Cape Town - There was no political interference in the purchase of property for a housing development in Dunoon, according to the Housing Development Agency (HDA). The Legislature’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) is investigating an allegation about how the provincial Department of Human Settlements, the City and the HDA were involved in the purchase of land from the private sector in Dunoon for R64 million.
The investigation came after a request by Good Party MPL Brett Herron who had alleged that the valuers inflated the value of the land and that there was political interference in the purchase.
Herron submitted a dossier to Scopa last year and said the land had been purchased by the HDA, on behalf of the province, for more than twice its market value - when the state already owned a 20-hectare piece of land nearby, which was larger than the one purchased.
Herron said: “In the months leading up to the 2019 National and Provincial Elections, three DA politicians (the then City of Cape Town Mayco member for Informal Settlements, Xanthea Limberg; then MEC for Human Settlements and Leader of the Provincial DA, Bonginkosi Madikizela, and current DA MP, Emma Powell) advocated for the purchase of a property in Doornbach near Dunoon.”
A manager at the HDA Thando Mguli said: “We were tasked with finding a solution for Dunoon. We looked everywhere asking for any parcel of land available. We asked the municipality, the province, provincial public works and national public works.
“In the end we had no choice but to look for property in the private sector as a last resort,” said Mguli.
CFO Provincial Human Settlements department Francois de Wet said: “We went through the process and I certified we got value for money. The process was audited last year and all was found in order.”
Mayor Dan Plato did not appear before the committee, but wrote a letter in which he said: “It should be noted that I was not the mayor at the time these decisions were made, but that Brett Herron was a member of the former mayor Patricia de Lille’s MayCo and political head of the Directorate for the Transport and Urban Development Authority responsible for acquiring land on behalf of the City.”