Durban business rises after 40m loss
In July 2021, violent protesters set fire to the country's economy.
R50-billion worth of goods went up in flames, thousands of jobs disintegrated and over 350 people were killed.
Four years later, the scars – on the economy, the landscape and the hearts of the victim's loved ones – are healing.
Although slowly, it's a testament to the resilience of KwaZulu-Natal citizens and a 2019 BMW M4 Competition – like a Phoenix that rose from the ashes - stands proud as a shiny symbol of hope.
Taren Ramsaroop, the owner of Deutsche Auto, tells us why.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
IOL News
19 hours ago
- IOL News
Bids amounting to R8m placed in auction of Shawn Mkhize's luxury vehicles to recover unpaid taxes
The Bentley Continental GTC (2019 Edition) were among the vehicles placed on auction. Image: Bidders Choice website Bids amounting to just over R8 million were made in the high-profile auction of luxury vehicles and a tour bus seized from businesswoman and Royal AM Football Club owner Shauwn 'MaMkhize' Mkhize amid ongoing action by the South African Revenue Service (Sars) against her and associated interests. The online auction, which ran from June 27 to July 2 on the Bidders Choice platform, was according to recent reports part of efforts by Sars to recover over R37 million in unpaid business taxes associated with Mkhize, the Shandi Trust, and football club Royal AM. Held under the instruction of a court-appointed curator, the auction included 14 lots, comprising 13 vehicles and one branded bus. Bidders were required to register with a refundable deposit of R50,000 and were allowed to view the vehicles in Durban and Bapsfontein. According to the auction site's website, bids were placed but the sales were still pending. Two lots were withdrawn before the close of the auction. The tops bids were: 2020 Bentley Continental GTC (2019 Edition) – R3,280,000 2014 Mercedes-Benz Marcopolo G7 tour bus – R2,600,000 2018 Mercedes-Benz V-Class Maybach bus conversion – R1,270,000 2018 BMW GT 640i – R305,000 2016 BMW X1 – R112,500 2012 BMW X6 xDrive 40d – R132,500 2019 Toyota Hilux 2.7 VVTi Single Cab – R170,000 2009 Nissan NP300 Hardbody – R40,000 2016 Volkswagen Crafter – R157,500 Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ The auction followed a preservation order granted to Sars by the court earlier this year after Mkhize's business entities reportedly failed to meet their tax obligations. The Royal AM Football Club, owned by MaMkhize, is currently under curatorship, and some of the seized vehicles were previously used by the club and the Shandi Trust. The vehicles included a team tour bus branded with Royal AM's insignia. Sars has not yet publicly confirmed the final sale values or the total recovered through the auction. THE MERCURY
Daily Maverick
a day ago
- Daily Maverick
The consultants who supported CEF's Sapref oil refinery gambit
Consultants downplayed previous warnings given to the Central Energy Fund about the purchase of Sapref's oil refinery in South Durban, which has serious implications for the state and the public. When the Central Energy Fund (CEF) purchased the South African Petroleum Refinery (Sapref) refinery from fossil fuel giants Shell and BP in May 2024, major red flags were raised about the viability of the purchase. CEF bought the refinery anyway, and on a problematic 'clean break' principle. This let Shell and BP off the hook for the significant environmental and other liabilities that come with the refinery. Now, CEF and the broader public are on the hook instead. In the first article in this series, we showed that CEF's decision to go ahead with the purchase seemed to ignore important parts of the due diligence that CEF initially received in 2021 and the risks that had substantially increased since the devastating floods in KwaZulu-Natal in 2022. Now, we turn to the consultants that gave CEF advice and appear to have pushed the transaction over the line: CLG (formerly the Centurion Law Group) and Mazars. Their later advice downplayed previous warnings given to CEF about the purchase, which has serious implications for the state and the public. Given these implications and risks, the question at hand is why the board of CEF did not heed the earlier warnings. CLG and Mazars' advice in 2023 The documents provided to Open Secrets by the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) reveal that CEF initially received advice from Mazars, the lead transaction adviser, as well as Ceris Engineering and law firm Fasken. Together, the advice highlighted the significant liabilities that any purchaser of Sapref would take on and warned against allowing Shell and BP to walk away without paying towards these. These were discussed in detail in the first article. However, the transaction advice provided by Mazars and CLG after the KZN floods told a different story. For instance, the 2021 due diligence undertaken by Certis Engineering estimated decommissioning costs of the refinery were around $374-million (R6-billion). Its advice was that 'the Buyer [CEF] should ensure that at least $374m is provided for before giving the Seller a clean break ' (emphasis added). The 2021 advice from Mazars also used this figure as the estimated decommissioning liabilities. In 2024, Shell and BP paid just R335-million to cover some employee and operational costs as part of the final deal and walked away with a 'clean break', exempting them from any decommissioning costs. We asked Shell and BP what