BDC entangled in Toro Lodge lease controversy

Boitshepo Majube | Friday January 10, 2014 17:33

Mamase Investments were in 2011 contracted by BDC to lease Toro Safari lodge after the corporation bought it for P22 million.

According to the owner of Mamase Investments, Jacob Masima, the lease was unclear and was terminated by BDC without his knowledge last year purportedly on the instruction of the lodge’s general manager, Moses Sichembe.

Sichembe was then allegedly offered the lease to run the lodge himself.

Due to the termination of the lease over 30 employees were laid off in December last year as the business was supposed to wind up operations.

The employees were given notices that expired on December 31.

“Our last day at Toro Safari Lodge was on the 13th of December,” a former employee said, revealing that those who kept their jobs were the administration officer, boat caretaker and the cleaner. 

In an interview with Business Week both BDC and Masima say the contract is not over, but point out that the former general manager hired by Mamase Investments wrote to BDC informing them that they would be terminating their lease contract with the corporation.

“BDC only found out later that that the shareholders of Mamase Investments were not aware of the contract termination,”

said Boitshwarelo Lebang, BDC communications and public relations acting manager.

She said upon realising that Mamase shareholders were not aware of the contract termination, BDC reverted to the initial contract agreement.

“BDC will be negotiating with Mamase in an effort to extend the contract,” she said. 

However, Masima says some employees of BDC were conniving with the general manager to take over the lodge from his company.

“The minister (Dorcas Makgatho-Malesu) is aware of the issue. She is the one who phoned BDC to stop the deal with the former general manager,” said Masima.

He decried the corruption at BDC, citing that if no action was taken against corrupt BDC employees the situation would get worse.

“If they are denying any part they played in this whole saga, how come they gave my former general manager an offer to operate Toro Lodge?

“BDC is a public company, why did they not advertise the lodge for every member of the public who might have had interest to run it to try their luck,” he questioned.   Sinchembe admitted to having written a letter to BDC to terminate the lease but said he was acting on behalf of Masima who had initially expressed his desire to terminate it but changed his mind along the way. “I was doing everything under instruction from Masima, and as a responsible citizen I had no ill intentions at all,” he said.  Sinchembe explained that as an ambitious person he put up his proposal when he saw the opportunity offered.

“I was disappointed when he changed his mind and accused me of trying to get the lease for my company in an unscrupulous manner after he had made it clear that he wanted out,” he said.

 Masima says that he has since reinstated employees who had been laid off.  BDC acquired the 2-star lodge for P22 million in 2011.  The lodge offers boat cruises, tiger fishing, game drives and sunset cruises. BDC says it acted on the legitimate requests of the company that was brought forward by the company’s general manager.