Mpumalanga Sells Wildlife Park Rights to Dolphin. (29 November, 1996)

Commercial and development rights to four of Mpumalanga's flagship wildlife parks - Pilgrim's Rest, Loskop Dam, the Blyde River Canyon and Songimvelo - were sold this week to the Dubai-based Dolphin Group for 50 years for up to R377 million in a controversial deal to bankroll the Mpumalanga Parks Board. Dolphin has agreed to fund the Parks Board's budget deficit over the coming ten years. Thereafter, the payments by Dolphin will be renegotiated in periods of ten years.

Alan Gray, the Chief Executive of the Parks Board, declined to put a value to the payments by Dolphin, but documents in the possession of Business Report indicate that the Board's projected budget deficit could total R377,2 million over the next ten years. Gray said Dolphin owned the Block Hotel group and the United Touring Company, which have extensive interests in East Africa. The Board had sold the development rights in exchange for tourism investments worth between R300 million and R400 million over the next few years. Gray denied charges that the parks had effectively been privatised, saying the Board would still own the land and the new facilities developed on it.

A Parks Board document entitled Macro Business Plan to Self Sufficiency, says the Board needs to budget R51,7 million in expenditure for the next financial year. Government support during the period is expected to total R47,3 million, leaving an 8 % deficit. This deficit is expected to grow as government support declines to about R14,7 million in 2006, as expenditure rises to an expected R109,7 million. Government support in the ten-year period is projected to total R918 million in operating costs. A further R125 million will have to be spent on infrastructural development by the Board.

At the launch of the Parks Board and Dolphin joint venture on Wednesday night, Gray said the venture would ensure the ingtegrity of these areas and would mean the Board did not compromise its conservation principles through dwindling provincial budgets. 'How are we to improve the socio-economic plight of so many of the province's impoverished communities if not through the rational and sensible development of these resources?' he asked.

John Small, the Chairman of Block Hotels, said the first phase of the park's development, which would take place over the next three years, would cost R30 million and generate employment for more than 2 000 people. The group planned to build fifteen lodges and camps with 650 beds in the Songimvelo reserve. The reserve would offer safaris with a 1930s 'white mischief' theme to high-income tourists. Other plans include accommodation for 540 people, an aqua centre and helicopter safaris in the Blyde River Canyon at R70 million. He said turnover from the resorts would have to reach about R500 million in five years to cover payments to the Parks Board. By Jonathan Rosenthal. Courtesy of The Star.