they had estimated as the decommissioning costs of the refinery, as well as the amount that they ended up paying to CEF, but they declined to comment, citing confidentiality. Without any explanation, the 2023 transaction advice from Mazars and CLG suddenly estimated that the total liabilities associated with the refinery were only R1.6-billion – including both soil and groundwater remediation, and decommissioning costs. There is nothing in the documents explaining how the full liabilities were now only around 25% of the initial 2021 estimates of only the decommissioning costs. We asked Mazars to explain the change in the estimates, but they did not respond to Open Secrets' questions. This is particularly confusing given the extensive damage done in the 2022 floods. However, using this figure allowed Mazars to state that the purchase would result in a net asset value (NAV) of R1.1-billion. The other notable difference in the 2023 advice from Mazars is that there is much less detail provided about the economic risks facing the future of the refinery sector, including the threats posed to its viability by the electrification of the transportation sector. This is a notable omission because, in the intervening period, the South African state had made new energy vehicles (NEV) a 'priority area' in terms of South Africa's Just Energy Transition Investment Plan (JET IP). The initial due diligence said any significant shift to NEV vehicles risked making Sapref a stranded asset very quickly. The advice received in 2023 aligned more closely with CEF's existing narrative – focusing on the strategic value of reducing fuel imports to South Africa, noting that 'opportunity has arisen [for CEF] to become an influential player in liquid fuels'. It repeatedly stresses the growth in fuel imports and the strategic importance of securing supply locally. The document makes no mention of a 2022 warning from the South African National Energy Association (Sanea) that the arguments around security of supply were no longer applicable given the global refining market, also arguing that the refinery could become a stranded asset in as little as 10 years. There were also apparent errors in the 2023 advice. For example, it stated that the refinery's operations 'currently contribute R45-billion to GDP' and 'sustains 780 direct jobs' and up to 85,000 people through contractors, indirect, and induced jobs. It is not clear how these figures were calculated given the refinery had been shut down and underwater for several years. In fact, Sapref had undertaken mass retrenchments and no maintenance. Yet despite downplaying the economic risks and talking up the future positive impacts of the Sapref refinery, even the 2023 Mazars/CLG advice did not totally ignore the risks of taking on the refinery's liabilities on the 'clean break' principle. It labelled the risk of this as 'high' and noted that CEF should either obtain third-party insurance against possible future claims and liabilities or establish a dedicated separate fund for these future risks. In line with the earlier legal review from Fasken, Mazars noted that one of these risks was class action claims in the future by communities near the refinery. It warned the CEF that the claims could be 'exorbitant and far-reaching', citing the R5-billion silicosis class action case that was settled in 2016 and noting that BP and Shell had refused to include these types of claims in the sale and purchase agreement (SPA). Despite these warnings and the host of other concerns raised in the earlier due diligence, it was announced that CEF had purchased Sapref a mere month after Mazars and CLG presented this advice to CEF's board in April 2024. A problematic partnership seals the deal There is one other notable way that the Mazars transaction advice documents from 2023 differ from those in 2021. At the end of the slides provided in 2023, there is a contact person listed from another organisation; CLG, formerly the Centurion Law Group. The later transaction advice given to CEF by Mazars lists two contact people: Taona Kokera, a director at Mazars, and Oneyka Ojogbo, a director and lawyer from consulting firm CLG. Mazars acted as the lead transaction adviser from 2021 through to its completion, and there is only one other mention of CLG in the documents that Open Secrets has access to: in a number of comments made in track changes on the draft Sale and Purchase Agreement (SPA) between BP, Shell and CEF dated 2 May 2024, a couple of weeks before the purchase was announced. Founded by prominent oil and gas lobbyist NJ Ayuk, who has since stepped down as CEO, CLG is often referred to in the media as a 'South African legal firm'. However, it is not registered with the Legal Practice Council and is more accurately understood as a typical professional services firm that provides a broad range of consulting, legal and other services under one roof. CLG has 25 offices and more than 300 attorneys and 'business advisers', with major offices in nine African countries, including its Sandton office in South Africa. CLG describes itself as an 'undeniable leader' in oil and gas development. Its office at Suite 43, Katherine and West, in Sandton, is the same address linked to the African Energy Chamber (AEC), where Ayuk is chairperson. The AEC is overtly an oil and gas lobby organisation aiming to attract investment and build capacity in the oil and gas sector across Africa and hosts the annual 'African Energy Week' in Cape Town, focused on developing the oil and gas