The High Court in Pietermaritzburg has ruled that VBS Mutual Bank can seize Jacob Zuma’s moveable assets to repay his R6.5 million loan.
The former president took out the loan when he was first ordered to “pay back the money” for extensive non-security upgrades at Nkandla.
The financial noose around Jacob Zuma’s neck is tightening.
The former president owes VBS Mutual Bank millions on the loan for his Nkandla homestead in KwaZulu-Natal.
Now the High Court in Pietermaritzburg has ruled that VBS can seize realizable assets like cattle and furniture to repay the outstanding R6.5 million.
Zuma took out the loan when he was first ordered to “pay back the money” for extensive non-security upgrades at Nkandla. (Remember the “fire pool”?)
He started defaulting on his monthly instalments in August 2018 – five months after the Bank was put under curatorship and just months after he stepped down as president, writes Pauli van Wyk in an article for Daily Maverick.
Bruce Whitfield interviews van Wyk, an investigative journalist with Scorpio at Daily Maverick.
“Zuma’s age of patronage – and the money taps available to him – seemed to have ended when he lost political power”, she says.
Pauli van Wyk, Investigative journalist – Daily Maverick’s Scorpio unit:
It is all circumstantial evidence – he was given that loan on really good terms… The huge question here is that he didn’t earn the loan in terms of his salary. He couldn’t really repay it on what he earned per year, so there was clearly someone footing the bill for him.
Nkandla is built on a farm owned by the Ingonyama Trust, so the land cannot be attached.
Van Wyk says all other moveable assets will be taken, according to the VBS curator.
Pauli van Wyk, Investigative journalist – Daily Maverick’s Scorpio unit:
The VBS curator has done really well to take back money from all sorts of quarters where it’s owed to VBS Mutual Bank. In this instance, perhaps he will start looking more widely to which other assets he can grab relating to Mr Zuma.
-EWN
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