Publication: Cape Argus Issued: Date: 2004-11-19 Reporter: Estelle Ellis

Zuma 'Could Not Pay'

 

Publication 

Cape Argus

Date 2004-11-19

Reporter

Estelle Ellis

Web Link

www.capeargus.co.za

 

The credit manager for Absa Private Bank, Ian McLeod, has told the Durban High Court that he strongly doubted whether Deputy President Jacob Zuma would have been able to repay a loan from his financial adviser Shabir Shaik. Shaik has pleaded not guilty to two charges of corruption and another of fraud.

"If there was a revolving credit agreement between Shaik and Zuma, it should have been reflected as a liability by Zuma. But taking into account how Zuma ran his affairs, I doubt very much if he could repay it," McLeod said.

He testified that if the credit agreement existed it would put Zuma in a negative light because he did not tell the bank about it *1.

Yesterday, the court heard that, despite their high credit risk rating, Zuma and Shaik were accepted as bank clients because of their "political influence".

With acknowledgements to Estelle Ellis and the Cape Argus. 

*1 Gotcha again, but that's probably because this agreement is so deeply buried in the Members of Parliament Registrar of Members' Interests and marked in big red letters :


So Utterly Confidential
that this will
Never See the Light of Day