SNHB PRIVATELY SELLS E8.5M LAND TO MANSOORS

MBABANE – Land is a sensitive and precious resource, which Emaswati can die for when push comes to shove.

In terms of the country’s Constitution, the administration of land was accorded to the Land Management Board (LMB), to ensure it is bought or transferred to institutions, companies and individuals in a transparent, fair and procedural manner. The Times SUNDAY can reveal that the Swaziland National Housing Board (SNHB), a Category A public company, sold a prime land measuring 7.7 hectares to a company owned by the Mansoor family without the consent or knowledge of the LMB. The land is about 300 metres away from The Gables Shopping Complex. Investigations unearthed that the sale of this property was not advertised. Instead, the government company secretly sold the land to YFM Investments (Proprietary) Limited for E8.5 million..

It has been established that SNHB had bought the land in 2009 from its original owner, Buhleni Properties Pty Ltd, for E6.9 million. This means the public entity made a profit of E1.5 million over a period of five years. This is contained in documents seen by the Times SUNDAY, which show that the deed of transfer to the current landowners was done in 2014.

Developing to township

Interestingly, YFM Investments is doing exactly what the SNHB should have done with the property as they are developing it to a township – and that is in line with the public company’s mandate. On Thursday, we inspected the property and discovered that eight houses of different sizes have already been built. Further investigations revealed that the houses would be sold to get prospective home owners. The documents reflect that Mduduzi Mona Dlamini, the Managing Director of SNHB, legitimised the sale on the strength of a resolution passed at a meeting of the Board of Directors held in Mbabane on July 31, 2014. The transfer of the land to YFM Investments was done on November 19, 2014. According to the documents at the Registry of Companies, the directors of the company (YFM) are Arshad Mansoor and Nasser Mansoor. Another document shows that Latiff Faizel and Latiff Yasheena were once directors of the company. The Mansoor family are famous for running a chain of supermarkets in the country, including the Buy ‘n Save Spar in Mbabane. 

Asked if the sale of the land was appropriately done according to the  dictates of the Constitution, Clement Dlamini, LMB Chairman, responded that both the buyers and sellers acted outside the ambit of the supreme law. Dlamini, the former Kukhanyeni MP and Minister of Agriculture said the Board was concerned with the sale of Crown land, government land or public land without its knowledge. He reminded government and parastatals of Section 212 (4) of the Constitution, which provides that the “Board is responsible for the overall management of land in the country. Reads the section: “The Board is responsible for the overall management and for the regulation of any right or interest in land whether urban or rural or vesting in iNgwenyama in trust for the Swazi nation.” He said the LMB should be informed of any land sale transaction, particularly land belonging to government and its companies, because there was a lot of illegal and perceived corrupt administration of property in Eswatini. He said the duty of the LMB was to make sure the sales were done transparently and were above board.

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