Mpumalanga's luxurious Mala Mala private game reserve will get new owners when President Jacob Zuma hands over the 13.184ha of land and title deeds to the community today.

The N'wandlamhlarhi Community Property Association, which boasts about 950 households and about 15000 inhabitants, will receive R700000 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, R1.1-billion 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 R8.4-million 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 and, at between R6000 and R14000 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 to run the lodge.

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.