Following a notification issued by Sodwana Bay Lodge that it expected that a dispute about the lease of Coral Coast Hotel and Restaurant may lead to violence on April 22, the involved parties have confirmed that guest bookings were not interrupted and that proceedings were peaceful.
Sodwana Bay Lodge and Dive Resort’s gm, Herman Combrinck, sent out a statement to its timeshare guests, saying:
“The local tribal authority has given Black Land First authority to take over Coral Coast Hotel rooms and Restaurant. The current restaurant owner, Mr R Scott, has applied for a direct court order to interdict and try to prevent the takeover from taking place. We are hereby informing you that this will take place on Thursday, April 22, and we do expect this to be met with resistance and or maybe violence. As your safety and well-being is our first priority we would want you to be aware and bring under your attention that there might be actions not favourable to you as a guest.”
Travel News followed up on the outcome of the event and was advised by Herman that the land which the Coral Coast Hotel and Restaurant occupied was owned by the Mbila Tribal Authority. According to Herman, a lease, which does not have an expiry date, had allegedly been issued by the tribal authority 25 years ago, and this had allegedly been purchased by the current restaurant owner, Mr R Scott, 22 years ago and allegedly remains in place today.
However when a group from political party Black Land First arrived at Coral Coast last weekend, claiming that they were the rightful lease-holders of the property and expecting to take occupancy of the lodge for the purpose of hosting an election campaign programme, tempers rose.
Black Land First Deputy secretary general, Vusumuzi Selby Mhlaba, told Travel News that Black Land First members were accused of trespassing when they had arrived at the lodge, presented their lease and asked to take possession of the keys to the lodge. He explained that the group had arrived from different parts of the country expecting to have their conference, having paid for taxis to transport their members to the lodge.
Despite the group being in possession of a lease, they could not be accommodated as the rooms were already full of guests. Vusumuzi alleged that the lodge staff, who claimed that they were the valid lease-holders of the resort, were unable to produce a copy of their lease. He also said that the representatives of Mbila Tribal Authority, who were present, claimed that they had no agreement in place with Mr Scott. According to Vusumuzi while Mr Scott was initially uncontactable, as he was in a meeting, he allegedly arrived some time later, arranged for the Black Land First members to be accommodated in the timeshare accommodation and provided them with dinner.
Said Vusumuzi: “I do not know where these claims of violence come from. We are not violent people. There has been no violence at the lodge - we do not intend to engage in any violence. We are in possession of a valid year’s lease from the owners of the land, which came into effect on April 1. We simply wanted to make use of these facilities for our programme that weekend. If the lodge staff have an issue, because they were not advised about the issuance of our lease, they must surely take this up with the tribal authority rather than us.”
“We have no intention of causing people to lose their jobs and are very willing to negotiate with Mr Scott on this matter, as we do not need to use the lodge on a permanent basis. We also have no intention of taking over the running of the hotel or lodge, as we are not a business but a political party. While we have now been given the keys to the hotel rooms, we have allowed Mr Scott to keep the keys to the restaurant and to continue to operate his business for the long weekend, as we understand that the lodge is fully booked for this period,” said Vusi.
While Herman said a court interdict had now been issued ordering Black Land First to evacuate the property, Vusumuzi claimed that the interdict only stated that the group must not cause any violence and did not relate to the lease dispute in any way.
Both parties agreed however that proceedings had been peaceful, that guests had not been disturbed and that bookings were proceeding as usual. Vusumuzi told Travel News that Mr Scott had been given a set of keys for the restaurant so as to have access to his belongings, and that the restaurant may continue to function for guests booked over the coming long weekend.
