ERNEST MABUZA

Legal Affairs Correspondent

OFFIT Enterprises, which owns three properties in Eastern Cape’s Coega Industrial Development Zone, was not deprived of its property rights as it claimed, the Constitutional Court heard recently.

The Coega Development Corporation (CDC), Eastern Cape Premier Noxolo Kiviet and Public Works Minister Geoff Doidge are opposing Offit’s application for an order compelling any one of the parties who want to expropriate its properties to do so within a month from the date of the granting of the court order.

The court would determine whether the CDC’s conduct amounted to arbitrary deprivation of property as contemplated in section 25 of the constitution.

Offit claimed the CDC’s threat of expropriation and its direct interference in Offit’s efforts to sell the properties amounted to a substantial interference in the use by Offit of its properties.

Offit’s complaint was that the CDC had continuously threatened to expropriate its properties, and when Offit tried to market its properties in the media, the CDC placed a counter-advert stating that it was going to expropriate Offit’s properties.

Offit failed to get the order that it sought in the high court and the Supreme Court of Appeal.

In submissions filed with the court last week, CDC advocates argued that the mere mention of “expropriation” in the exchange of correspondence for the purchase of Offit’s land did not constitute any interference in Offit’s property rights.

They conceded that correct procedures may not always have been followed, however.

The matter will be heard next month.

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Source: Business Day