CHRIS MCKENZIE and JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Friday
MPUMALANGA’S controversial new R630m legislature is illegal and its construction has destroyed at least three protected plant species.
The complex is almost complete, but it has still not been approved by the Nelspruit City Council or the national Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism.
Meanwhile, forensic investigators attached to the auditor general are in Nelspruit this week probing an irregular R120m loan used to bankroll part of the development. Investigators believe that the loan scheme was abused by senior officials to hide a R4,8m fraud scam.
Nelspruit City Council senior planner Susan Oosthuizen confirmed this week that provincial officials insisted they were exempt from normal building codes and regulations, and physically barred her building inspectors from the legislature construction site. She added that construction on the complex began at least one year before the site was formally rezoned from agricultural land to a township.
Legislature speaker William Lubisi’s new office also violates agreements with the Lowveld Botanical Garden. The government originally promised that the complex would not be visible and would not impact on the gardens. But the office is in fact two storeys higher than allowed and has encroached into the river in places.
The province also destroyed at least three protected plant species, seriously damaged a sensitive riparian forest and violated a flood-line restriction by building parts of the complex in the Nels river and driving construction pillars into its banks.
The building will only be ready for occupation next year, but the province has already been forced to erect temporary walls of grass bales to hold back flood water when three days of rain raised water levels 50cm.
Mpumalanga’s environmental affairs department officially objected when it realised the complex was built within the river’s flood plain, and that construction cut into the water table and destroyed protected vegetation.
Officials stressed that environmental planning on the project was hopelessly inadequate and dismissed a contracted environmental report as unprofessional.
Forensic auditors are investigating allegations that former Mpumalanga finance superintendent general Leon Botha was implicated in creaming off R4,8-million off the contentious R120-million investment scheme underwriting the project in 1997.
They are to probe a suspiciously high 4% structuring fee on the investment. The fee could not be explained by Botha, currently Mpumalanga’s second most powerful civil servant. He has also been unable to explain why the taxpayer had to pay a R3,1m penalty when he prematurely terminated the investment in 1997, only to reinvest the money with the BoE consortium three months later.