After years of uncertainty, the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality has confirmed that its lease agreement with Port Elizabeth businessman Johann Dreyer was terminated nine years ago already.
While this throws a spanner into plans that Dreyer had to transform the stretch of land between Cape Recife and Sardinia Bay into a multi-billion-rand Madiba Bay leisure park, mayor Mongameli Bobani believes the project would bring much-needed development and jobs to the city.
The initial project proposed a massive tourist attraction with a theme park focusing mainly on wildlife and agricultural, educational and tourist-oriented facilities.
But two months ago, Dreyer presented a more elaborate plan to the mayoral committee for different types of housing developments, a medical rehab centre, fish farms, livestock farming, agro-processing, a 10,000-seater stadium and a convention centre.
In November 2002, East Cape Showcase – a company of which Dreyer is a shareholder – signed a 50-year lease with the municipality for the development rights on 5,577ha of public coastal land.
The latest municipal council agenda revealed that the lease agreement was cancelled with written notice on June 3 2009.
Bobani said at the time of Dreyer’s presentation to the mayoral committee in October he was not aware that the lease agreement had already been terminated.
He said at the time he was only aware of the legal dispute between the metro and Dreyer.
He said the city was considering the Madiba Bay project as one of the municipality’s “catalytic projects”.
“It is a huge project that is going to create a lot of job opportunities and there will be a lot of spin-offs for the city.
“Our city will generate a lot of revenue,” Bobani said.
“We want the legal disputes to be resolved between us and Mr Dreyer.
“Everything we are doing we do in terms of the prescripts of the law.
“With regard to Mr Dreyer, we have already instructed our that we want this matter to be resolved outside of court.”
DA councillor Retief Odendaal, who submitted the questions to the municipality about whether or not East Cape Showcase still had a lease with the municipality for the land, said if the city wanted to resuscitate the project it would have to re-advertise tenders and make it open to anyone.
He said the size of the project alone meant that there would be numerous legal requirements that would need to be met.
Odendaal said Dreyer had recently contacted him to meet so that he could prove that he still had a valid contract.
“I spent hours with him and explained to him I still believe the contract is terminated and I don’t think he has legal recourse.
“But I would commit myself to asking a number of questions to council so that he can get the formal advice, which would be in the public domain, and then he can decide what he must do.
“I did, however, make it clear that it was in the interest of the city and in the interest of council to put this matter to bed,” Odendaal said.
Telephone calls and text messages sent to Dreyer went unanswered.