CDE Civil Pty Ltd, a company linked to the Alice Springs native title organisation Lhere Artepe, has been placed into liquidation.
A string of prominent Aboriginal figures, including Deputy to the Administrator, Patricia Miller (pictured above with an armed forces officer and former Mayor Fran Kilgariff), may be affected by the developments through their associations with proprietary limited companies bearing the name Lhere Artepe (or related acronyms).
The largest shareholder of CDE Civil Pty Ltd is LAE Nominees Pty Ltd. The principal place of business of LAE is 21 Leichhardt Terrace, Alice Springs, also the office of Lhere Artepe Aboriginal Corporation, at least until recently.
Canberra based business consultant Ron Morony, who has strong links to Alice Springs, says the company has 600 shares, 506 of which are held by LAE Nominees Pty Ltd. Mr Morony is a also director of the Antulye estate group.
He says 47 shares each are held by two interstate companies.
He says it appears LAE Nominees Pty Ltd is owned by Lhere Artepe Enterprises Pty Ltd which in turn is owned by Lhere Artepe Pty Ltd.
Mrs Miller is the chairperson of Lhere Artepe Enterprises Pty Ltd.
The CDE website says: “Lhere Artepe head Darryl Pearce has been elected chairman of the CDE Group.
“Mr Pearce said he aimed to broaden CDE Group’s civil, equipment hire and mining services contracts in the Northern Territory and other parts of Australia.
It is understood the purchase of CDE took place during the development by LAE Nominees Pty Ltd of residential blocks in the Mt Johns Valley, between the golf course and the ranges.
Mr Pearce, who is the only director of CDE Civil, did not respond to requests for information today.
Another prominent Aborigine, Lewis “Chippy” Miller, formerly a director of Lhere Artepe Enterprises Pty Ltd, said he resigned from his position because “I wasn’t told anything. There was no information sharing”.
Mrs Miller said she is likely to comment later after getting a clearer picture of the situation.
Part of our contract [for residential land in Mt Johns Valley] was that the developer were to release the blocks on 1st Feb 2011 and had three time extensions. These ended on the 1st of August 2011 and I am now free to hand in my block and get back my $5000 deposit.
I know of a lot of people that were happy to hand their blocks back as the uncertainty was dragging on and some had their situations change. We originally purchased the blocks on 6th November 2009.
I had a few friends purchase blocks and then hand them in. Some are well know Alice residents and even a well known real estate agent, that had their circumstances change.
Another question is what are they going to do with the blocks handed in.
Is Lhere Artepe going to drag this out forever and would you think the government would be pushing hard for this release as the housing market in Alice is a complete joke.