sector across the continent. There is also a notable South African political connection in the AEC. Nosizwe Nokwe-Macamo is on the advisory board, and sits on the 'Local Content Committee', 'Investment Committee', and 'Natural Gas Committee' of the advisory board. Nokwe-Macamo was the CEO of PetroSA for three years between 2012 and 2015, but was suspended and ultimately left after the state-owned entity posted a nearly R15-billion loss in 2015. In 2024, she made a return to state-owned oil and gas when she was appointed by Gwede Mantashe to the board of the brand-new South African National Petroleum Corporation (SANPC). It is unclear when exactly CLG was contracted to work on the project, but the advice that it contributed to was certainly more supportive of the decision to purchase the refinery and more bullish on the future of the oil refinery business. Their advice on this transaction also overlapped with the period Mazars and CLG were giving dubious advice to CEF's then subsidiary – PetroSA – on a separate oil and gas deal. In February 2025, amaBhungane revealed that Kokera had led the Mazars team that gave the green light to three dubious deals between PetroSA and Gazprom, and PetroSA and Lawrence Mulaudzi. Mazars was brought on to advise on the deal in September 2023 and provided a final due diligence report in October 2023. The due diligence labelled Mulaudzi as a 'low-risk' partner, despite publicly available information that he had been involved in alleged corruption in his own business dealings. The PetroSA deal fell apart in June 2024 after Mulaudzi and EquaTheza failed to provide the R227-million that was promised. Mazars has come under fire for its involvement in this deal for several reasons. The final due diligence report it provided was insufficient and left out crucial details it had identified in earlier due diligence about the risks associated with Mulaudzi, his company Equator Holdings, and the financial and technical capabilities that EquaTheza had to take on a project of this nature. Mazars has denied any wrongdoing. Additionally, Mazars was also accused of overcharging PetroSA for the work it did. Mazars had sub-contracted CLG in its work for PetroSA, and Ojogbo had billed as if she had worked on the project from 8am to 7pm every day of the week for two months, charging R4,160 per hour. PetroSA's internal audit team alleged that Ojogbo and Mazars had engaged in 'double dipping'. PetroSA has since written to Mazars, demanding a refund of just over R1-million, but it is unclear whether this has happened. Additionally, the audit team raised questions around Mazars' potential blacklisting by National Treasury for future business with the state if Mazars had, in fact, overcharged and underdelivered. PetroSA's internal audit team also pointed out that CLG had an obvious conflict of interest. In advising PetroSA, they would draft contracts and undertake due diligence on Mulaudzi and his companies. Yet Equator's bid to PetroSA listed CLG as its partner. Mazars and CLG – led by Kokera and Ojogbo – were thus advising CEF on its decision to purchase the Sapref refinery at the same time as providing advice to PetroSA which has since been called into serious question. Both Mazars and CLG failed to respond to detailed questions from Open Secrets regarding the due diligence, the discrepancies in the transaction advice provided to CEF in 2021 and 2023, and their views on the serious concerns raised by other firms in the due diligence process. CEF board signs off and then stalls Regardless of the motivations of those providing the advice to CEF, its board – chaired by Ayanda Noah – still had the responsibility to carefully apply its mind to all of the advice before making the decision to purchase the refinery and on what terms. The scramble to create the South African National Petroleum Company (SANPC), a merger of CEF's subsidiaries – PetroSA, Strategic Fuel Fund and iGas – to spur investment in the country's oil and gas sector has also been a large factor behind the acquisition of Sapref. While it is speculative, it may be that the desire to rapidly consolidate the SANPC and expand its operations led the CEF board to gloss over the very real consequences of purchasing a defunct refinery, taking on its enormous liabilities and the myriad risks identified in the due diligence phase. Despite the more positive tone of the later advice from Mazars and CLG, it still called for further due diligence and a 'comprehensive review of financial records, legal documents and environmental assessments'. Crucially, the CEF board motivated to proceed with the sale just one month after receiving this advice, insufficient time for a further comprehensive due diligence process. Open Secrets sent detailed questions about the transaction to both the Central Energy Fund and Department of Petroleum and Mineral Resources but received no response from either. Since the purchase, CEF and the SANPC (now officially in operation and staffed) have argued that the rehabilitation of the refinery is the answer to national energy security and job creation. They have repeatedly indicated their aim to increase the refinery's capacity from 180,000 barrels per day to 600,000 barrels (bbl) per day, to create a 'mega-refinery'. Yet there is no sign of any progress in this regard. In fact, in February 2025 reports arose suggesting that the state was realising it could not afford to rebuild the Sapref refinery nor expand its capacity to 600,000bbl on its own. Deputy director-general in