Disgraced former ANC spokesperson Carl Niehaus played a key role in facilitating official approval for a golf estate’s environmental impact assessment that authorities had already declined on environmental grounds.
Niehaus’s role — which he performed long before the Mail & Guardian‘s revelations about his chaotic financial affairs last year — emerged this week in legal action against the estate, Eye of Africa. Farmer Nicky Shear, whose property adjoins the estate, is challenging the Gauteng environment department’s granting of borehole-water access to Eye of Africa, by amending a condition of the environmental impact assessment (EIA).
In a previous application Shear sued Water Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica, Gauteng Premier Nomvula Mokonyane, the province’s environment minister and the estate itself for its illegal use of her borehole.
This week in the South Gauteng High Court Shear argued that the national and provincial authorities tried to hide the estate’s amended water licence from her and that proper procedures were not followed in giving Eye of Africa access to the borehole.
The Eye of Africa development, near Walkerville in Gauteng, is a partnership between Australian-based developer Medallist and locally based Pixley World Investments. Australian golfer Greg “The Great White Shark” Norman designed the estate’s golf course.
Golf courses have a huge water footprint and environmentalists regularly attack their use of the country’s scarce water resources. Eye of Africa’s brochures describe the estate as environmentally friendly, but experts say the development is in a water-stressed area.
Questions about government approval for the development were raised from the outset, after the EIA resulted in an official thumbs-down.
But Shear’s papers before the court this week show this decision was reversed on appeal by Khabisi Mosunkutu, then Gauteng’s environment minister. This was after Niehaus wrote to him in 2005 endorsing the development.
Niehaus was chief of the Gauteng Economic Development Agency (Geda) at the time and told Mosunkutu that the environmental concerns could be negated, Shear’s papers show.
Niehaus’s letter praised the economic impact of the project and said the developers had asked Geda to arrange a meeting with the minister to “clear any misunderstandings”.
A director in Mosunkutu’s department expressed concern at the time both about Niehaus’s letter and the development’s political connections, saying this could result in the developer’s application receiving ”preferential treatment”.
Then justice minister Penuell Maduna was listed as a Pixley World shareholder in the development’s original business plan, which the Mail & Guardian has seen.
A former department official close to the project said that Eye of Africa had pulled out all the stops to reverse the official refusal of approval of the development. “The pressure on us was huge,” the official said.
Eye of Africa’s launch in January 2006 attracted the cream of local politicians, including Paul Mashatile (then Gauteng’s economic development minister), Mosunkutu and Geda officials. Norman also attended.
A condition of the green light Mosunkutu gave the development was that the estate would not use the borehole to water its greens. But neighbours saw large-scale irrigation taking place in 2008, when the golf course was constructed, Shear’s court papers say.
She also says her borehole dried up at the time and she reported this to the National Water Affairs Department. Departmental documents included in Shear’s court papers show that officials were initially shocked by the estate’s water use and launched an investigation.
But after Shear heard nothing from the department, her lawyers discovered early in 2009 that the development had been approved the year before and the department had amended the original EIA, giving Eye of Africa permission to use the borehole. Shear was not consulted, she says.
Eye of Africa argues in court papers that before it received permission in December 2008 to use the borehole, water was bought from Rand Water to water the greens.
The estate says the amendment regarding the borehole was not a substantial one and that it would not have an impact on Shear’s water rights. An investment of R400-million would be endangered and jobs would be lost if the amendment was not granted, it argued.
Judgment was reserved this week.
The two departments declined to comment, saying the case was sub judice, and several attempts by the M&G to obtain comment from Niehaus and Eye of Africa developer Rui Graça were unsuccessful.