Questions over transparency of

Long-term leases turn public land into corporate profit, but it's not clear how these deals are structured and whether communities are seeing their share

- Thabo Molelekwa, Roxanne Joseph & Motlatsi Mofokeng

Deal:The Emthanjeni Municipality in De Aar, Northern Cape, signed a 20-year-lease agreement with Globeleq, owned by British International Investment and Norwegian investment fund Norfund in 2014.

Across South Africa, municipal and other public land is being leased to renewable energy developers under long-term agreements.

How these deals are structured, and who ultimately benefits, remains unclear. Questions about transparency, revenue allocation and community benefit persist, particularly when municipalities are involved.

Using the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA), over the past nine months, the Oxpeckers #PowerTracker project requested lease agreements and related documents from renewable energy developments nationwide.

The purpose of these inquiries, sent to Eskom and private companies, was to determine how much public land is being used in South Africa's renewable energy rollout, and whether municipalities and communities are receiving fair returns from the deals.

The #PowerTracker team also approached several municipalities for information about the land deals; some provided full cooperation, while others delayed responses or ignored the inquiries.

The Emthanjeni Municipality in De Aar, a small town in the Northern Cape, agreed to cooperate by demonstrating how these lease arrangements work and what they mean for local residents. The municipality has leased land to Globeleq, an international renewable energy company, for solar power projects.

During a recent visit by the #PowerTracker team, Humphrey Joka, senior manager for community services at Emthanjeni Municipality, explained the procedure for renewable energy companies seeking municipal land.