliver the 2 400 units for the project, which was signed on 7 December 2012.
However, the project did not achieve Conditions Precedent (CP) and Financial Closure (FC), although the grant recipient requested a waiver of various CP and FC conditions. The grant recipient subsequently invoiced the SHRA and on the back of the waivers, certain funds were disbursed into an impress account.
It was indicated that the project was to unfold with the first phase development of 612 affordable rental units to be completed. The second phase consisted of 844 units and the third phase, a total of 944 units, was to make up the 2 400 units.
As a result of several delays, the SHRA cancelled its agreement with the grant recipient due to non-performance of the contract and requested that the funds disbursed be returned to the SHRA, causing the project to stop, as it was reported that certain procurement irregularities came into effect in terms of the land transfer process from the municipality to the grant recipient.
This further led the National Treasury to open a criminal investigation into the project with investigations revealing that during transfer of the land, the Mahikeng Local Municipality was not paid a cent of the agreed purchase price of R144 million, but only received R5 million towards the purchase as revealed by the anti-corruption task team.
According to current developments, North West Provincial Premier, Lazarus Mokgosi reported in his SOPA presentation in the Provincial Legislature last week, that the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), the National Treasury and the Hawks were now jointly conducting criminal investigations for preservation of the site.
He said that the NPA secured a forfeiture order from the court, which mandated consultation with an enforcement officer and National Treasury to transfer specific properties to entities such as the North West Department of Human Settlements, the Mahikeng Local Municipality or the Social Housing Regulatory Authority.
The land parcels and the incomplete Marang project is currently under the control of a curator to unblock a project that has been stopped for more than ten years.
