JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Tuesday 5.56pm.
A special tribunal serving the Heath Special Investigative Unit will permanently invalidate three illegal promissory notes worth over R340-million on Wednesday.
The promissory notes were secretly issued along with at least three others last year to a series of dodgy financial brokers by the cash strapped Mpumalanga Parks Board.
The notes will be invalidated during a default judgement in East London after none of those implicated in the scandal would defend their actions.
“We asked everyone involved, including all the politicians and officials who signed the notes, to defend their actions but never got an answer from even one party,” said Judge Willem Heath’s spokesperson, Guy Rich.
“A default judgement will therefore turn the notes into valueless pieces of pretty paper on Wednesday.”
The controversial R1,3-billion deal didn’t have Reserve Bank, treasury or cabinet approval and illegally used 32 public game reserves in Mpumalanga as collateral.
The MPB expected to get massive off-shore loans of roughly R150-million per promissory note.
Rich stressed on Tuesday that the invalidation formed only one part of Judge Heath’s investigation into the deal.
Heath is still probing possible financial losses suffered by the state as a result of the deal, while police and an independent forensic audit team are investigating whether the deal was criminally fraudulent.
The scandal cost MPB chief executive Alan Gray, MPB financial director Nico Krugel and provincial finance MEC Jacques Modipane their jobs.