HOW RATEPAYERS LOST PROPERTIES

MBABANE – A report that has never been made public details how the Mbabane Municipal Council was the worst culprit among the country’s 11 other local urban authorities in illegally selling residents’ houses so as to recover outstanding rates.

A 2010 commission of enquiry into the sale of certain properties by local urban authorities focused on 33 properties sold mainly in Mbabane, Manzini and Matsapha.
Of all the local authorities that were engaged, Mbabane is reported to have ‘showed a very negative attitude towards the whole exercise’.
Lawyers who were also interviewed were said to have also cooperated with the exception of Nkosinathi Manzini of MJ Manzini and Associates ‘who did not want to give access to the records that we requested and we had to exchange strong words with him before we could access some of the records’.

Twenty of the properties sold were in Mbabane and it was found that there were irregularities in how they were sold.
Investigations by the commission unearthed that the 20 houses were sold without any attempt to attach movables, such as furniture and sell them to settle the outstanding rates.
The commission observed: “The requirement that movables should first be attached before there could be any recourse to immovable property is fundamental in law and a court will set aside a sale of immovable property in execution, which is conducted before there is a serious attempt to execute movables.”

In its view, the commission said one way of showing serious intention to execute against movables would have been to draw up an inventory (list) of the movable assets.
“In fact, the Magistrates Court Rules require that an inventory be drawn. A statement thereafter that the assets were not enough to raise the money required to clear the rates would be supported by such inventory,” said the commission.

It is only after it has been established that the owner of the property has neither money nor sufficient movables that can be sold to settle the outstanding rates that a court order for the sale of the immovable property could be applied for.
Out of the 20 properties sold in Mbabane, the commission could only find 10 returns on warrants of execution against movables, while there were ‘no returns at all’ in the other 10.
“This suggests that there was never an attempt to execute against movables in respect of these properties,” reported the commission.

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