The head of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors in South Africa discusses the organisation’s drive for greater professionalism, accountability and ethics in the broader property sector. He also weighs in on the ‘tragic’ fortunes of Tongaat Hulett.
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For people who have a long memory, Moreland used to be the property development arm of Tongaat Hulett, which was listed on the JSE in its heydays . “As you’ve mentioned, the RICS is not new. We’ve been going now since 1868, so some 156 years, and we’ve been growing a market presence across all world regions. Our global presence is growing – I think sitting currently at around 134 000 qualified and trained professionals or trainee professionals globally. So a very well-expanded body around the globe, well respected and one of the world’s leading professional bodies.
“That really entails increasing brand awareness of the organisation in South Africa, engaging with various professional bodies in the country, lobbying government around issues of professionalism and standards, and engaging with tertiary education institutions in the country. “We are recognised here as a voluntary association. A large majority of our members in South Africa work in the construction side of things, mainly QS-ing , although we have quite a few in valuations.”
“International standards, we believe, are the backbone of this approach. It’s imperative that everybody is speaking the same language.” “But it’s more than that. It’s about respect and responsibility. You need to respect the people that you work with, and you need to accept accountability and responsibility for what you do. So it really is about protecting our members, protecting clients, and protecting the public.”
“I love what I do. Having been in the property sector – I’ve been in it now for over 30-odd years – I still have a passion for what I do. So I’m very fortunate and I learn new things every day.” “It’s especially sad for me from the property side and with what we achieved as a team. We built that brand over the years. Again, it comes back to what we spoke about earlier, where the brand of Tongaat in those days – not just as a group, and Moreland beyond – did change to sort of Tongaat Hulett Properties and Tongaat Hulett Developments when I was still there for a year or two.”
“It has resulted now in a situation where the property side of the business is completely changed from the level of detail and the level of passion that went into creating places like Zimbali and Mount Edgecombe or the work we did further around the north coast creating the Umhlanga New Town Centre, La Lucia Ridge Office Estate.”
“Now we have a company that, from a land perspective, is looking to just sell out as much land as possible without really doing much to it or lease it to other people. It doesn’t have the same control, the same integrity, people who come in now and buy and develop that land …” “So it’s really very difficult to comprehend. I hope that the broader group can survive. It seems to be heading in that direction, so fingers crossed. But from the property side, you don’t know what will become of that at this stage. Seemingly, the intention is not really to look at going back into the development side of things – and that is really tragic.
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