/ 22 March 1999

LIFEBOAT PROBE MAY WIDEN

THE Heath Special Investigations Unit is widening its probe of the Reserve Bank’s 1990 R1,4-billion rescue package for the now-defunct Bankorp group to include tobacco giant Rembrandt and insurance conglomerate Sanlam — both major shareholders in Basa banking group, which is already under scrutiny over the lifeboat deal. The Sunday Independent reports that the lifeboat probe has also widened its parameters to include issues other than whether the Reserve Bank acted incorrectly in secretly giving the lifeboat to a private institution. The lifeboat involved R1,5-billion the Reserve Bank made available to Bankorp from June 1990, and to Absa from April 1992, at 1% interest a year until it was ended in 1995.