Justin Arenstein
DISSENT over the Mpumalanga Parks Board’s (MPB) decision to place its prime nature reserves in the hands of the shadowy Dubai- based Dolphin Group deepened this week with the resignation of one of the provincial parks board’s most influential members.
John Hanks, who is also executive director of Worldwide Fund for Nature South Africa, resigned on Wednesday to protest the manner in which the parks board “steamrollered” the secret deal without presenting it to the full board or consulting affected communities.
In his resignation letter, Hanks also asked why he had not yet received a response to a formal letter of protest he sent to board chairman Patrick Maduna on November 29 last year. In the letter he asked six questions about the board’s handling of the deal, and about the financial credibility of Dolphin Group.
The contract, details of which were secret until reported by the Mail & Guardian, grants Dolphin exclusive commercial rights to Mpumalanga’s most popular nature reserves, including the Blyde River Canyon, for the next 50 years.
The parks board not only failed to mention Hanks’s letter, but the issues he raised were not addressed during a seven-hour crisis meeting between the parks board and the provincial watchdog Environmental Council (EC) late last week.
“The meeting was a complete waste of time,” Hanks said. “It’s really a hopeless situation when not even the [parks] board’s own board is consulted on what is potentially the most important conservation deal ever in South Africa.”
Hanks said board members were not informed that the meeting was to address the Dolphin case. “All we were told was that it would be a normal board meeting,” he said. “I just cannot go on like this and so I submitted my resignation.”
In any case, he said, the meeting failed to address the concerns of the EC and other environmentalists. And a press statement by Maduna afterwards has angered land-reform lawyers, who accuse the parks board of failing to take seriously potential land claims involving such areas as the Blyde River Canyon and Koskop Dam, dismissing them as “irrelevant issues that cannot stand in the way of development.”
“What do they mean by `irrelevant’. They’re a state body operating on state land and as such cannot contradict core central government policies such as the land reform programme,” said Durkje Gilfillian, an attorney with the Legal Resources Centre in Pretoria. “Some of these claims were lodged as far back as August 1995 but the parks board has ignored them.”
MPB chief executive Alan Gray, who masterminded the Dolphin deal, refused to comment on Hanks’s resignation, or on reports in the M&G last week that the Dolphin Group and its chief executive Ketan Somaia are under investigation in Kenya for misappropriating R35-million.
“I have done my homework,” he told the M&G, refusing to elaborate.
Gray said he went to Kenya to check on Somaia and Dolphin, and was satisfied with his findings.
But at the time of his visit, the Kenyan media were reporting Somaia’s business dealings under such headlines as: “Loathed and despised.” There were also reports on his alleged refusal to heed three summonses to appear before a parliamentary Public Accounts Committee.
Committee chairman M Wamalwa confirmed that his committee had recommended that the government refrain from future contracts with any company associated with Somaia.
Meanwhile, Somaia and a delegation of Dubai businessmen visited Namibia two weeks ago, following a meeting with Namibia’s trade and industry minister. Reports in the Namibian press indicate that he is interested in buying into the Swakopmund Entertainment Centre, which includes a casino, as well as a private game reserve reportedly owned by Stocks & Stocks.
The M&G confirmed this week that Dolphin is negotiating local financing for the developments with at least two commercial banks.
Sources indicate that Dolphin hopes to obtain at least 40% of its investment capital from the South African market.
Mpumalanga environmental affairs MEC David Mkwanazi said he could not accept that the entire contract was flawed. “It is all a matter of interpretation and now that we know there are certain problems we can renegotiate the points,” he said.
Pallo Jordan, minister of environmental affairs and tourism, this week requested a copy of the contract and a background briefing on Dolphin.