BUSINESSMAN FEARS ARMY HOSTILE TAKEOVER

MBABANE - The businessman whose private farm is now guarded by soldiers fears that this is part of a hostile takeover of his farm.

He is also very concerned that this attempt involves a member of the royal family, who also happens to be a senior member of the Eswatini Defence Force (EUDF). The soldiers were deployed at Portion 3, Farm 982, a private property owned by Mandla Mkhaliphi at Sicunusa, a month ago with government claiming it was done to stop illegal mining which is disputed by the farm owner. “Yes our commercial mining license, which we obtained in 2013, expired in 2018, but they cannot capitalise on that because the mining authority knows that our initial application required that we can mine and sell the product for many years.” “We all know that the five year renewal was not necessarily aimed at stopping operations but to allow auditing and environmental assessments. I don’t know why the soldiers targeted my farm. For now any answer can be an assumption,” he said.

Resisted

According to Mkhaliphi, he and his business partners first resisted when the soldiers approached them between June and August in 2019 after operations had long started in 2016.
The plan to crush the stone was implemented in 2015 before the initial operation in September, 2016, according to Mkhaliphi. He stated that they learnt about the sensitivity of the matter when the soldiers allegedly informed them that the quarry belonged to a member of the royal family who is now a senior member of the army. Mkhaliphi said they didn’t make much of the matter then because they are emaSwati and were loyal to the country’s authorities, adding that their loyalty could not be questioned.

The farm in question forms part of a quarry. A quarry is a place where rocks, sand, or minerals are extracted from the surface of the earth. It is also defined as an open-pit mine, because it is open to the earth’s surface.  The most common purpose of quarries is to extract stone for building materials. In an interview last Friday, Mkhaliphi confirmed ownership of the farm.
His confirmation came after this publication had established that Portion 3, Farm 982 situated at Sicunusa was registered under his name at the Deeds Registry.  The government system shows that the farm belongs to Abednego Mkhaliphi Mandla. Mkhaliphi also confirmed that mere presence of the soldiers induced fear for his life.

He said there has never been a deployment of soldiers at or near his farm since he started the commercial quarry business in 2013 after obtaining the commercial quarry license from the Minerals Management Board in 2013. According to Mkhaliphi, the mining licence was valid for five years and was renewable. In his case, he stated that his mining licence lapsed in 2018. At that time, he said, crushing had been stopped as there were a few business operations taking place in the country. “We applied for renewal of the licence before its lapse in 2018; however, there was no response from the Minerals Management Board. We were advised to reapply for the renewal, which we did in February this year,” he said.

Stopping

The senior citizen stated that he learnt something new when they received a letter stopping them from operating what was referred to as a project quarry. This, he said was because they never applied for a project quarry.  “There is a difference between a project quarry and a commercial quarry licence. Project quarry means that government can make a study and hire a company to crush the rock and process the rock for a specific project. In commercial quarry, it means an individual can obtain a license and crush the rock for sale,” he said. There has been information to the effect that the quarry mined at Mkhaliphi’s private farm was intended for the on-going construction of the Sicunusa/Gege and Nhlangano public road. It was also stated by some of the area’s authorities that the State deployed the soldiers to stop illegal sale of the quarry.  When that was put to Mkhaliphi, he stated that he was not aware of the claims.
The businessman mentioned that the crush stone had been sold to different companies and individuals for different purposes as it was mined with the commercial quarry license. He stated that the companies included Kukhanya, which had tendered for the Sicunusa/ Gege and Nhlangano Public Road.

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