Libya's $210m Investment in Sandton Yields Zero Benefits for the North African Nation's People

24 March 2026
Daily Maverick (Johannesburg)
By Peter Fabricius

Libya's $210m investment in The Michelangelo Hotel and other properties in Sandton has yielded nothing for its people over two decades, due to mismanagement and ongoing legal battles.

More than $210-million in real estate investments by the Libyan government in Johannesburg's "richest square mile" have provided no visible returns for the Libyan people in more than two decades, according to The Sentry, a US-based investigative NGO.

The flagship of the state-owned Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) in SA is the plush Michelangelo Hotel in Sandton, which was the anchor hotel of the 2010 World Cup and "jewel of the LIA's South African real estate portfolio".

But it has been closed since 2020, largely over legal disputes between an LIA subsidiary, Ensemble, and its SA partner, Legacy Hotels, says The Sentry in a report released today (Tuesday, 24 March): The Libyan Investment Authority's Not-So Frozen Billions: Mismanagement, Competition, and Corruption.

The LIA's investments in Sandton are part of a wider failure of the LIA to derive any income for the Libyan people from its $62.85-billion portfolio of investments worldwide, which, in addition to SA, are also in the United Kingdom, Liberia and other African countries, says the report.

The Sentry largely blames corruption and incompetence, while in South Africa and elsewhere, the LIA has mainly blamed international sanctions, which were imposed by the United Nations and others in...

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