Durban - President Jacob Zuma’s nephew, Khulubuse, has dismissed media reports implicating him - with some of the world’s rich and famous - in hiding his wealth offshore.
Khulubuse was one of the names that emerged in the leaked “Panama Papers”, extracts of which were published worldwide on Sunday.
More than 11.5 million documents from the files of law firm Mossack Fonseca, based in the tax haven of Panama, reportedly reveal the details of hundreds of thousands of clients in various jurisdictions around the globe.
Zuma’s spokesman, Vuyo Mkhize, told the Daily News on Monday morning that Zuma did not have an offshore banking account.
“He does not hold an offshore account and never held one,” Mkhize said.
“He was associated with a company that was set up and registered offshore in British Islands. The extent of that association is that he was authorised to sign on behalf of the company that was doing business in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” Mkhize said.
Khulubuse has in the past been linked to two companies in the Virgin Islands, Foxwhelp and Caprikat, which were reportedly involved in the production of oil from the DRC oil fields.
Mkhize also said Zuma's nephew had no additional comment to make on the company he was associated with.
“Regarding the involvement with the company, there is nothing new beyond what was reported previously,” Mklhize said.
He made the comments amid reports that tax authorities in Australia and New Zealand were probing clients of a Panama law firm at the centre of a massive data leak for possible tax evasion.
The documents are at the centre of an investigation published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and more than 100 other news organisations around the globe.
Süddeutsche Zeitung reported it received the huge cache of documents and then shared them with other media outlets.
The leaked “Panama Papers” cover a period over almost 40 years, from 1977 until as recently as last December, and show that some companies domiciled in tax havens were being used for suspected money laundering, arms and drug deals, and tax evasion.
Britain's Guardian newspaper said the documents showed a network of secret offshore deals and loans worth $2 billion (R30bn) led to close friends of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Reuters couldn’t independently confirm those details.
The Australian Tax Office (ATO) said on Monday it was investigating more than 800 wealthy clients of Mossack Fonseca.
The head of Mossack Fonseca has denied any wrongdoing but acknowledged his firm had suffered a successful but “limited” hack on its database.
The firm’s director, Ramon Fonseca, described the hack and leak as “an international campaign against privacy”.
The 800 individuals under investigation include some taxpayers who had previously been investigated and others who had reported themselves to the tax office under a voluntary disclosure initiative, which allowed people to come forward and avoid steep penalties and criminal charges and has since ended.
However, the ATO said those under investigation also included a large number of taxpayers who had not previously come forward.
New Zealand’s tax agency said on Monday that it was “working closely” with its tax treaty partners to obtain full details of any New Zealand tax residents who might have been involved in arrangements facilitated by Mossack Fonseca.
Daily News and Reuters