Official Silence over Sale of Parks Rights. (15 November, 1996)

An R18-billion deal, believed to entail the sale of exclusive commercial and development rights for all of Mpumalanga province's parks to a foreign investor, is being kept tightly under wraps - even Mpumalanga Parks Board members are being kept in the dark. John Hanks, a Parks Board member, said he learned last Friday that an R18-billion deal had been finalised with an off-shore investor, but said he was unaware of what the deal entailed.

'I have requested further information ... I think all of the Board members are in the same position,' he said. Details of the deal are to be revealed on November 27, but the Board has yet to learn the details of and approve the deal at its meeting on November 26. Parks Board officials have refused to comment. Karl Lane, a spokesman for the Board, said: 'There is a lot of interest in a partnership with us from a major corporation ... but I cannot comment on the scale.' Oupa Pilane, a spokesman for Matthews Phosa, the Mpumalanga premier, also declined to comment. 'There is no secrecy, we just want it to be a surprise,' he said yesterday.

Alan Gray, the Chief Executive of the Mpumalanga Parks Board, has been reported as saying that the deal was the biggest yet done in Mpumalanga. He refused to put a figure to the investment, saying only that it was worth substantially more than R1-billion to the province. Alan Louw, the Chief Executive of state-owned Aventura, which owns several resorts in Mpumalanga parks, said the deal could jeopardise the viability of existing resorts. 'Gray has said they expect us to renegotiate the rights of access (to the parks) which we currently enjoy with the new third party ... (while we have not been informed of what the deal involves) ... this suggests that commercial rights are in the hands of someone else,' he said. By Jonathan Rosenthal. Courtesy of the Pretoria News.