/ 30 March 2014

Land Bank sues ANC bigwigs

Land Bank Sues Anc Bigwigs

The state-owned Land Bank has brought a claim against several ANC heavyweights, high-ranking government officials and property mogul Roux Shabangu, the Sunday Independent reported.

This was in a bid to recoup an R82-million loan it granted them for a bungled North West development.

The development was proposed as a huge tourism attraction in the Hartbeespoort area, with a hotel, conference centre, shopping centre and more than 400 sectional title units, the paper said.

But eight years after Westside Trading 570 signed the contract, the land was still vacant and had not been sold, the company was in liquidation, and the Land Bank was demanding its multimillion-rand loan back, with interest.

According to papers filed in the high court in Pretoria, Westside Trading had failed to make payment of the R82-million by the end of April 2009.

A summons was issued against the company and its nine directors, who stood surety and were co-principal debtors.

Shabangu, Gauteng legislature speaker Lindiwe Maseko, department of co-operative governance and traditional affairs chief operations officer Lydia Sebego, and former SABC board member Desmond Golding are among the nine shareholders in the company, the paper reported. Golding sits on the ANC's economic transformation committee and Cosatu's panel of progressive economists. – Sapa