Cebo Mhlongo was the sole breadwinner for eight family members when stormy weather struck The Mariners Seafood Restaurant and Shipwreck Pub on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast last year, effectively wiping out his livelihood.
Mhlongo, 32, is one of 65 employees and 12 hawkers who depended on the restaurant for income before it was hit by a giant freak wave as tempestuous weather swept across South Africa’s East and West coasts, as far as Cape Town where it caused severe damage to farmlands and road infrastructure in September 2023.
As a result of the Marina restaurant workers’ job losses, more than 470 family members were left without an income, forcing them to rely on child support and older persons’ grants for survival.
The Ray Nkonyeni local municipality owns and manages the building, which lies on the admiralty reserve, a strip of land about 45m to 60m wide, inland of the high water mark owned by the department of public works and infrastructure.
John Caple, the owner of Mariners, said this week that the restaurant remains shut despite his repeated pleas to the municipality and municipal manager Kheta Zulu to repair the building and grant him a five-year lease so he can invest R3 million to R5 million from his own pocket to open up again.
Caple said he took over the restaurant in 2017 under its former five-year lease agreement which ran out in August 2022, when he was placed on a month-to-month lease. All the coastal restaurants in the municipality, which are also on month-to-month leases, had been invited to tender for a long-term lease in August 2023.
“In the meantime, in mid-September, the wave came through and just smashed our restaurant. We couldn’t work on it at all,” Caple said.
He said rebuilding and reopening did not make business sense while on a month-to-month lease, but the municipality had refused to intervene and told him to wait for the results of the tender process.
He said in November 2023 the municipality had scuppered the tender process, saying it was flawed and would be reopened in January 2024, but this did not happen.
Caple said the municipality had told him the building was insured and promised to fix it — with the cost estimated at R300 000 to R500 000.
“They were going to fix the building if I was prepared to rebuild the restaurant and I said fine,” Caple said, adding that “in good faith” he continued paying rent for six months until March 2024.
“I have had no assistance from the municipality in the cleaning up or anything, and I had very little communication back from the municipality. I sent hundreds of emails,” he said.
Caple later proposed to municipal manager Zulu that he would fix the building at his own cost and pay five years’ rent in advance if the municipality would give him a five year’s lease.
“He just laughed at me and told me that will never happen,” Caple said.
Thirteen months later, the building stands dilapidated and derelict, protected by private security guards hired by the municipality.
Caple is still willing to negotiate a five-year lease to invest in the restaurant so that his staff can get back to work.
Mhlongo, his former head chef in the main kitchen, says he has only been able to get part-time work two days a week, which, even with child support grants, is not enough to feed his extended family.
“I don’t know where to start. Until this day it has affected me. Eighty-percent of the people [staff] are still not working and no one cares. It is such a disaster,” he said.
“Most people are depending on grants to support the kids and we struggle to buy groceries with that money. The ex-owner wants that place, he just needs a lease from the municipality. There is no one who is going to take that place in its condition. Until this day he is fighting for us to get our jobs back. It was such a top restaurant on the South Coast.”
Former kitchen manager Lindokuhle Malishe, 32, described his job loss as “the biggest tragedy” of his life because his wife had just given birth to their first child when disaster struck.
Malishe said he had found a job in an unrelated field, but concern for his former colleagues prompted him to write to the KwaZulu-Natal public works and infrastructure MEC Martin Meyer to seek his intervention.
“I wrote the letter because I have that desire that if they can get the restaurant up and running again at least those people will be able to survive and make a living like anyone else,” Malishe said.
“Eighty percent of them are not working and I know that the majority were breadwinners in their homes. So if they’re not working, that doesn’t sit well with me, even though I’ve got something that keeps me busy.”
Southern Explorer Association chairperson Mandy Massey said the restaurant was a “bastion” attraction on the coast and tourism had been negatively affected over the past year because of its closure.
Municipal spokesperson Simon April said the municipality had started a tender process to allocate long-term leases so that tenants “could invest comfortably in the restaurants”.
“Unfortunately, the bid adjudication committee resolved that the expression of interest be cancelled and re-advertised since the majority of the bidders were disqualified for not complying with the requirements as outlined on the tender document,” April said.
“This was understandable since a number of the bidders had not embarked on such a process before.”
He said the municipality had entered into a “management lease agreement” with the department of public works and infrastructure for 15 restaurants and kiosks along the coastline from Hibberdene to Port Edward. The management lease commenced on 9 May 2016 and expires on 8 May 2036.
April said while attending to the bid process to secure at least 10-year leases for tenants, it was discovered during an audit that three of the 15 properties are owned by the municipality.
These included Erf 2209 Uvongo, which consists of two restaurant premises, Erf 3378 Margate made up of five premises and the remainder of Erf 362 Marina Beach (the Marina Restaurant premises). Eight sites out of the 15 listed on the management lease agreement therefore belong to the municipality. Two of the 15 properties do not form part of the admiralty reserve.
“The municipality wrote to the national department of public works to make them aware of the issues we had uncovered and to request a meeting to try and find a way forward … before the municipality could commit tenants to 10-year leases,” April said.
“The municipality is still awaiting [the department of] public works response to have the matter resolved and unfortunately, the municipality cannot proceed with the tender process until this matter is resolved. We understand the urgency of this matter and it is being prioritised by the municipality, however the delay is beyond the control of the municipality.”
He added that Caple was required to obtain insurance and that the municipality was indemnified against “all costs, losses, actions, claims, including claims for damages against the property”.
“When the flooding incident occurred in September 2023, the tenant advised that his insurance only covered the movable items on the restaurant only, and not the building. Fortunately for the tenant, the treasury team advised that the insurance for the building was still active and therefore we tried to assist the tenant by claiming against the municipal insurance for the repairs to the building,” April said.
He said the insurance claim was approved in March but the municipality received a settlement letter from the insurers that it was not happy about and wrote back to dispute the settlement amount.
“The municipality only received an amount of R288 226.34 (including VAT) for the Mariner Restaurant and the funds can only be made available during the adjustment budget period, which is in February 2025. It needs to be stated though, that this settlement amount is not sufficient as it does not even cover half the costs required to repair the premises,” April said.
He added that municipal officials were on the ground “from the date of the incident and assisted the tenant as best as they could”.
MEC Meyer had not responded to detailed questions at the time of publication except to say the building is owned by the national department of public works and infrastructure.
The department’s spokesperson, Lennox Mabaso, said it had signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ray Nkonyeni municipality for a 20-year lease, effective from 9 May 2016 to 8 May 2036.
“This agreement stipulates that the department owns the land while the structures and buildings are owned by the municipality. As such, the municipality is responsible for the day-to-day management, maintenance, and operations of these buildings, including managing lease agreements with businesses operating within the properties,” Mabaso said.
He added that Public Works Minister Dean Macpherson was seeking to review these lease agreements.
“He believes that in cases where municipalities are unable to manage properties in a way that contributes to local economic growth and job creation, the department should assume management to ensure that public assets are effectively used for the public good,” Mabaso said.
