Posts on WelgiLeaks

Fabricated Statements About the Number of Complaints Received About the Welcome Garden

Mon, 02 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Fabricated Statements About the Number of Complaints Received About the Welcome Garden

Post 4 – 02 February 2026

This post, together with upcoming posts, will show how the WCID Board and Operations Manager, have, since April 2025, made false and exaggerated claims, with no substantiating documentation, to justify their unilateral decision to change the Approved Term 2 Business Plan, 4 months after the Business Plan was approved by the members. In the words of Anika Nel, the Board Chairperson, it was their “right”.
This post will show that, without exception, the claims made by the Board and Operations Manager, such as, “due to public demand” and being “inundated with complaints”, are false and fabricated.
Since April 2025, Cheryl has tried every means available to her to obtain information and documentation from the Board and Operations Manager. Cheryl has addressed mails to the Board Chairperson, the Operations Manager, submitted PAIA requests, all of which were met with refusals, obfuscations, arrogance, dismissals, and the Board Chairperson even reneging on commitments she made at the 04 August 2025 meeting.
Ultimately, on 2 September 2025, after 5 months, having exhausted all avenues available to her, Cheryl escalated the matter to the Information Regulator. The information obtained will be set out in this and upcoming posts.
The matter is still ongoing with the information Regulator, as the Board and Operations Manager have still refused to provide the requested information.
At the public meeting held on 04 August 2025, Cheryl asked the Board Chairperson, Anika Nel, how many complaints had been received with respect to the Welcome Garden.
The Board Chairperson replied that there were “lots”, but didn’t know the number. Cheryl persisted, and the Board Chairperson undertook to check, and revert back to Cheryl.
On the 21st August 2025, 17 days later, Hessel Turkstra sent Cheryl a WhatsApp asking if the Board Chairperson had replied yet. Hessel was therefore of the opinion that the Board Chairperson was supposed to reply. Cheryl advised Hessel that no reply had yet been received.
Eventually, on 26th August 2025, a further 5 days later, the Board Chairperson replied saying that, as public participation was not required for certain Business Plan changes, there was no reason for her to respond to Cheryl’s query. This, despite Cheryl’s query being totally unrelated to community participation. Cheryl wanted to know how many complaints there were about the Welcome Garden, which had nothing to do with public participation.
After Cheryl’s further ongoing attempts to get the number of complaints, on the 28th August 2025, yet another 2 days later, the Board Chairperson finally responded, stating that the number of complaints received was 16, which she claimed excluded complaints which were verbal, on WhatsApp, people who wanted to remain anonymous, etc. The Operations Manager and the Board therefore had a record of only 16 complaints.
To have determined that there were 16 complaints, the Board Chairperson and Operations Manager must have counted them.
Last year, six complaints had been addressed personally by a Board member at the time, Steve Minnaar. Steve spoke personally with each of the complainants. After completing the engagements, 5 of the 6 complainants withdrew their complaints, as they now understood the planting strategy. It is not clear whether the 6 complaints addressed by Steve formed part of the 16 complaints claimed by the Board Chairperson.
After Steve had engaged with the 6 complainants, he wrote to the Board giving them feedback on the outcome of the engagements. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this feedback has not been disclosed.
Cheryl submitted a PAIA request to the Operations Manager and the Board, for copies of the 16 complaints.
Cheryl’s request was REFUSED.
Having now exhausted all options available to her, Cheryl then escalated the matter to the Information Regulator on 2 September 2025. The Operations Manager and Board replied to the Information Regulator on 02 December 2025, stating:

