State capture 1.0: SA’s first tenderpreneurs
Businessman Edouard Lippert didn’t just engage in rampant tender fraud in Paul Kruger’s ZAR. He joined Cecil Rhodes to trick Lobengula out of his kingdom in Matabeleland. And he gave Saxonwold its name. So why has he been largely forgotten?
30 September 2021 - 05:00
In 1891, a wealthy businessman named Edouard Lippert was tasked with establishing a timber plantation by the even wealthier Joburg randlord Hermann Eckstein. The area, originally known as Lippert’s Plantation, was soon renamed Sachsenwald, after a forest near Lippert’s home in Germany.
When World War 1 broke out, the German name was anglicised to Saxonwold...
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