NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
FOR WRITTEN REPLY
DATE OF PUBLICATION IN THE INTERNAL QUESTION PAPER: 18 MARCH 2005
(INTERNAL QUESTION PAPER NO: 10-2005)
N596E
Adv PS Swart (DA) to ask the Minister for Intelligence:
(1) Whether, with reference to the sale of the guest house in Sunset Beach owned by the National Intelligence Agency, the decision to again auction the property was as a result of the offer of R8.5 million having been withdrawn after it was not accepted; if not, what was the reason for the decision to auction the property; if so, why did the NIA not accept the offer of R8.5 million;
(2) (a) what criteria were used to select the auctioneers and (b) what was the total cost to the State of this property, including renovations and refurbishings, as at the latest specified date for which information is available?
REPLY:
(1) Two Estate Agents, namely Rawson Properties and Seeff Properties, were given a mandate in 2004 to sell the guest house in Sunset Beach on behalf of the National Intelligence Agency. Their mandate expired on 31 December 2004. During this period, several offers were made, but fell short of the requested price or were subject to conditions not acceptable to the Agency. These offers were therefore turned down. A decision was then taken by the Agency to auction the property and Aucor Properties was contracted to manage this process.
On 29 January 2005, Seeff Properties made an offer of R8,5 million to the NIA despite their mandate with NIA having expired. NIA referred Seeff Properties to Aucor. NIA then agreed through Aucor, to the R8,5 million offer, on condition that the department would be assured of deriving R7,8 million from the deal. (This was the cost of the property to the state). However, Seeff Properties’ offer of R8,5 million failed to materialise, and therefore a decision was taken to proceed with the auction.
(2) (a) The decision to appoint AUCOR as the auctioneers, was based on the
company’s reputation for delivery and reliability.
(b) The total cost to the State of this property, which includes renovations and refurbishing, was R7, 8 million.