“The WCID Complaint register is available on the WCID website at
https://welgemoedcid.co.za/framework-wcid/#Governance”
(See attached Schedule of PAIA request and outcomes – POST 4)
At the time, and till today, there is not a single complaint relating to the Welcome Garden, or a complaint related to locally indigenous, or endemic planting, registered in the Complaints Register on the WCID website. See Addendums 6 and 6A.
In addition, the complaints that are listed provide no detail regarding the complaint, no detail of the resolution of the complaint, just vague, generic statements. An example is the complaint of 22 September 2025 about unsafe swings. The resolution listed is “Regular cleaning plans shared”. This response in no way addresses, or provides the resolution to the complaint.
For the record, Cheryl reported the unsafe swings to Willem Myburgh of the Parks Department at the City of Cape Town, and told the Operations Manager that she had reported the matter to the CoCT.
We do know that there were at last 6 complaints, as Steve Minnaar personally spoke with the complainants, and then submitted written feedback to the Board on the matter. For Steve to be able to contact the complainants, he must have been given the complaints and the contact details of the complainants. Till today, none of these complaints are posted on the Website, and for some strange reason, neither the Operations Manager, Board appears able to do so, or provide copies of the 6 complaints, the 16 complaints.
The Board and Operations Manager claim that there were verbal complaints. Were these made at a braai, in passing, at an encounter at the shops, or by telephone call? If so, where were the complaints recorded, how were their addressed and what was the resolution? Was a complaint about the untidy state of the Welcome Garden, or about the plants? There is simply no information available, yet the Board and Operations Manager used these claims to change the Approved Term 2 Business Plan, 4 months after the Business Plan received “overwhelming support” from the members at the 2024 AGM.
As the complaints do not exist, it is not possible to establish whether the complaints related to the untidy state of the Welcome Garden, which resulted from a lack of maintenance due to a lack of capacity, or were the complaints about the plants. There are no records. We are simply told that “For proof of this, you will have to re

WCID Operations Manager Refusal to Comply with the CoCT CID Policy and CoCT CID Bylaw, and Make the WCID Website Compliant

Sat, 31 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

WCID Operations Manager Refusal to Comply with the CoCT CID Policy and CoCT CID Bylaw, and Make the WCID Website Compliant

Post 3 – 31 January 2026

To recap, in POST 2 of yesterday, the WCID Board Chairperson stated the following to the Information Regulator:

“The WCID provided answers after every interaction between Anika Nell and the complainant (Cheryl Quantrill) as well as between WCID Manager and the complainant. Information was never refused, and Cherl Quantrill was invited to a in person meeting which she refused - Arndt please add the invite and Cheryl’s refusal.”
POST 2 has shown that the first part of the Board Chairperson’s statement, namely:

“The WCID provided answers after every interaction between Anika Nell and the complainant (Cheryl Quantrill) as well as between WCID Manager and the complainant. Information was never refused”
to be totally false.
POST 3 will discuss the second part of the Board Chairperson’s statement, where she stated:

“Cherl Quantrill was invited to a in person meeting which she refused - Arndt please add the invite and Cheryl’s refusal.”
This statement is actually true, but has been quoted totally out of context by the Board Chairperson, and had nothing to do with their refusal to provide the requested documentation, and information, as will be seen below.
Cheryl had been trying to bring the Operations Manager’s attention to the non-compliance of the WCID website with respect to not having complaints register posted. This had absolutely nothing to do with their refusal to provide information. See Addendum SC 2a.
This is the same strategy used by the Board Chairperson, when she wrote, that, as public participation was not a legal requirement, she didn’t need to respond to Cheryl’s request for the number of complaints received about the Welcome Garden. This, despite the fact that, at the meeting, the Board Chairperson undertook to provide the number of complaints to Cheryl. This was even followed up by Hessel Turkstra, the director holding the portfolio of Good Governance. The Board Chairperson simply decided to renege on her undertaking and ignore Cheryl. After Cheryl persisted, the Board Chairperson finally responded stating that 16 complaints were received.
The meeting to which the Board Chairperson is referring is therefore totally unrelated to their refusal to provide information. It relates to Cheryl trying to get the WCID website compliant, and the Operations Manager refusing to do so, as can be seen in Addendum 2a.
Addendum 2a includes the various discussions, but your attention is drawn to the correspondence of Thu, 18 Sept 2025, 13:19. The comments from the Operation Manager are highlighted in yellow. Cheryl’s responses are in magenta text.
“The time spent on this issue, which does not add value, is questionable”
That is the verbatim reply from the Operations Manager. In his opinion, time spent on getting the WCID compliant “does not add value” and is “questionable”. As you can see, all correspondence was copied to the Board, not one of whom made a comment.
This was followed by:

