DK, Nasha land witnesses

BAME PIET
Staff Writer | Wednesday August 8, 2007 00:00

 

He pleaded not guilty.  Mhlauli, a former Permanent Secretary in the former Ministry of Local Government and Lands previously faced three counts but the Directorate of Public Prosecutions withdrew the second count yesterday because of insufficient evidence. 
The first to take to the witness box was Gaborone businessman, Eddie Norman, who told the court that in 1997, he applied for two plots of land on which a petrol filling station was built near the Gaborone Club going towards Tlokweng.

 
The application was approved the following year and he registered a company named Edco Investments (Pty) Ltd. 
The land was later transferred to the company, whose shareholders were himself (60 percent) and his sister (40 percent) as well as his son, who was a director. 
He said that after approaching several developers and financiers he came across a consultant who connected him to Group Five Botswana.

 
Following several meetings with the contractor, he became suspicious when he received a letter from the company requesting that he should confirm whether he was in a joint venture with Mhlauli.

 
'I phoned Mhlauli and read the contents of the letter to him and he said he knew nothing about it,' he told the court. The negotiations with Group Five collapsed. 
Norman said that he entered into an agreement with Riverwalk Investments and they agreed on a 26-year lease. Riverwalk paid him P3million.

 
He then went back to the department of lands where he successfully applied for additional land near Riverwalk in 2000.  The plot was not developed.  It had burrow pits. 
He said that officers at the department warned him that it would be expensive for him to rehabilitate the area but he told them that he had the resources to manage. 
Norman said that he was surprised at a phone call from Mhlauli in July 2000 saying that he had assisted him in acquiring the land so he should 'give him something'. He interpreted that to mean Mhlauli wanted 'some kind of reward' to which he said:  'I cut him short and told him to get lost because he was doing his duties as a civil servant,' he told the court.

 
He further said that a few months later, he received a letter from Monthe Marumo attorneys that he co-owned the Riverwalk plot with Oremeng but dismissed it as a letter from a 'mad' person.

 
In November 2000, he received summons from Oremeng who informed him about his intention to sue, he told the court, adding that he received affidavits from the complainant saying that the three of them, Norman, Mhlauli and Oremeng had held meetings at Mhlauli's office.

 
He said that the case proceeded at the High Court in Lobatse in 2001 but Oremeng never showed up and he lost with costs. 
He said that even today he has not been paid the costs of the case.  'I don't even know Oremeng and I wish I could meet him.  Even when I arrived in court earlier I tried to find out who Oremeng was,' he told the court, responding to Advocate Francois Van Zyl's cross-examination.

 
Van Zyl argued that his client phoned Norman because he wanted to invest his money in his business since he had just retired in February 2000. 
The two men met at the end of the proceedings and greeted each other.  The hearing continues today and Oremeng is expected to take the witness box.