After waiting nearly three decades to reclaim their ancestral land, the Prudhoe community’s hard-won victory has been thrown into chaos reports the Daily Dispatch.

Mismanagement, internal divisions and disputed lease agreements have left their R243m land claim – including the former Fish River Sun resort – paralysed.

What should have been a new chapter of prosperity for the small Eastern Cape community has instead descended into a legal and administrative nightmare over conflicting contracts signed with rival developers and unfulfilled promises of jobs.

‘We made mistakes …this thing of signing contracts on top of another contract,' community leader Zolani Breakfast said. 

The Master of the High Court has intervened, appointing independent administrators to investigate how the trust’s affairs were handled – and whether any of the agreements were lawful.

It was previously reported that multinational hotel group The Lux Collective, together with investors from Dubai, had visited the resort with the hope of making it the flagship of their SA portfolio. The consortium, spearheaded locally by Xoliswa Daku of the Daku Group, had set aside R600m for the first phase of the rebuild.

The trust’s former chair, Gladman Tom, who lodged the land claim on behalf of the community in 1998, then said that agreement had not been reached with Daku’s investors.

However, the trust had signed a lease agreement with Daku on 1 November 2024, which was terminated on 11 December over a ‘breach of contract’. 

The termination letter claimed that Daku had failed to fulfil her obligations, including immediate construction at the Fish River Resort, employing 40 community members and private security.

The trust then offered a contract to Gqeberha-based Vuyokazi Batana’s Ezamatshawe. This was despite Daku challenging what she deemed the unlawful termination of her lease.

According to the Daily Dispatch, court papers show that Batana entered a lease agreement for Maitland Farm on 9 December and Fish River on 11 December, the same day Daku received her termination notice.

Batana said she had roped in American-based investment group Joktel and asserted that she was the rightful lessee. Batana said the site would open to tourists this December.

The lease with Ezamatshawe shows they had a 60-year agreement with the trust with the right to renew. The Ezamatshawe and Joktel partnership would see the Fish River Resort and Maitlands farm form part of their R1.7bn investment projects in SA.

The company was to rename the resort Joktel Fish River and Maitland Game Reserve. 

Issues of mismanagement, plus the resignation of two trustees, led the Master of the Eastern Cape High Court (Bhisho) to appoint Johannesburg lawyers Vimba & Associates to manage the trust’s assets and investigate its affairs.

The appointment was effective in May. However, Ezamatshawe filed an interdict to challenge Vimba’s appointment, accusing it of having conflicting interests and being unfit to handle the trust’s assets.

The company, in its affidavit, told the court that the ruling put its partnership with Joktel at risk.

Full Daily Dispatch report