https://x.com/Michael86259668/status/1983920238400778642
Here is a recent video showing the golf course and resort.
The Fish River Sun was a successful golfing resort and casino located in the Eastern Cape mid way between Port Elizabeth and East London. The last time I was there was way back in 2002 when we popped in for a meal and drinks whilst taking a break from doing promotional work at the nearby Grahamstown Festival. The resort was busy and it never crossed my mind 23 years later it would be an abandoned wreck.
The local Prudhoe Community challenged the ownership of land and the Department of Agriculture purchased the property for R75 million in 2020. The resort was a thriving business having revenue from the golf course and hotel generating R350 million ($20 million) annually. The casino had revenue of R3.4 billion ($200 million) and we know the house always wins so there were large profits being generated. R75 million is not the true value of the land and it may as well have been stolen.
The problem is when you hand over a going concern that is deemed to have value greed and in house fighting within the community ruined the end outcome. When you have no brains it makes no difference because without education this was doomed to fail. This is no different to handing over a successful business to a group of 10 year old children. Within months of taking ownership the community stripped and destroyed the hotel leaving nothing of value.
Today the resort is no longer and with it went 126 local jobs and any profitable revenue which would be paid to the community in dividends. This reminds me of the Zebediela Citrus saga which was the biggest citrus farm in the Southern hemisphere also handed back to the community and is no longer. The 30 year old orange citrus trees had been chopped down for fire wood and they want to know why their communities have no jobs and no money.
The championship Gary Player designed golf course has been left to return to nature and given another 5 years you would not even know a golfing resort was once here.
Similarly we saw this play out in Zimbabwe where once known as the bread basket of Africa became a begging importer of food basics. Huge once productive farms became subsistence farms barely making enough for those wanting a piece of land. Subsistence farming versus industrial farming is never going to gave the same final result. You wonder why the same practices could not have been kept in place with the community working the land and sharing in the profits.
The Zimbabwe and SA Governments failed to hand over the "stolen" lands correctly and this should have been an educational process. The Citrus farm had no chance as unlike the Fish River Resort who has only 1 community the citrus had 30. If there was going to be in house fighting the 30 would be a problem.
There have been rumors over the years that the Fish River Resort will be developed back to it's former glory but each time deals are ready to be brokered in hose fighting breaks out. The latest was Lux Hotels from Dubai who were ready to invest R600 million earlier this year only to be thwarted at the last minute when negotiations failed. The problem is the community is fighting over control because they do believe this has value and is worthless if they do not agree. They have gutted and ruined a successful business and now will earn less with investors making the bulk of the profits.