“As stated previously, we could not find any other CID that displays a complaints register on its website.”
So, in his opinion, if other CIDs are non-compliant, we don’t need to be compliant either.
Next up was:

“Your interpretation of the CID Bylaw and the requirement of the CID to reflect such information is very focused, yet the intention of your enquiry remains unclear.”
He is not clear as to what Cheryl’s “intention” is with respect to getting the WCID compliant!
We then have:
He will “endeavor to reflect a complaints register list, when capacity allows”
and
“I do not have time for non-value adding tasks”.
In the opinion of the Operations Manager, and the Board, who were copied in on the email, ensuring that the WCID is compliant is a waste of time, does not add value, is questionable, and anyway, he does have time for “non-value adding tasks”.
He also stated:

“I also discussed the requirement of a public complaints register on our website with the head of the City of Cape Town CID department. He confirmed that there is no instruction for CIDs to reflect a complaints register to the public or on their website.”
It would appear that the head of the City of Cape Town CID department provided guidance inconsistent with the applicable policy framework, namely the CoCT CID Policy.
And finally, from the Operations Manager:

“Therefore, your request to have all complaints, along with the relevant responses from the WCID team, shared publicly will not be fulfilled.”
After all of the above, the Operations Manager didn’t even bother to read the CoCT CID Policy, and declined to make the WCID website compliant. The reason he probably didn’t read the CoCT CID Policy is because he couldn’t find it on the WCID website, as, despite numerous requests by Cheryl for months now, to have the search function on the WCID website fixed, as of today, 31 January 2026, it not fully functional. And we are paying a web developer a monthly retainer to manage the website.
The 2022 CoCT CID Policy is quite clear: (See Addendum 18)
24.1 The NPC shall establish and maintain a website for purposes of publishing information pertaining to its activities and relevant regulatory information, and to invite comments or complaints from its members and members of the local community.
24.2 The NPC shall publish the following information on its website:
24.2.16 the company’s complaints resolution process; and
24.2.17 the outcome of any complaint submitted in terms of the NPC’s complaints resolution process, provided that personal information of the complainant, CID employee or agent, or member of the public is redacted;
The WCID’s complaints resolution process did not exist at the time, nor did they publish any information relating to complaints lodged. The WCID were therefore non-compliant for the entire 5 year, Term 1 period, which Cheryl was trying to get them to rectify.
The Operations Manager, and the Board demonstrated a sustained failure to comply with statutory obligations, despite repeated notifications, believing that they could simply ignore the legislation, cherry-pick aspects of the legislation which they felt like complying with, in this case, to hide the complaints against them. Additionally, they obfuscate, deflect and deceive.
Cheryl had raised website non-compliance issues at a Board meeting, dealt with Francois Laurence on the matter, as well as Operations Manager. Francois claimed that they had made the website compliant, but had not.
In addition, the WCID Board, as well as Hessel Turkstra (CA(SA)), a chartered accountant, the portfolio holder for Good Governance, failed to fulfil their obligations, with respect to ensuring good governance and oversight.
The WCID Board Chairperson is therefore correct. The Operations Manager wanted to have a meeting, and stated the following:

“I believe it will be most effective if Renaldo and I meet with you in person to address all your concerns openly, examining the facts at hand to clarify any uncertainties or identify issues we may have to agree to disagree on. Criticism and conflict will only ever add value if both parties seek a factual, objective solution and step back from subjective perspectives.”

Cheryl declined the meeting, stating:

“There is nothing complicated or vague about the requirements of the CoCT CID Bylaws or Policy. Both you, as Operations Manager, and the WCID Board, have failed in ensuring that the WCID is compliant, by not complying with the Policy requirements.

