Walvis plots auction cancelled

A DEAL that cancels the sale of 14 prime properties that were auctioned by the Walvis Bay Municipality in December 2003 on Friday settled a High Court case in which the sale had been under attack as racist, illegal and unconstitutional.

Having attacked the legality of the sale of 88 plots of land that the Walvis Bay Municipality had offered for sale at an auction that was partly closed to white prospective buyers, property developers Willem Grobbelaar and Herman Davin on Friday agreed to a compromise settlement with the Walvis Bay Municipality that sees the sale of 14 of the 88 erven set aside by an order of the High Court. The settlement reached between Grobbelaar and Davin and the Walvis Bay Municipal Council, the town’s Mayor and the Chairman of the Management Committee, was made an order of the court by Judge Louis Muller at the request of the two developers’ lawyer, Reinhard Toetemeyer, and the Walvis Bay Municipality’s counsel, Rudi Cohrssen.In terms of the order that the two lawyers asked the judge to make, the sale of 13 seafront erven in Walvis Bay’s Meersig area – the last available plots of land that are directly next to the town’s lagoon – and a plot of land at Langstrand that were sold at an auction on December 19 2003 have been reviewed and set aside by the court.Judge Muller at the same time discharged a court order, issued in April 2004, in terms of which the transfer of the ownership of all 88 auctioned plots had been stopped until the court case between Grobbelaar and Davin and the Municipality was finalised.At the request of Toetemeyer and Cohrssen, Judge Muller made no order on the issue of which of the parties should bear the costs of the case.The settlement was negotiated and agreed after Judge Muller had started hearing arguments from Toetemeyer on Thursday.Toetemeyer was already approaching the end of his arguments on why Grobbelaar and Davin wanted the sale of the erven set aside and declared as having been unconstitutional when a midday adjournment led to the two opposing sides in the case putting out feelers to each other on the possibility of reaching a settlement.The hearing did not continue on Thursday, and on Friday morning Judge Muller was only asked to make the settlement agreement an order of court.The Municipality’s representative at the hearing, its General Manager for Community and Economic Development, Agostinho Victor, said later on Friday that the Walvis Bay Town Council would now have to decide what would be done with the 14 plots of which the sales had been set aside.Among the options that the Town Council would have to consider, is whether the plots would be put on auction again, whether they should be sold through a tender process, or through private transactions with prospective buyers, Victor said.Grobbelaar and Davin sued the Municipality after they discovered that white bidders were excluded from the first stage of the December 19 2003 auction.One of the Municipality’s conditions for the first stage of the auction was that only “previously disadvantaged/excluded Namibians” were allowed to place bids during that part of the public sale.According to the Municipality, this was part of their land policy in terms of which they aimed to redress past patterns of land ownership at the town, where, the town authorities say, the Meersig area has remained almost exclusively white-owned.Grobbelaar and Davin have claimed that this colour-based condition was unconstitutional, since it violated the Constitution’s prohibition of discrimination on the basis of colour.Among the 14 plots whose sale has now been set aside are most of the erven that attracted the highest bids at the auction.The Langstrand plot – an 11 785 square metre plot that was actually designated as a public open space – was sold for N$3,8 million.The second largest of the Meersig plots was also designated as a public open space.Comprising 3 000 square metres, it was sold for N$451 000.At 3 852 square metres, the largest of the Meersig plots was sold for N$680 000.The successful bidder for that plot, as well as an adjacent plot of 2 897 square metres, was Joan Guriras, wife of the then Prime Minister Theo-Ben Gurirab.The 14 plots were sold for a total of N$8,29 million.The Municipality’s upset prices – the minimum price at which it was willing to sell those properties at the auction – had totalled N$4 337 075 for the 14 affected erven.The settlement reached between Grobbelaar and Davin and the Walvis Bay Municipal Council, the town’s Mayor and the Chairman of the Management Committee, was made an order of the court by Judge Louis Muller at the request of the two developers’ lawyer, Reinhard Toetemeyer, and the Walvis Bay Municipality’s counsel, Rudi Cohrssen.In terms of the order that the two lawyers asked the judge to make, the sale of 13 seafront erven in Walvis Bay’s Meersig area – the last available plots of land that are directly next to the town’s lagoon – and a plot of land at Langstrand that were sold at an auction on December 19 2003 have been reviewed and set aside by the court.Judge Muller at the same time discharged a court order, issued in April 2004, in terms of which the transfer of the ownership of all 88 auctioned plots had been stopped until the court case between Grobbelaar and Davin and the Municipality was finalised.At the request of Toetemeyer and Cohrssen, Judge Muller made no order on the issue of which of the parties should bear the costs of the case.The settlement was negotiated and agreed after Judge Muller had started hearing arguments from Toetemeyer on Thursday.Toetemeyer was already approaching the end of his arguments on why Grobbelaar and Davin wanted the sale of the erven set aside and declared as having been unconstitutional when a midday adjournment led to the two opposing sides in the case putting out feelers to each other on the possibility of reaching a settlement.The hearing did not continue on Thursday, and on Friday morning Judge Muller was only asked to make the settlement agreement an order of court.The Municipality’s representative at the hearing, its General Manager for Community and Economic Development, Agostinho Victor, said later on Friday that the Walvis Bay Town Council would now have to decide what would be done with the 14 plots of which the sales had been set aside.Among the options that the Town Council would have to consider, is whether the plots would be put on auction again, whether they should be sold through a tender process, or through private transactions with prospective buyers, Victor said.Grobbelaar and Davin sued the Municipality after they discovered that white bidders were excluded from the first stage of the December 19 2003 auction.One of the Municipality’s conditions for the first stage of the auction was that only “previously disadvantaged/excluded Namibians” were allowed to place bids during that part of the public sale.According to the Municipality, this was part of their land policy in terms of which they aimed to redress past patterns of land ownership at the town, where, the town authorities say, the Meersig area has remained almost exclusively white-owned.Grobbelaar and Davin have claimed that this colour-based condition was unconstitutional, since it violated the Constitution’s prohibition of discrimination on the basis of colour.Among the 14 plots whose sale has now been set aside are most of the erven that attracted the highest bids at the auction.The Langstrand plot – an 11 785 square metre plot that was actually designated as a public open space – was sold for N$3,8 million.The second largest of the Meersig plots was also designated as a public open space.Comprising 3 000 square metres, it was sold for N$451 000.At 3 852 square metres, the largest of the Meersig plots was sold for N$680 000.The successful bidder for that plot, as well as an adjacent plot of 2 897 square metres, was Joan Guriras, wife of the then Prime Minister Theo-Ben Gurirab.The 14 plots were sold for a total of N$8,29 million.The Municipality’s upset prices – the minimum price at which it was willing to sell those properties at the auction –
had totalled N$4 337 075 for the 14 affected erven.