A businessman has been accused of using the presence of his friend Cyril Ramaphosa at a braai to pressure provincial officials over a valuable contract, writes Stefaans Brmmer
CYRIL RAMAPHOSA has been caught in a potential wrangle between two provinces over a lucrative game park concession.
Eyebrows have been raised over the outgoing African National Congress secretary general’s presence at a braai where a 20- year extension of the concession was proposed to Northern Province officials – while Mpumalanga was making its own plans to ”commercialise” the park.
Ramaphosa is a friend and business partner of MJ ”Bou” Raath, who has a concession originally obtained from the Gazankulu homeland government to about a quarter of the Manyeleti Game Reserve. Raath operates two tourist camps in this part of the park. While Ramaphosa is not involved in this venture, he is a director of Akasia Road Surfacing, another of Raath’s companies.
Manyeleti, a 23 000-hectare reserve which borders the Kruger National Park, presently belongs to the Northern Province, but has been earmarked for transfer to Mpumalanga in a series of border area swaps.
The Mpumalanga Parks Board struck a deal with the Dubai-based Dolphin Group, reportedly more than two months ago, giving Dolphin development and commercial rights to four game parks – intended to include Manyeleti – for 50 years. The deal, worth hundreds of millions of rands, was shrouded in secrecy until it was announced a fortnight ago.
While Dolphin and the Mpumalanga Parks Board were negotiating their deal, Raath organised a braai with Northern Province officials at his Khoka Moya Lodge in Manyeleti, at which Ramaphosa was present. Here, Raath proposed to the officials that they extend his concession – for which he already has a contractual option to extend until 2002 – for a further 20 years.
In return for the extension to 2022, Raath would have dropped a cumbersome ”compensation clause” in his contract with the Northern Province, inherited from the original Gazankulu contract, which binds the provincial government to pay him the full value of any improvements to the tourist camps should the contract come to an end.
The compensation clause put Raath in a particularly strong bargaining position – in fact, in about the last two years his company, Khoka Moya Wilderness Trails, has boosted the camps’ value, spending more than R2-million on development costs. Should Raath’s negotiations be successful, he would lose the right to that compensation, but he would stand to make a much more handsome windfall if his land concession to a quarter of Manyeleti were to be bought out when the park goes to Mpumalanga.
Mpumalanga Parks Board chief Alan Grey this week said the Mpumalanga deal with Dolphin was conditional on the park actually being transferred to Mpumalanga. Should Dolphin then want rights to the entire Manyeleti, it would be up to them to come to an agreement with existing concessionaries like Raath. He said the length of term of Raath’s concession would ”certainly” affect the value of the right that Dolphin would buy from Raath, should they come to an agreement.
But Grey said he understood it had been agreed between Mpumalanga and Northern Province authorities that the Northern Province would, for now, sign no new leases or long-term extensions.
Grey said he would have the matter raised at the next meeting of a joint management committee set up by the two provinces to co- ordinate an overall management strategy for the areas which may be affected by the border swaps. ”I would really feel concerned if they were to extend that lease until 2020,” he said.
Concern has been expressed to the Mail & Guardian by people close to some of the role players that because of his political stature, Ramaphosa’s presence at the braai could have put undue pressure on officials to accede to an extension of the concession. Said one: ”Cyril was being waved around like a flag.”
But both Raath and Ramaphosa this week denied Ramaphosa’s presence had been anything more than ”social”. Raath said he had been friends with Ramaphosa since ”two, three years ago” and that he had been ”a very good friend of the company”. Ramaphosa was appointed director of Akasia Road Surfacing (part of the Shoredits construction group) on June 1. ”It is completely untrue that we used him to intimidate people. It was purely a social occasion,” said Raath.
Ramaphosa said: ”My going there had nothing, nothing to do with influencing anybody in any way. I would never do that. It was purely social and coincidental … I had gone to see the park – I love the wildlife – and there were some Northern Province officials there.” Ramaphosa agreed his current position, with one foot in the business world and another in the world of politics, could give rise to similar charges. ”I suppose so, because in the end if it was a pure business proposition, this would not be the case. But I am not even connected to that [Raath’s Manyeleti] business.”
Greg Knill, chief director of environment affairs in the Northern Province Department of Agriculture, Land and Environment Affairs, this week said it had been confirmed to him that an extension of Raath’s concession period had been raised at the braai, but that Raath was told he would have to make a formal submission. He said officials had been ”surprised” at the approach, as ”we don’t do business that way. Knowledge comes on paper.”
Knill said that to his department’s knowledge there had been ”no further developments on paper”.