***This is the second time I'm posting this - Blogger crashed and this post was lost!***
We at the Gravy Train are very pleased with the new Gautrain, especially the station in Sandton, as this now allows us to provide our passengers with all the luxuries to which they have grown accustomed but with more convenience. Until the Gautrain had been completed, our passengers had to catch the train at Park Station in Braamfontein. Now I don’t have anything against the Johannesburg CBD per se – it’s just that in the last few years it has become rather tatty and recently it seems to be occupied by the worst scum imaginable – artists and hippies.
It’s a sad state of affairs – this urban decay – and it’s a pattern that is replicated in city centres across the country. One has to take one’s hat off to those most enterprising of folks who have put so much time and effort into breathing life back into our city centres – people like Roux Shabangu.
Mr. Shabangu is a real revelation – someone who has dedicated himself to rebuilding our country. He has grown from selling mielie meal into one of South Africa’s most successful property developers. So what if he’s a close friend of the president? Where would we all be without a little help from our friends?
Not all of his ventures have been successful, though. He once tried to buy farms claiming to have a mandate from the government but the deals fell through and some estate agents lost a fortune – but who feels any sympathy for them anyway? He’s also being investigated by the Hawks in relation to a payment of R10-million that the Land Bank can’t explain. But how should he be held accountable for their lack of record-keeping? I won't even go into the details on the R20-million police Station in Mpumalanga that never got built.
It’s the lease agreements where he stands to contribute the most to society. This is where he will almost single-handedly turn decrepit old buildings in some of the worse parts of town into property jewels charging top flight rentals.
Of course, he will make some money on it - he stands to rake in R100m up front on the lease of the Middestad building in Pretoria and after 20 years, the police will have very kindly paid it off for him.
He would have only needed three months of rental to pay off the Durban property he was due to lease to the Police. This ridiculously profitable deal was scuppered by only one thing – somebody else bought the building before he did. So he’s trying again – he’s considered the preferred bidder for the new Durban Police HQ lease even though he doesn’t yet own the building. He may not make the killing he was hoping for now that the current owners know how much the lease is worth however.
Roux’s got a raw deal in the press lately with the furore over the lease agreements for the police headquarters making headline news and even the Public Protector getting her grubby fingers all over everything. It’s so unfortunate that those that try to help to make South Africa a better place are treated with such contempt by the media and society at large. Okay, so he stands to make a ton of money but who ever said philanthropy should not be profitable as well?
We at the Gravy Train are very pleased with the new Gautrain, especially the station in Sandton, as this now allows us to provide our passengers with all the luxuries to which they have grown accustomed but with more convenience. Until the Gautrain had been completed, our passengers had to catch the train at Park Station in Braamfontein. Now I don’t have anything against the Johannesburg CBD per se – it’s just that in the last few years it has become rather tatty and recently it seems to be occupied by the worst scum imaginable – artists and hippies.
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| Roux Shabangu |
Mr. Shabangu is a real revelation – someone who has dedicated himself to rebuilding our country. He has grown from selling mielie meal into one of South Africa’s most successful property developers. So what if he’s a close friend of the president? Where would we all be without a little help from our friends?
Not all of his ventures have been successful, though. He once tried to buy farms claiming to have a mandate from the government but the deals fell through and some estate agents lost a fortune – but who feels any sympathy for them anyway? He’s also being investigated by the Hawks in relation to a payment of R10-million that the Land Bank can’t explain. But how should he be held accountable for their lack of record-keeping? I won't even go into the details on the R20-million police Station in Mpumalanga that never got built.
It’s the lease agreements where he stands to contribute the most to society. This is where he will almost single-handedly turn decrepit old buildings in some of the worse parts of town into property jewels charging top flight rentals.
Of course, he will make some money on it - he stands to rake in R100m up front on the lease of the Middestad building in Pretoria and after 20 years, the police will have very kindly paid it off for him.
He would have only needed three months of rental to pay off the Durban property he was due to lease to the Police. This ridiculously profitable deal was scuppered by only one thing – somebody else bought the building before he did. So he’s trying again – he’s considered the preferred bidder for the new Durban Police HQ lease even though he doesn’t yet own the building. He may not make the killing he was hoping for now that the current owners know how much the lease is worth however.
Roux’s got a raw deal in the press lately with the furore over the lease agreements for the police headquarters making headline news and even the Public Protector getting her grubby fingers all over everything. It’s so unfortunate that those that try to help to make South Africa a better place are treated with such contempt by the media and society at large. Okay, so he stands to make a ton of money but who ever said philanthropy should not be profitable as well?
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