The other side of the ‘Sun King’, taxpayer beneficiary of apartheid

In many ways, the journalistic feeding frenzy around the launch of the Lost City, back in the early 1990s, was reminiscent of the coronavirus, with the invitations from Sun International spreading virally around newsrooms.

Few were immune. Travel and entertainment writers and editors – that was expected. Business reporters and editors (also understandable). Sports reporters and editors – less justifiable … unless you realised that the Lost City and Sun City had the amazing golf course which would host the “Million Dollar” tournament.

But the invitations – which often included a “plus one” (a partner) and were inclusive of luxury rooms, food, booze, entertainment, rounds of golf and even, for the really influential hacks, gambling money – spread much further. Even journalists and editors whose beats were light-years away from those areas found themselves getting the juicy invites.

I remember there was a queue at the fax machine of The Star as people rushed to RSVP … a bit like the recent panic-buying.

The only journalist, to my knowledge, who turned down a Lost City invitation on a matter of principle was the then editor of the Natal Mercury, John Patten, who realised, correctly, that it would be a conflict of influence for anyone in the media to be wined and dined by Sol Kerzner.

That was because, at the height of apartheid, the Lost City, and its predecessor, Sun City, were inextricably linked with the ruling National Party government’s policy of “separate development”.

“Grand Apartheid”, as espoused by the Nat planners, envisaged a “constellation of states” in the form of the “independent homelands”, or Bantustans, as they came to be known. Bophuthatswana, the one established on the Botswana border as a homeland for the Tswana people, was the home of Sun City and the Lost City.

South African companies rushed to invest there – and make enormous profits – secure in the knowledge that the homeland’s leader, Lucas Mangope, was not going to cause trouble.

Mangope was close to many of these businesspeople, who built Bophuthatswana into the most impressive homeland.

So close, in fact, that he was able to build (or have built for him) a palatial house in his home village of Lehurutshe, which was so big that the house he first stayed in as a teacher would have fitted into the lounge.

I covered “Bop” and saw first-hand what was happening. From the people who crossed Mangope or wouldn’t go along with his corruption and were forced out of jobs and homes. From the ANC activists who had to perpetually look over their shoulders.

Kerzner’s Sun City and Lost City gave Bophuthatswana – and separate development – huge credibility abroad. In return, the “Sun King” got massive tax breaks from the South African government in terms of Section 37(1) of the Income Tax Act, which effectively meant he built Lost City with SA taxpayer money.

At least taxpaying journalists got some of their money back…

I watched it all with amusement.

No invitation ever came my way.

None ever did from Sun International, which would have been well aware of those Mangope hated.

For years I refused to go to Sun City and only relented when the kids nagged to go to the Valley of the Waves.

That doesn’t make me a hero.

But it does make me someone who is not going to gush with praise about Kerzner, who died this weekend.

As my mother always used to say: Can an honest man be rich and can a rich man be honest?

Brendan Seery.

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