Locals take over Mala Mala game lodge

South Africa's most prestigious private game reserve has been sold to the local community who will take it over from the Rattray family from today (10 January).Image: Mala Mala

The N'wandlamhlarhi Community Property Association, which boasts about 950 households and about 15,000 inhabitants, will receive R700,000 a month in rental fees from the game reserve's previous owners.

The Department of Rural Development and Land Reform paid the multimillionaire lodge owner, Michael Rattray, R1.1bn for the most exclusive lodge and the country's largest private game reserve.

Mala Mala director, Alison Morphet, said the Rattray family would pay the rental fee to the community until January next year.

Morphet said the Rattrays would continue running the lodge while training and mentoring the community until they were sufficiently skilled to run the lodge.

The community will receive a total of R8.4m in rental from the lodge operators.

Morphet said the family was in talks with the community for a continuous business partnership.

"We are negotiating for a win-win situation for us as the Mala Mala brand, for the community, government and for the country as a whole. [Mala Mala] is critical to the country's economy and no one wants to see this business falling," she said.

The Rattrays have owned the lodge for over four decades.

The lodge boasts the big five animals and, at between R6,000 and R14,000 a night, a room at the game reserve does not come cheap.

An executive member of the community association said the funds would be managed and distributed for community development.

He would not comment on whether the group would agree to partner with the previous owners.

Departmental spokesman Mthobeli Mxotwa said the government would monitor management developments and ensure the community was well-equipped to take over the running of the lodge.

"This is to prevent the game reserve from collapsing as is the case with 99% of previous land claims, where the department had to intervene through a recapitalisation programme to revive those properties," he said.

Tshwane University of Technology Professor of Public Management in the Department of Development and Organisational Processes, Enslin van Rooyen, said the transaction could go "horribly wrong".

He said the business could grind to a halt if politics were not removed from the deal.

"If all parties come to an entrepreneurial agreement, they will be equally well off," he said.

Source: The Times via I-Net Bridge