Publication	The Witness
Date	2006-11-11
Reporter	Own Correspondent
Web Link	www.witness.co.za

Nkobi to be sold off to pay state

The brother of convicted Durban businessman Shabir Shaik confirmed on Friday that they will be selling off assets to pay for legal expenses linked to recent litigation, the SABC reported.

Mo Shaik said the assets include about R38 million seized by the Assets Forfeiture Unit as well as legal expenses and fines imposed by the trial court.

Shabir Shaik began his 15-year jail sentence on Thursday after his appeal on fraud and corruption charges was refused.

Mo said the family are looking at selling off the Nkobi Group’s assets in order to honour obligations to the state in respect of the assets forfeiture.

He added that they will decide on how to distribute the shares among the shareholders and look at making a fresh start only after the obligations have been honoured.

“A new company called Corp Africa manages the affairs of the Nkobi Group, but for all intents and purposes, we will be winding the Nkobi Group down,” said Shaik.

In any event, when Schabir comes out of jail, as a consequence of his convictions, he will be barred from holding any company directorships.

And it is possible that the government contracts the Nkobi Group companies hold may be stripped from them.

These include the N3 toll road upgrade, the contract to print credit card driver’s licences and several defence contracts.

In terms of the Prevention of Corrupt Activities Act, Shaik and his companies will be blacklisted with the National Treasury, preventing them doing business with the state.

“The state should immediately blacklist Shaik and all companies in which he has a financial interest *1. Indeed, the new Corruption Act, namely the Prevention of Corrupt Activities Act … makes allowance for a ‘register of tender defaulters’,” said Adrienne Carlisle of the Rhodes University Public Service Accountability Monitor.

Thoraya Pandy, a spokeswoman for the National Treasury, said her department’s legal team will study the judgment before making a decision on whether or not to blacklist Shaik and deciding what effect there will be on Shaik’s contracts with the Department of Defence *2.

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*1       Which include African Defence Systems (Pty) Ltd and Thint (Pty) Ltd.

Overall, it's a massive swat

This is probably what's causing Yunis to be grumpier than usual - especially seeing that Yunis was both a director of Nkobi Holdings and a representative of The Workers College which was a shareholder of Nkobi Holdings. The Workers College in turn represented a group of ANC-aligned trade unions.


*2      Now it's time for Thales South Africa and Thales International.

Regarding DoD, it's noteworthy to observe Chippy keeping the very lowest of profiles.