Fransman is 100% wrong - Carlisle

Robin Carlisle

Robin Carlisle

Published Oct 17, 2013

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Cobus Coetzee

Political Writer

Public Works MEC Robin Carlisle has challenged ANC provincial chairman Marius Fransman to a public debate after the latter said nearly all properties rented by the provincial government were in white hands.

He said Fransman was “100 percent wrong” and that he knew it.

Carlisle stepped into the fray yesterday to refute Fransman’s claim that “95 to 98 percent” of all properties the province and the City of Cape Town were renting in Cape Town were in the hands of white property owners.

Fransman made this statement after he was quoted by Sapa as saying: “The reality is… 98 percent… of the landowners and property owners actually are the white community and, in particu- lar, also people in the Jewish community.”

ANC veteran Ben Turok, MP, has since complained to ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe about Fransman’s “anti-Semitic” statements.

Fransman replied that he “unreservedly apologised for the perception created that I was singling out the Jewish community”. He stood by his claim about white ownership regarding the province’s leasing of land. “This is based on facts,” he said.

The Cape Times has asked Fransman to supply documents to support his argument, but he has not responded yet. Carlisle released a list of eight major office blocks the department is renting in the Cape Town city centre yesterday.

According to him, they are:

l Protea Assurance Building, owned by Oasis, a blackowned entity which is also Sharia compliant.

l Waldorf Building, privately-owned by Moosa Baba, of Cameroon.

l 35 Wale Street, owned by the Government Employees Pension Fund.

l Golden Acre, owned by Growthpoint Properties – a JSE-listed company.

l Grand Central Building, owned by Ascension Properties, a black-managed and substantially black-owned JSE-listed company.

l Atterbury House, also

owned by Ascension Properties.

l Norton House, also owned by Moosa Baba.

l and 11 Leeuwen, owned by the Benjamin Family Trust.

Carlisle said Fransman’s statements were wrong. “Fransman knows they are wrong, as he either signed and/or dealt with most of the leases himself.

“He therefore knew what he was saying was untrue, just as he knew that his accusations that the DA had taken building contracts in Observatory and Woodstock from Muslim businessmen and awarded them to Jewish businessmen were also untrue.”

Carlisle’s list referred only to properties in the Cape Town city centre, which represent just under 59 percent of office space leased.

On request, Carlisle’s spokesman, Siphesihle Dube, later released a list of other office blocks the province was renting:

l Somerset West Centre (Cape Nature), Vest Activ Seventeen.

l Old Library Building, Growthpoint Properties.

l Sunbell Building, Frederick Carter Marais.

l Hoofweg 42 Eerste Rivier, Grovic Investments.

l Joe Slovo Development Centre, Marconi Beam Community Development.

l Westport Park, Sunlisa Property Administrators.

l Kensington Day Hospital, Shawco.

l Omnia Building, Ambition Recruitment Services.

l DVS Centre, Market Media Publishers.

l Metropolitan Building (Social Development), Oyena Property Management.

l and Mill Park Building, The Lion Trust.

Carlisle’s office did not explain their ownership.

Dube did not supply information about any other land or property the provincial government is renting.

Fransman had not responded to questions at the time of going to print.

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