Johannesburg - Solidarity yesterday called on liquidators of the failed mining company Aurora to investigate Khulubuse Zuma after he was mentioned in the Panama Papers, an unprecedented leak of 11.5 million files from the database of Mossack Fonseca, a law firm specialising in offshore business.
Zuma, President Jacob Zuma’s controversial nephew, was found guilty last year in connection with stripping mine assets and causing the loss of thousands of jobs.
Read: #PanamaPapers: Call to act against Khulubuse Zuma
He was named yesterday in the Panama Papers that have blown the lid off the secretive offshore world used by the world’s rich and powerful to hide assets and skirt rules by setting up front companies in certain jurisdictions.
The scandal, which implicates a wide array of people, including political figures from more than 50 countries, from Russian President Vladimir Putin to Argentine President Mauricio Macri, has focused international attention on offshore accounts.
“Khulubuse Zuma’s name was implicated with about 140 people who are under suspicion of having used banks, law firms and foreign front companies to conceal their assets,” Solidarity general secretary Gideon du Plessis said.
“We have approached the liquidators dealing with the Aurora case to investigate Khulubuse Zuma. We would like to know at what stage Zuma transferred money to Panama and whether it was during or shortly after his term as a director of Aurora,” Du Plessis said.
Asset freeze
Solidarity said it had also asked the liquidators to bring a court application to freeze all Zuma’s offshore assets “since it appears that he is hiding money abroad in view of the pending appeal judgment”.
“Zuma and his fellow directors were found guilty, jointly and severally, of damage amounting to R1.7 billion because of their reckless and corrupt management of the Pamodzi mine assets,” Du Plessis said.
The liquidators were also requested to bring a court application to freeze all Zuma’s offshore assets since it seemed he was hiding money abroad in view of the pending judgment by the Supreme Court of Appeal brought against the High Court judgment against the Aurora directors last year.
Bertelsmann found the directors to be reckless and incapable managers whose conduct had led to the deterioration and collapse of, and the subsequent liquidation of, the Orkney and Grootvlei mines that they had taken over.
“If the appeal fails, Zuma and his fellow directors will have to comply with the order, or else they will be sequestrated,” Du Plessis said.
A report by International Consortium of Investigative Journalists on the leaked files, obtained from an anonymous source by German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung, says: “A mining magnate, Khulubuse Zuma, has reportedly enjoyed a lifestyle of cigars and up to 19 collectible cars.”
BUSINESS REPORT