Johannesburg – Deputy Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Obed Bapela is at loggerhead with a Gauteng businessman and a KwaZulu- Natal auditor over millions of rand in dividends paid to Zonkizizwe Investment Trust, which the ANC heavyweight claims to be the sole trustee.
Bapela applied for a court interdict in the Joburg High Court on Tuesday to prevent Sandton businessman Reuben Gladstone and Umhlanga Ridge auditor Arvin Magand from disbursing R4-million in dividends paid to the trust by Pelawan Investment (Pty) Ltd.
This pending the outcome of the court application he launched to establish whether the two were legitimate trustees of the trust.
Bapela has disputed the legitimacy of Gladstone and Magand as the trustees and, as a result, he wanted to interdict them from transferring the dividends into Glads t one’s company Tasama Consulting until the court has ruled on his application to remove them from the entity.
In his founding affidavit, Bapela said he had been the sole trustee of the Zonkizizwe since the death of the other trustees; Henry Gordon Makgothi and Hermanus Loots.
He said the trust received R4-million in dividends from Pelawan, in which it was a shareholder, a few weeks ago. The dividends were paid into the account of Mafetsa Attorneys, a law firm nominated by Gladstone and Magand.
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Bapela said he only learnt that Gladstone and Magand were trustees when they were cited in an urgent application filed by Blue Nightingale 74, which wanted to interdict Pelawan from paying the dividends to the trust.
He said shortly after being served with the urgent application, he had instructed his lawyers to oppose the Blue Nightingale 74’s application and to find out why Gladstone and Magand were cited with him as trustees.
He said his lawyers told him that they would enquire from the Master of the High Court to ascertain why the duo became trustees without his knowledge.
After the Blue Nightingale 74 hearing, he added, the court ordered Pelawan to pay the dividends to Mafetsa Attorneys pending the finalisation of the matter by arbitration.
He said he only discovered during the arbitration that Gladstone and Magand claimed that they were appointed by Loots as agents of the trust, but elsewhere held themselves as trustees of the trust.
Bapela further said that after the arbitration was postponed on Tuesday, Gladstone and Magand held a meeting in which they agreed to disburse the dividend in lieu of a purported loan by Tamasa Cosulting.
“No documents evincing a loan or any transaction recorded in bank statements show that the trust has ever received a loan from Tamasa Consulting as alleged by the respondents,” read the papers.
He said when his lawyers wrote a letter objecting to the payment of the funds to Tamasa Consulting, Gladstone and Magand said they had resolved to proceed with the payment hence he applied for an interdict.
He also pleaded with the court to order that the funds be transferred from Mafetsa Attorneys to his nominated law firm SM Vakalisa Inc.
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