STATEMENT BY BRETT HERRON, GOOD MEMBER OF WESTERN CAPE PROVINCIAL PARLIAMENT AND SECRETARY-GENERAL
10 May 2021
GOOD has referred an irrational land deal engineered by the City of Cape Town and Western Cape Government to the Pubic Protector, after the Western Cape Parliament’s DA-dominated Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) chose to duck the issue.
Nearly two years after I requested SCOPA to investigate a case of fruitless and wasteful expenditure, the committee’s chairperson ANC MPL Lulama Mvimbi has advised that the committee had resolved to “note” the issue and not make any findings.
The land in question is a 17-hectare portion of Racing Park Industrial West, much of which is unsuitable for housing as it is a wetland.
It was purchased at a grossly inflated price to build houses for the community that has overflowed Dunoon’s borders and spilled onto Transnet freight rail land.
Although the City already owned a suitable site on nearby Potsdam Road, reserved for housing, former MEC for Human Settlements, Bonginkosi Madikizela, and City of Cape Town Mayco Member, Xanthea Limberg, curiously insisted on buying alternative land. It was ultimately purchased for the province by the Housing Development Agency.
It is said that this land is “less politically sensitive” than the Potsdam site, which is slightly closer to middle-class Table View. The area’s councillor Joy McCarthy is on record stating that Table View did not want to become “Khayelithsa by the sea”.
The 17-hectares cost nearly R65m. According to the Racing Park Owners Association the actual value is closer to R21m. This was also the value estimated by City of Cape Town officials who had previously assessed the land for acquisition and concluded it was over-priced and unsuitable.
The dodgy deal followed protests in Dunoon in February 2018 in response to the proposed demolition of informal homes along the Transnet Freight Rail line (a settlement known as Siyahlala). The Siyahlala settlement was preventing the Transnet Freight line from operating and Transnet proposed building a wall.
There was considerable urgency to resolve the matter. In April 2020, Minister of Human Settlements added to the urgency when she identified Siyahlala as requiring urgent relocation due to the Covid pandemic.
But nothing has happened because the purchased land is unsuitable, and the Racing Park Owners Association is disputing the validity of the sale in court.
The Siyahlala settlement remains as it was three years ago.
In August 2019 I referred the matter to SCOPA. Although the provincial committee is chaired by an ANC member, it is dominated by members of the DA.
GOOD regards SCOPA’s decision not to make findings on the matter irrational and a dereliction of its responsibility to conduct oversight. I have thus referred it to the Public Protector to investigate.
Land is increasingly the currency of corruption. This purchase doesn’t make sense and is a massive waste of public funds.
Ends…