the Mineral and Petroleum Resources department, Tseliso Maqubela, and Minister Gwede Mantashe told Parliament in February 2025 that they were looking to regional partners – including Angola's Sonangol or Botswana Oil – to help rebuild the refinery. The state thus now sits with a defunct and out-of-date refinery with enormous social and environmental liabilities. It may not have the capital to get it going again, and even if it does, many experts suggest it will be a stranded asset in the near future. Its former owners, Shell and BP, have disappeared into the sunset. All the while, the communities of South Durban continue to bear the disastrous health costs and environmental devastation caused by the refinery. DM Open Secrets is a nonprofit organisation which exposes and builds accountability for private-sector economic crimes through investigative research, advocacy and the law. To support our work including the investigations that go into the Unaccountable series visit Support Open Secrets
The Citizen
2 days ago
- The Citizen
Tshwane slaps 713 properties with penalty rates over illegal land use
In a bid to ensure the legal use of land, the metro has referred over 700 properties for penalty rates and taxes. Sarah Mabotsa, MMC for Economic Development and Spatial Planning, said the suburbs where the illegal land use activities have been identified range from Arcadia to Zwavelpoort. 'The non-permitted land use activities range from unauthorised commercial activities in residential zones, through to illegal construction and land encroachments. The implications of these violations on the city and its residents are significant, as they can lead to loss of revenue, inability to access critical servitudes, offer unfair land-use activity and commercial advantages to transgressors.' They can also increase the costs of policing for the city, and have potential safety and legal liabilities.' The areas or farms she listed include: – Alphenpark – Annlin – Arcadia – Ashlea Gardens – Atteridgeville – Bon Accord – Booysens – Brooklyn – Capital Park – De Onderstepoort – Derdepoort – Die Wilgers – Eersterust – Elandsfontein – Eldoraigne – Ga-Rankuwa – Garsfontein – Haakdoornboom – Hartebeesfontein – Hazelwood – Kameeldrift – Kleinfontein – Kudube – Laudium – Magalieskruin – Montana – Moreletapark – Olievenhoutsbos – Onderstepoort – Pretoria Central – Pretoria North – Silverton – Sinoville – Soshanguve – Sunnyside – The Reeds – The Willows – Waterkloof – Witfontein – Zwavelpoort She highlighted the financial magnitude of the properties under scrutiny, saying: 'The 713 properties have a combined municipal value of almost R1.4-billion, with the average property value being R1.9-million.' She explained that township establishment laws are designed to prevent chaotic urban sprawl and ensure that the city infrastructure keeps pace with development. 'For example, when an estate is established legally, the developers contribute to the cost of expanding roads, water, sewage and electricity services. Those costs are then passed on to property purchasers. When a development happens illegally, developer contributions could unfairly be expected to be paid for by all other ratepayers. Illegal developments can also place too much strain on available electricity or other services in an area,' she explained. This comes after the recent report tabled and approved by the metro, listing the properties that have been referred by the Department of Economic Development and Spatial Planning to the finance department for implementation of penalty rates and taxes. 713 properties worth R1.357 billion have been referred for penalty rates & taxes for illegal land use activity. — City of Tshwane (@CityTshwane) July 3, 2025 She emphasised that several properties or farms relate to illegal township developments where landowners have not adhered to development planning laws and regulations. 'The city's Department of Economic Development and Spatial Planning Department's Built Environment and Enforcement Division receives numerous complaints related to contraventions of zoning, national building regulations and the city's outdoor advertising by-law. The recommendation to implement nonpermitted land-use rates is one mechanism we use to encourage landowners engaged in non-compliant land-use activities to correct their actions,' she said. She added that the equitable enforcement of laws is a priority to help curb the illegal use of land. 'We want our city to be safe, clean and work for everyone. I thank our law-abiding developers and property owners who work with the city and within the national building codes to ensure that land use activities are compliant and that buildings are safe for people to use and occupy.' She encouraged the legal development processes as they protect homeowners and residents. 'The processes ensure that homes are built on stable land and not in environmentally vulnerable areas. In some illegal estates, there has also been no formal subdivision of the land. This means that purchasers in illegal estates may not actually own the land that they live on,' she said. LISTEN: Do you have more information about the story? Please send us an email to [email protected] or phone us on 083 625 4114. For free breaking and community news, visit Rekord's websites: Rekord East For more news and interesting articles, like Rekord on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or Instagram or TikTok. At Caxton, we employ humans to generate daily fresh news, not AI intervention. Happy reading!
