At a meeting of the Makhado municipal council held on March 31 two items dealing with an earlier decision taken by the executive committee (Exco) of Council not to allow any new property development to take place in town were removed. This would seem to indicate that no moratorium on new property developments exists until Council has endorsed it.

During the meeting, two points on the agenda were removed without any motivation being supplied. The first deals with a recommendation by the Exco that "no further property development and/or applications for new or increased electricity capacity be approved with retrospective effect from 1 January 2008". If the recommendation had been accepted, that would mean that all applications that had been approved since 1 January 2008 would have been revoked.

The second recommendation states that "no new applications for new or additional electrical connections be considered and it be postponed until further positive notice from Eskom". This means that no further property developments would be considered until such time that Eskom indicated that the power crisis had been dealt with in such a manner that enough electricity could be supplied to these developments. In real terms, that could take anything between five and seven years.

In response to questions submitted to the municipal spokesperson, Mr Louis Bobodi, the removal of the two items was explained as follows:

"Council did not lift the moratorium on developments of a dense nature. The supply capacity on water, sewage and electricity is under investigation and until clear findings of consulting engineers are submitted to Council for further consideration, the February 15, 2008 moratorium remains."

Zoutpansberger approached a well-known property developer in town, Mr Jaco Oberholzer, for his comment on the situation. He indicated that he understood the reasoning behind such a moratorium if it meant better utilization of existing infrastructure and better service delivery to the town as a whole. He indicated, however, that uncertainty still exists regarding exactly which developments will be affected by the moratorium, since this is a continuous process and development of the town cannot be halted indefinitely. He remains optimistic that house prices will increase from next year if the moratorium results in a shortage of housing.

"Predictions are that house prices might increase by up to 60%," he said.