A legal note showing that the municipal land earmarked for housing development in Soweto’s Power Park was sold unlawfully contradicts the Joburg Property Company’s (JPC) claim last week that the R110 000 transaction was above board.
Presented with a letter dated October 2022, JPC bosses said at the time that the letter written as the validity of the land transfer to property developer Louis Barnard, who also doubled as the city’s municipal agent, was disputed.
JPC CEO Helen Botes said a subsequent investigation revealed that the company that obtained ownership of the land parcel, Imcapath, was a subsidiary of LAB Investment Holdings, which Barnard used to buy the council property.
Botes said prior to the investigation the JPC, a City of Johannesburg property management entity, had not been aware that the two companies were related, thus it had disputed the transfer to Imcapath as unlawful.
JPC and the city sold the disputed piece of land to Imcapath through the authorisation of power of attorney conferred to its sister company, LAB Investment Holdings.
However, after confirming that JPC and the City had sold the land to LAB Investment, it emerged the JPC had initially flagged the land in question as being illegally sold in October 2022.
Tshepo Mokataka, general manager: legal services at Joburg Property Company, said: “We have flagged the transfer of Erf 415 Power Park township, and [have] already launched an investigation into this transfer.”
In keeping with section 14 of the Municipal Finance Management Act, a municipality may not transfer ownership without following the correct procedure consistent with the law.
In a contradictory statement made by Botes and Mokataka, the land on ERF 415 in Power Park was sold unlawful by the city’s property company.
Mokataka, in a letter on October 11 2022 to Mpho Magome, a representative of Jaylopart NPC and businessman Bakang Khumalo, said the land was sold unlawful to Barnard’s company and that the sale transaction was being investigated by the City’s group forensic investigation services (GFIS).
Over a week ago, Botes told Sunday World that the land was sold lawfully, however, asked about the contradiction of her letter and the one written by Mokataka, he said last week that JPC did not know anything about Imcapath.
He added that based on the court application instituted by Jaylopart, JPC had no knowledge of the deeds transfers hence it needed to investigate the matter.
Responding to a new set of questions, Botes said the letter written by Motakata to Magome dated October 11 2022 was correct, admitting that the land was sold unlawful to Imcapath at the time the matter reached the Johannesburg High Court for dispute.
“Firstly, the statement contained in the JPC letter dated 11 October was correct at the time of issue of the letter.
“Secondly, the JPC did not, at the time, know the entity known as Imcapath. Insofar as we were concerned as JPC, we only knew LAB.
“You will recall that this formation came to JPC within the context of an urgent application by Jaylopart.
“It stood to reason that since we had no immediate knowledge of the transfers, we needed time to investigate them. This included the documents LAB utilised to attend to the transfer,” said Botes last week.
She said the JPC did investigate deeds transfer of the land sold illegally, and that the entity’s investigations revealed that Imcapath was a sister company of LAB, two companies owned by Barnard.
Barnard was also an agent of the city when the sale of the piece of land was sold to him, which is deemed as a conflict of interest.
“We had no knowledge of the fact that LAB, acting in terms of the sale agreement, exercised its rights to invoke the relevant clauses of the agreement to nominate Imcapath for the transfers so it could proceed with the development.
“It was only later that LAB confirmed the nomination in the subsequent communications between JPC and LAB.
“As indicated, the JPC did not know of Imcapath at the time of the transfers. The JPC was not aware of the transfers and the accompanying documentation,” said Botes.
Asked about the investigations’ findings to prove that the land was sold unlawful as asserted by Mokataka, Botes referred the publication to GFIS.
Last week, Botes stated that the land in question, where Barnard’s company is already developing for commercial housing despite the matter been in court, was sold for housing development and that Barnard, who was conflicted as an agent of the city, was the owner of both LAB and Imcapath, as he was given a power of attorney to sell the land to one of his businesses.
When contacted for comment, Magome said: “We have taken the matter to court, and it is subjudice. My views currently do not matter at this stage.”
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