AfriForum: ‘Shady’ land deal makes no sense

Following a recent article in Lowvelder about a land sale in Barberton, AfriForum laid charges of fraud and corruption against the companies implicated in the suspected illegal deal last Friday at the Nelspruit Police Station.

The alleged shady land deal involved R34 million and purportedly involved Bongiveli Construction and Vantiblox. Bongiveli Construction is also reportedly linked to the purchase and sale of Rietfontein Farm outside Ermelo that netted it R36,4 million after it was bought for R11,9 million from Fremax Farms, and later sold to the Department of Social Development.

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Biggar Farm, 644JT part one was sold to Bongiveli in September 2011 for R12 million, resold to Vantiblox for R15 million in January 2017 and then to the City of Mbombela Local Municipality (CMLM) for R34 million.

“What raised suspicion is that the deed numbers of the transactions followed one another, indicating that the land was never transferred to Vantiblox until after it was resold to CMLM,” said Chris Gouws, an investigator at AfriForum’s private prosecution unit (PPU).

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“This transaction doesn’t make sense at all, especially not if the tax implications of such a transfer are taken into consideration.

It merely seems as though the transaction was only made to cover up Bongiveli’s involvement.” A deeper investigation by AfriForum’s PPU alllegedly revealed that Bongiveli is also implicated in a fraud case involving the loss of more than R24 million to the Department of Social Development.

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“AfriForum will continuously monitor the situation and if the state doesn’t want to take the matter further, our PPU will apply to privately prosecute the people involved,” said Hennie Bekker, the organisation’s district coordinator for the Lowveld.