marconi beam

Prior to the 1994 elections, Rabie acquired a 220-hectare site in Milnerton from Telkom. Part of the site had been settled on by thousands of squatters and after months of negotiations, Rabie and partner Cavcor entered into a social compact with the community that approved a business and development plan for a mixed-use project which included accommodating the squatter community in formal housing on the site.

The basis of this plan was to do the exact opposite of apartheid planning, namely to create acceptable affordable housing with amenities in an integrated area close to job and other opportunities.

Democracy came on 25 April 1994 and two months later President Nelson Mandela kickstarted his Masekhane programme at Marconi Beam with the words:

       'Here at Marconi Beam, we see the reconstruction and development programme at work. What is happening here is the product of the kind of partnership which is needed to transform our country. Let us all build together and let us build each other. Masakhane!'

Thirteen years later the Rabie Property Group has returned to the Marconi Beam area focusing its Social Responsibility Programme on upliftment projects for the Sinenjongo High School. The first major project has been the construction of a Science laboratory providing the first opportunity for learners to experience science rather than just learning out of a text book.