Over 806 land transfers recorded

MBABANE – At least 806 deeds of transfers were registered during the third quarter of 2022.

This is the period covering July to September 2020. According to information from the office of Deeds Registrar Khulile Sikhondze, 777 mortgage bonds were registered during the period under review.

Owned

As a result of activity recorded during the period under, stamp duty was recorded at a whopping E4.1 million. Stamp duty is simply the tax governments place on legal documents, usually in the transfer of assets or property.

As usual, revenue was also generated from antenuptial contracts, Crown grants, notarial deeds of lease, notarial deeds of servitude and general powers of attorney. Sikhondze said examining and registering deeds and other documents and to preserve the records as well as collecting government revenue judiciously in all the services under the office’s responsibility remained top priority. Meanwhile, the Eswatini Competition Commission (ESCCOM) has approved the acquisition of Horseshoe

farm in Manzini by Africa Chicks Swaziland (Pty) Ltd in the same reporting period.

Disclose

The farm was owned by Early Harvest Farming (Pty) Ltd, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Muzi Dlamini disclosed that the farm comprised mainly of grasslands with some old irrigated lands and is currently used for grazing. He said they considered the products of the firms and concluded that the relevant market was the market for farmland in Manzini Region. “There are overlaps between the activities of the merging parties since

Africa Chicks, owns commercial land for farming at Extension 1 Ngwenya Industrial Site, Oshoek.

However, the overlaps do not come about as a result of this transaction since the farmland being acquired is in a different geographical area,” added Dlamini. As such, the CEO mentioned that there would be no market share accretion in the relevant market and the transaction was categorised as a phase 1 because the combined market share post-merger was below 15 per cent.

Postmerger, he said the market shares in the relevant market, market concentration and barriers to entry would not be affected and hence the transaction was unlikely to result in the substantial lessening of competition in the country. Therefore, the transaction was approved without conditions.

Other mergers include the acquisition of a plot in the District of Manzini, Eswatini from Nedbank (Eswatini) Ltd by Motsa Investments (Pty). Performance for the quarter Registered: Deeds of transfer- 806 Mortgage bonds -777 Antenuptial contracts -31 Deeds of Lease -164 Notarial Deeds of Servitude- 7 General powers of attorney-6 Crown grants-32

Interdicts-71

Caveats-8