Mungo Soggot and Evidence wa ka Ngobeni
Mbhazima Shilowa, the cigar-puffing trade union supremo in line to steer Gauteng into the 21st century, has clocked up a string of debt judgments while sustaining a luxurious lifestyle.
Local credit agencies list four judgments in favour of banks against Shilowa for amounts ranging between R18 000 and R276 000. Shilowa also managed to attract three debt judgments in the past two years from the same bank – Nedcor. The banking group declined to comment or say whether it had tried to attach Shilowa’s property.
An African National Congress representative speaking on behalf of Shilowa said that the matters had been settled. Nedcor declined to comment on this. The Mail & Guardian has established that Shilowa paid up late this week.
The biggest judgment against Shilowa is for R276 577,84. According to papers filed with the Johannesburg High Court, Shilowa ran up the debt on his overdraft. The other two Nedcor judgments are for R18 245 and R73 295. The last judgment, passed in 1995, is in favour of Absa for R91 000, and resulted in the bank attaching Shilowa’s house.
The judgments cast doubt on Shilowa’s financial management skills, which will soon be in the spotlight as he has been selected to replace Mathole Motshekga, who was sidelined by the ANC after earning the reputation as a shoddy manager. Motshekga has also been accused of mismanaging donor funds while he ran an NGO in Pretoria in the 1980s.
The latest credit check on Shilowa was carried out by Stannic, Standard Bank’s car finance arm, in March, when Shilowa bought a new Audi A4. Approached for comment, a Volkswagen representative said this week Shilowa had traded in another Audi and paid off the balance of the new car at cost price – a boon the car-maker says it extends to the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu). The representative said Volkswagen, like many other car manufacturers, had a standing arrangement with Cosatu and the government in terms of which it sold cars at “dealer billing”, or cost price.
Shilowa and his wife, Wendy Luhabe, live in a comfortable thatched house in the north of Johannesburg. Luhabe, one of South Africa’s top black businesswomen, is wealthy in her own right. She chairs Women Investment Portfolio Holdings, and is a managing partner of Bridging the Gap, which forges ties between big business and talented workers.
It is difficult to reconcile Shilowa’s credit rating with his expensive taste, which has slipped into the public spotlight over the past five years. He is reputed to be a member of the exclusive club, Cigafrique, whose members meet in Gauteng to puff on Cohibas and sip Chivas Regal. Shilowa’s membership was reported in Canada’s Toronto Globe & Mail, which claimed the puff club was launched by the Cuban ambassador to South Africa at a big smoke-up in March 1997.
The popular trade union leader is also believed to be a connoisseur of French wines.
In 1997 Shilowa hit the headlines for apparently refusing to be downgraded to business class on a flight from London to Johannesburg. Fellow passengers were quoted saying Shilowa insisted he always travelled first class, and demanded his luggage be removed so he could take the next available first class pew to Johannesburg. Passengers quoted in the South African press claimed their flight had been delayed 45 minutes.