Nelspruit mayor to be charged?

2008-01-21 17:30

Justin Arenstein and Tshwarelo eseng Mogakane

Nelspruit - An independent commission of inquiry has recommended that criminal charges be laid against the mayor of Mpumalanga's capital city, Justice Nsibande, and the city's 2010 manager, Differ Mogale.

The two men are accused of failing to declare their conflicts of interest in deals related to the 2010 FIFA World Cup stadium outside Nelspruit.

Nsibande and Mogale are members of a tourism company, Blue Nightingale, which includes Terry Mdluli as a board director.

Mdluli is chairperson of the Matsafeni Trust, which represents a community of farmworkers who sold their ancestral land, worth R60m, to the Mbombela local municipality for just R1 so that the 2010 stadium could be built on it.

The deal has sparked a heated legal challenge led by international human rights lawyer Richard Spoor on behalf of 750 of the Matsafeni Trust's 1 250 members, who claim they were never consulted on the "absurd" sale and that Mdluli was acting fraudulently and for personal gain.

Nsibande insisted that the commission's report was a political smear campaign, but conceded he was business partners with Mogale, Mdluli, and other key political figures.

Land sale 'illegal'

It was the Mbombela council that called for a commission of inquiry to be held. The inquiry was led by Ngobe Nkosi Attorneys.

Nsibande insisted that he'd declared his interests, but refused to say whether his judgement and oversight duties had been impaired by his commercial relationships.

The National Department of Land and South Africa's chief Land Claims Commissioner, Tozi Gwanya, have meanwhile voiced support for Spoor's legal challenge by warning that the land sale to the municipality was illegal.

"The law is very clear. This land was returned to the Matsafeni as part of a land claim. The law says that no community that receives such land can sell or otherwise alienate it for five years without a certificate from the minister saying government has no objections," explains Gwanya.

"No such certificate was requested or issued, and with more than half of the beneficiaries now challenging the deal, there will be no certificate."

That means that Mpumalanga is using R1bn in tax funds to build an international stadium on land it does not own.

'Remedial action'

Mpumalanga's provincial director for the 2010 World Cup, Desmond Golding, conceded that government had not yet moved to verify the commission's report and had failed to address the Matsafeni people's grievances.

"We have not yet acted because we were assured by the municipality that the situation was under control, but we view these new reports as very serious and will urgently convene the province's 2010 political committee to decide on remedial action," he said.

The committee, which consists of provincial cabinet ministers, will meet early this week.

- African Eye