Durban - The Zondo commission which is probing state capture allegations and Kubentheran (Kuben) Moodley, the man who has been described in some circles as a “Gupta fixer”, are set for a legal showdown in the Gauteng High Court, Johannesburg, on Tuesday.
The battle comes after the Zondo commission issued a search-and-seizure warrant to storage company Knox Titanium Vaults, to get documents that Moodley is currently storing in his vault with the company.
Moodley has been using the company since September 2009.
Now Moodley has gone to court, challenging the authority of the commission to seize the documents and also wants to have access to his three vaults with the company.
Moodley’s name has cropped up many times at the state capture commission and as a result, the commission on June 13 this year instructed Knox to stop granting him access to his vaults until it had obtained the documents.
Among the accusations against Moodley was that he helped Trillian Capital to loot Eskom, helped the Guptas, through his company, Albatime, with R10million to buy Optimum Mine and allegedly had a hand in the looting of the government of North West by Mediosa.
In an urgent application, Moodley, through his attorney Hannes Peyper, argued that Knox has breached the agreement it has with him by acceding to the demand from the commission. He further argued that the commission had no powers to order a seizure of documents.
He also wanted to be allowed to have access to his three vaults, as he was told by Knox on June 26 that it was instructed by the commission not to allow him access.
“This application, in the first place, concerns the powers of the first respondent (commission) to issue summonses in contra-distinction to warrants.
“While it has powers to issue summonses, it has no power to issue warrants authorising searches and seizures of objects,” Moodley argued in the court papers.
In the same application, Moodley said should he not be granted access to the vaults, he would run out of cash by July 7 (Sunday), saying he had no access to a local banking facility after ABSA and Nedbank closed down his accounts.
“The contents of the box that I lease from Knox consist of personal items, such as jewellery and watches and, most importantly, business documents (such as commercial agreements) and title deeds to properties.
“The box also contains cash. I frequently put cash into the box or take cash from it,” he argued in the papers.
Both Knox and the commission are opposing the application.
In his court papers, Knox chief executive Wayne Ryan Becker said the matter was not urgent.
In an affidavit filed in court, he said the company joined the matter because there was a cost order being sought against it by Moodley.
He also denied that the company had access to Moodley’s vaults.
“I should make it clear that Knox does not keep any duplicate client key and that it only possesses the master key,” Becker said in his responding affidavit.
Interestingly, the affidavits attached to the application give a rare glimpse into the life of the man who was also once an adviser of former mineral resources minister, Mosebenzi Zwane.
In his affidavit, Becker detailed Moodley’s client history with the company and said Moodley became a client in 2009, when he applied for one vault and, since then, unlike other clients, he made regular visits to the vault.
His wife, Viroshini Naidoo also had access to the vault.
Who is Kuben Moodley
Kubentheran Moodley was once the special adviser to former mineral resources minister Mosebenzi Zwane.
According to the Public Protector’s State of Capture report, Moodley’s company, Albatime, helped the Guptas buy Optimum Coal Holdings (OCH).
Moodley is sole director of Albatime and contributed R10million to the purchase of OCH by Tegeta Exploration and Resources, a Gupta-owned company.
The report said Albatime was one of 18 companies that paid a total of R2.4bn into Tegeta’s accounts at the Bank of Baroda from December 2015 to April 2016.
Albatime’s role in Tegeta’s acquisition of OCH was cited as problematic as Moodley’s wife, Viroshini Naidoo, was on Eskom’s tender committee at the time coal supply agreements between Eskom and Tegeta were discussed.
Naidoo, the report states, did declare her husband’s position as a “part-time adviser” to Zwane, and that she had been an employee of Albatime at some of the Eskom board meetings.
Moodley is also a director of BIT Information Technology (Pty) Ltd.