Johannesburg - Magasela Mzobe, who is gunning to be the next ANC Youth League president, has dragged the struggling league into more financial and legal trouble.
This time the ANCYL and Mzobe, who is the national task team co-ordinator, failed to pay more than R20 000 for a full-page advertorial published in the New Agenda magazine, which is edited by retired MP Professor Ben Turok.
The non-payment has resulted in a judgment against the league to pay both for the advert and legal costs.
New Agenda is published on behalf of the Institute for African Alternatives.
The advertorial, accompanied by a picture of Mzobe, was about the African Union’s 50th anniversary last year, which was celebrated at an executive council meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
On February 12, attorney Connie Alho of Ward Ward & Pienaar attorneys - acting on behalf of New Agenda publisher Picasso Headline - wrote a letter of demand to the ANCYL for the “immediate payment of the sum of R22 515.00 due to our client in respect of advertising services rendered during June 2013”.
Alho said unless the total amount is paid a summons would be issued against the ANCYL for the recovery of the money together with interest of 15.5 percent calculated from August 2013 when the advertorial came out.
Alho said this week that “no payment has been received” from the ANCYL. “We’ve also got judgment against them to pay for the legal costs.”
Picasso Headline publishes a diverse range of magazines and journals for South African and international organisations like the SA Banker, a quarterly magazine published on behalf of the Banking Association of South Africa (BASA) and the Institute of Bankers (IOB).
Picasso Headline also publishes African Leader - a quarterly magazine published on behalf of the Black Management Forum (BMF), the SA Schools and Tertiary Collection and the Voice of Local Government, which is published on behalf of the South African Local Government Association (Salga).
The summons issued by the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court in July states that should the league fail to file and serve notice, judgment may be given against it.
Mzobe said on Saturday that the matter should be sorted out this week.
“It will be paid by (this) week, probably by when I come back. I’m in the North West now, probably till Wednesday.
“But I’m quite sure it will be paid,” said Mzobe.
The unpaid advert comes not too long after the league was embroiled in another non-payment scandal in which its members racked up a R80 000 bill at a nightspot on Durban’s Florida Road before the elections.
The Sunday Tribune reported that members spent R24 000 on whisky alone, and almost R10 000 on Champagne.
The league was also involved in a another legal wrangle involving provisional sequestration over the R4m debt it owes Gallagher Estate Convention Centre.
Sunday Independent