Before you read on, know that this article will divulge information about a bungalow in Clifton that you could have been (illegally) living in for the past 10 years, if you got there first. But you didn’t. Bergies did.

Equatorial Guinea’s vice-president, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, bought a stunning R23 million Clifton bungalow 10 years ago now, and has not once set foot inside of it. In the time that it has had to decay on the beach front, it has been taken over by rats and vagrants.

This prompted The Clifton Bungalow Owners’ Association (don’t they sound like a lovely bunch of people?) to demand that the house be declared derelict.

The association’s Emma Fonzari (she doesn’t sound Capetonian) said the property had been reported to the city council with the request that it be declared a “problem building.”

A neighbour, Soren Elvin-Jensen (also not very Capetonian), said it was unacceptable that the authorities had allowed the house to fall into “rack and ruin.”

This vice-president dude is clearly not deserving of his title, as he also bought a Bishopscourt mansion for R35 million, which has also stood empty since 2004. The guy hasn’t even been to South Africa in six years.

Chris Schoeman, representing Obiang Mangue’s creditors, said:

If he comes here I will have him arrested for fraud. He owes South African creditors between R80-million and R100-million

A spokesman at Equatorial Guinea’s embassy in Pretoria refused to comment, of course.

[Source : Times Live]