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North West environment MEC ordered to reverse disputed R100m wildlife donation

The North West Department of Rural‚ Environmental and Agricultural Development and its MEC were ordered on Friday to “reverse” the R100-million donation of wildlife to the South African Rare Game Breeders Holdings.

The portfolio committee on environmental affairs said the department had not complied with the requirements of Public Finance Management Act (PFMA).

“The prima facie anomalies are severe enough to warrant that the auditor-general and national Treasury must take necessary steps in terms of the PFMA to investigate the game donation project for possible financial irregularities‚” Phillemon Mapulane‚ chairman of the committee‚ said in a statement.

He added that the findings could result in MEC Manketse Tlhape — and possibly other people who took part in or benefited from in the transaction — paying for the cost of reversing the donation.

“Both the conception and implementation of the game donation project was not properly done‚ despite the high value of the wildlife species involved in that transaction‚” the statement said. “These two processes appeared to have been hurried for reasons unknown to the committee.”

The portfolio committee also recommended that the national Department of Environmental Affairs finalise the Game Donation Policy in the next three months.

The publication reported in June that the gift of buffalo and sable antelope gift to the game breeders company was part of its “transformation agenda“‚ despite the owners being two white men.

Mapulane said at the time that the committee had been trying to get to the bottom of the donation for about 18 months.