Supporting documentation

Schedule of PAIA requests to WCID and outcomes (PDF)

Anike Making False Statements to the Information Regulator, Claiming That No Information Was Refused

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Anike Making False Statements to the Information Regulator, Claiming That No Information Was Refused

Post 2 – 30 January 2026

Cheryl addressed numerous emails to the WCID Chairperson, Anike Nel, raising specific issues, and requesting specific information. The WCID Chairperson only responded to 7 of the in excess of 70 issues raised, and did not even provide full responses when she did reply. The email record (shared via the public Google drive folder) shows that the WCID chairperson did not respond clearly and in good faith. Instead, her emails were dismissive and ignored Cheryl’s discussion points. Even when Cheryl pointed out specific issues which had not been addressed properly, the WCID chairperson would insist, that she had in fact provided an answer, which, as can be seen by the correspondence in the addendums, is clearly not correct. Finally, Cheryl emailed the Chairperson, calling out her false statements, and what appeared to be a deliberate attempt to conceal material facts from the residents.
Cheryl ultimately discontinued attempts to get information, as it became clear that the WCID Chairperson was unwilling to provide any cogent, and good faith response. It was also clear that the WCID Chairperson had no qualms in making false and baseless statements in defence of board decisions. Despite a lack of expertise and the absence of any independent expert input to corroborate her claims, the WCID Chairperson continued to adopt positions that were wholly unsupported by objective scientific evidence. (See addendums, C3, C4 and C7).
One example is the WCID Chairperson’s insistence that the term LOCAL INDIGENOUS is the same as INDIGENOUS. An analogy would be that instead of saying 4x4 Hilux, you can simply say “Hilux”. These terms are not interchangeable, as “Locally indigenous” is a narrower classification than “indigenous”.
Having hit a brick wall, Cheryl submitted formal PAIA requests to WCID management for the information. Of the 72 PIAA requests submitted by Cheryl, responses were only received to 7, and even these responses were not comprehensive.
Cheryl then escalated the matter to the Information Regulator, to whom the WCID Chairperson responded:

“The WCID provided answers after every interaction between Anike Nell and the complainant (Cheryl Quantrill) as well as between WCID Manager and the complainant. Information was never refused”.
As is readily apparent from the summary set out in the addendums and “Schedule of PAIA requests and outcomes”, nothing could be further from the truth.

Supporting documentation

Schedule of PAIA requests to WCID and outcomes (PDF)

Record of the WCID Board and WCID Operation Manager’s Deceit

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Record of the WCID Board and WCID Operation Manager’s Deceit

Post 1 – 29 January 2026
Introduction to Posts

Since April 2025, Cheryl has been trying to get information from Arndt Mittendorf, the WCID Operations Manager (“WCID manager”), and the WCID Board (“the Board”), as well as to ensure that the WCID complies with all its legal obligations and compliance requirements under the CID by-law. In doing so, Cheryl has put to the test their stated objectives of “transparent governance” and claim that they “foster community engagement”.
It has unfortunately been an uphill battle. When Cheryl requested specific information, she was told she had to submit a formal application under the Promotion of Access to Information Act (“PAIA”). However, virtually every PAIA request, which often took her days to research and write, was met with deflection, obfuscation, incoherent responses, playing “dumb” or blanket refusals on the basis that the requested information was “confidential”. Essentially, zero transparency.
What Cheryl has uncovered is that the community has been misled for years. Instead of acknowledging mistakes or failures, the WCID Manager, and certain board members, have misrepresented facts, by either making untruthful statements, or concealing material facts, such as the cost implications of decisions, as well as following their own agenda, and not the wishes of the WCID members and community.
This is the first in a series of posts, which will give you the facts. Each and every statement is backed by evidence, which will be shared in a public Google Drive folder. We are a diverse community, with different viewpoints, but we cannot make decisions as a community when the people in power obtain your “consent” by misrepresenting facts, concealing relevant information, and spreading disinformation.
The significant corporate governance failures meant that:

