Two symbols of state capture lie about 500km apart: an imposing compound in the wealthy Joburg suburb of Saxonwold and a decaying Nkandla homestead in rural KwaZulu-Natal.
Just who pays the bills for running the former Gupta residences in Joburg is unknown, and secrecy also hides the latest about former President Jacob Zuma’s VBS Mutual Bank loan, which was taken to pay for upgrades at Nkandla.
High walls obscure the properties in Saxonwold, once home to the Gupta clan, the alleged masterminds of state capture now in hiding in Dubai or elsewhere in the world. It’s hard to know who, if anyone, still lives in a place mocked as a speakeasy following a reference to it as a shebeen by regular visitor Brian Molefe when he was CEO of Eskom.
The house, and another Gupta property in Constantia, Cape Town, have restraint orders against them, obtained by Hermione Cronje before her resignation as head of the Investigating Directorate of the National Prosecuting Authority.
Park Village Auctions director Clive Lazarus tells the FM that business rescue practitioners have yet to sell the four properties in Saxonwold. Litigation by the Guptas has put on hold the sale of many properties held in the name of former Gupta companies.
"The Saxonwold shebeen has not been sold," says Lazarus.
The properties 3 Saxonwold Drive, 5 Saxonwold Drive and 7 Saxonwold Drive are held by Confident Concept, while Islandsite Investments owns 19 Erlswold Way, around the corner.
Chetali Gupta, Atul Gupta, Rajesh Gupta and Ajay Gupta were the shareholders in Confident Concept and Islandsite. In February 2018, the shareholders of both companies put them into business rescue. But Chetali Gupta, who is Atul Gupta’s wife, changed her mind and, in November 2018, applied to the high court to remove the business rescue practitioners. The battle between Chetali Gupta and the rescue practitioners went to the Constitutional Court, which in August rejected her application.
Smit Sewgoolam Attorneys director Bouwer van Niekerk, representing the business rescue practitioners of both Confident Concept and Islandsite Investments, told the FM that following the conclusion of the court case the business rescue practitioners of both companies would proceed to sell the properties.
Van Niekerk says he understands that people occupy the four Saxonwold properties. "We are not sure of the identity of the supposed occupiers," he says. He says the occupiers of all four properties are covering the costs of running them.
Van Niekerk said that the occupiers of the properties were represented by attorney Sumenthren Pillay of SP Attorneys Inc. The FM sent Pillay questions by email about the occupiers but he did not respond.
The FM visited the property at 5 Saxonwold Drive. The guards at the gate said people live there, but declined to say who. Neighbours said they were unsure if anyone lived on the property.
An affidavit filed in the battle for the removal of the business rescue practitioners reveals who might live there: it states that Chetali Gupta is a resident at 5 Saxonwold Drive. But one of the business rescue practitioners, Kurt Knoop, said in court papers that he did not have an address for Chetali Gupta in Dubai. Though she claimed to be a resident in Saxonwold, neither she nor her husband lived there.
Knoop wrote: "They appeared to be living in Dubai, where Mrs Gupta deposed her affidavits. However, Chetali Gupta provided no address in Dubai."
The FM e-mailed Chetali Gupta’s lawyer, Rudi Krause, asking whether his client lived at the Saxonwold properties and if he knew who else lived there. Krause is a director of the criminal law firm BDK Attorneys.
"I will take instructions and revert," Krause said.
As for Zuma’s finances relating to Nkandla, VBS Mutual Bank loaned the former president R7.8m in September 2016 to pay the government for the upgrades. This followed former public protector Thuli Madonsela’s finding that some upgrades were not security related. In a report in March 2014, Madonsela found that Zuma unduly benefited from upgrades such as a swimming pool, cattle kraal and amphitheatre, which had cost taxpayers R250m.
According to a Sunday World report in March this year, Zuma was meant to pay back the loan in R69,000 monthly instalments over 240 months, but he defaulted. He is now about R250,000 in arrears.
Louise Brugman, a spokesperson for VBS curator Anoosh Rooplal says Rooplal cannot comment about Zuma’s loan because of client confidentiality. Zuma’s spokesperson, Mzwanele Manyi, tells the FM that the status of Zuma’s loan with VBS is confidential, and declined to comment further.
VBS began litigation against Zuma in 2019, after he had fallen into arrears, at the high court in Pietermaritzburg. Brugman confirms that the case is still before the court and says the presiding judge has yet to rule.
VBS collections manager Shaun Havenga submitted a certificate of indebtedness to the high court in Pietermaritzburg regarding the divorce proceedings involving Zuma and his wife Thobeka Madiba-Zuma.
That document, dated August 19 2020, showed that Zuma owed VBS R6.9m on July 31 that year.
Zuma’s bank statements from March 2018 to August 2020, also filed in his divorce proceedings, showed that VBS was debiting him a monthly amount of at least R66,417.05 on either the 15th or 16th of the month. VBS ran debit orders against Zuma’s Absa cheque account in March, April, May, June and July 2018.
The VBS debit orders came off in March, April, and May but bounced in June and July.
At the start of March 2018, that Zuma cheque account had a negative balance of over R330,000. From August 2018 to August 2020, no VBS debit orders were run against the account. At the end of August 2020, the Absa cheque account had a positive balance of about R209,000.
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