dispute
Fiona Macleod
A magnificent environmental education and conference centre is falling through the cracks of the dispute between Mpumalanga and Northern Province authorities about who owns the Bushbuckridge Nature Reserve.
Mpumalanga spent R2-million on the centre, which is inside the reserve, but stopped building when it became clear the reserve falls within Northern Province.
There is consensus that it will take at least another R1-million to finish the centre and its satellite buildings, but neither province is prepared to pay that.
Feltus Brand, director of the Northern Province Department of Agriculture and Environment, says Mpumalanga undertook to finish the structures before handing over the reserve to the Northern Province.
But the Mpumalanga conservation authorities say, because of their financial crisis in the wake of the Dolphin deal, they are in no position to honour that undertaking.
The centre was started by former Mpumalanga MEC for Environmental Affairs David Mkhwanazi. It was not put out to tender and no environmental impact assessment was done, despite it being in a game reserve.
For the past two years the Mpumalanga Parks Board (MPB) has paid a private security company to guard the abandoned buildings.
“The centre has no direct connection to the MPB, but we felt it was the right thing to do,” says MPB representative Gary Sutter.
While the stalemate continues, Piet Ngobeni, the guard who has been stationed at the centre since January last year, spends his days watching weeds push up through the expensive fittings, holes grow in the thatched roof every time there’s a storm and moss growing on the centre’s long stone walls.