5.1. The WCID failed to comply with mandatory City of Cape Town requirements;

5.2. Projects and services were:
- Delayed,
- Not executed at all, or
- Executed in a manner which either did not ensure “value for money” or resulted in wasteful and fruitless expenditure (without disclosing it to the community as they were required to do); and
5.3. The WCID board failed in its fiduciary duty to act in the WCID’s best interests.
The vast majority of additional ratepayers are not members of the WCID Non-Profit Company (“WCID NPC”) and therefore do not vote at AGMs. This is understandable. The WCID does not actively encourage property owners to become NPC members, because taking a large membership will make it difficult to get a quorum at AGMs. Most residents are also busy professionals, trying to juggle work and family commitments. We all simply assumed that the WCID management and Board were acting in good faith, in the best interests of the community, and that they were fulfilling their legal duties. Our trust has been misplaced and abused.
The misrepresentations and disinformation were designed to shield the Board and Operations Manager from accountability, and to discredit anyone who dared ask questions or point out WCID failures. Over the years, you may have heard stories about these difficult trouble-makers. You would also have seen recent WCID statements hinting that the community should “ask what they can do” to help the WCID, rather than “just complain”. None of this was by accident. The disinformation caused division in the community, making people more likely to disengage, and less likely to believe those pesky “trouble-makers”.
As recently as Monday 19 January 2026, the WCID Manager responded to e-mail queries about the Goewerneur Park upgrade with obfuscation and false statements. The Board appears to endorse this behaviour, as they were copied in on the correspondence, but failed to correct the statements, even though they know the statements were false. The truth will be fully exposed in future posts.
The Board and Operations Manager have made it as difficult as possible to access information. This is a well-established strategy by those in power to enable them to hide from accountability. They know that the average person eventually tires of trying to know, and for the sake of their own sanity, just gives up and walks away. Fortunately for this community, Cheryl is not the type of person to give up easily.
When the WCID Manager only provided 6 of the approximately 90 documents requested via a PAIA, Cheryl lodged a complaint with the Information Regulator. The WCID is a public body. It uses your additional municipal rate to perform services and to pay salaries. Other than discussions about disciplinary matters, commercially sensitive financial or technical information of third party service providers, there can be little information which can legitimately be labelled as “confidential”. Everything they discuss should be for the benefit of the community, and the records, minutes, etc. should reflect this. And even if a document is confidential, PAIA demands disclosure when it is in the public interest to do so.
When the WCID Manager did respond to complaints and PAIAs, sometimes only after 42 days, he did so in a single email response, jumping between various complaints and PAIAs sent on different dates, all in a single email, making it extremely difficult to collate, track and coordinate the responses. We believe this was intentional.
To enable Cheryl to keep track of her different complaints and PAIA requests, Cheryl asked the WCID Manager to respond to complaints and PAIA requests in separate emails. Her request was ignored.
The process before the Information Regulator is ongoing. We have however managed to accumulate sufficient documentation to conclusively prove and substantiate all our concerns, and will now start posting the information.
As you go through the posts, you will also see why the WCID Manager and the Board took the drastic step in January 2026 to take control of independent community WhatsApp groups (the Welgemoed Neighbourhood Watch Groups – WNW groups) instead of creating its own WhatsApp channel/group. These groups had been set up by Cheryl and Oldf Burger, as part of the Welgemoed Neighbourhood Watch (WNW), 3 years before the formation of the WCID.
Until now, the WCID manager and WCID Board could post freely on the groups, but did not have the power to remove posts or remove members. However, as residents have increasingly used these groups to share concerns about WCID’s corporate governance failures, the board seized control of the groups in order to limit residents’ freedom of expression and to control the narrative.
The WCID wrote to the volunteer administrators (“admins”) of the WNW sector groups, directing them to sign acceptance of the WCID board’s new communication policy and to add the WCID manager as administrator to their groups. Cheryl refused to hand over Sector 2 group, and warned the WCID board and management that without the informed consent of each member of these groups, their takeover violated the POPI Act. Cheryl’s approaches to the Board Chairperson on behalf of the community were rebuffed. The Chairperson of the WCID even went so far as to advise Cheryl that, as Cheryl would not hand her group over to the WCID, “you cannot serve under these circumstances”. The Board Chairperson believes that she has the authority to decide that Cheryl may no longer serve the community.
The WCID is a public body. The misrepresentations were made publicly by office bearers of the WCID. The following posts are therefore made in the public interest, in the interests of WCID NPC members, WCID residents and the local community as a whole.
Each post will focus on a specific issue, with all relevant documents shared in a publicly available Google Drive folder. Because the volume of the documents may be a bit overwhelming at first, I have prepared a “roadmap” document: “Schedule of PAIA requests and outcomes”. The schedule will be updated after each post.