Coffin maker fighting CHDM over lease
Entrepreneur has been requesting assistance for 15 years
Alocal businessman alleges that the Chris Hani Development Agency and the local municipality have been impeding his business’s progress for years by denying him a lease.
Mbuyiselo Blani, who has been making coffins and cardboard for 15 years, has been trying to secure a lease in the industrial park since he first started his business.
He has been from working from his home garage in Ezibeleni because he hasn’t been able to secure a lease.
However, residents of the area are unhappy about his business operating in the community.
Blani felt that his lease application was being stalled deliberately by CHDA’s Nomveliso Nyhukwana, who is in charge of issuing leases.
Although Nyhukwana, never explicitly requested a bribe, Blani thinks telling Nyhukwana he would not pay a kickback to get considered for space may be the reason he was not being granted the lease.
“She would mislead me and ask me to go and identify factories for my business, which she gave to other people who went after me.
“The industrial park is filled by foreign nationals, one of whom owns five factories. Others use it for storage and others are making bricks there.”
Not only has he been unable to expand his business due to the lack of a lease, but he has also missed out on funding opportunities that require a lease.
“Because people see the quality of my work. I do not have difficulty in attracting funding from government entities. The IDC was willing to fund me they wrote to CHDA for me to get a lease agreement.”
But he never received the lease agreement and the funding was
withdrawn by the IDC. The repercussions of that frustration he said landed him in hospital.
“They told me their policy required them to issue a factory to someone who gave them proof of funding. I am struggling because of Nyhukwana.
“She does not promote development on my side, she is destroying it.”
Blani broke down and could not hold back his tears.
He said: “I just want to feed my family and the families of others, but she is standing in the way of that.
“It is this pain that has compelled me to come to the media.”
Before Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality signed an agreement for CHDA to manage its industrial park land, he says he struggled over the same issue under the Lukhanji Municipality.
At one stage, he was forced to rent a room to operate at one of the businesses that ran a factory at the park.
“He was given the factory by the municipality and I was renting from him. Imagine paying R30,000 for a room for five years. I worked with 15 employees, which meant a lot of families benefited from my business.”
But when the business stopped operating, he had to move back to the garage and had to let go some of the employees in the process.
The businessman believes that the local government is not interested in supporting or promoting local businesses, and is actively discouraging them.
“I am not only speaking for myself but for other local businesses who are struggling because of them.”
He said community members have been complaining about his business for years.
In addition to running his business, Blani also trains Ikhala College students for free and helps underprivileged mothers bury their stillborn babies in his community.
He donated a coffin to help bury Langalam Viki who was found in a pit toilet at a school in Vaalbank.
In response to Blani's allegations, Nyhukwana stated that the CHDA did not offer leases in exchange for bribes.
“Blani made his request on January 10 2022, while requesting funding from IDC and the community was not happy with him running his business in the community. AR Boards and Go Green made proposals in 2020. I told him the lease would depend on if there was space available,” she explained.
Nyhukwana said she categorised Blani’s business under the forestry and furniture section.
“I told him we had a proposal from someone, he was number two on the list. But on the overall number of businesses requesting space he was number four.”
At the moment, she said, Blani was first on the list and that there were businesses which were expected to move out of the industrial park soon.
Nyhukwana stated that the CHDA did not only cater to manufacturing factories but also businesses that need space to store goods, as the distribution and logistics industry creates jobs.
While acknowledging that brickmaking is harmful to the environment, she stated that these businesses were already operating at the industrial park when the CHDA took over from Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality.