Mining group JCI on Monday confirmed it planned to take its former head, businessman Mzi Khumalo to court to recoup millions of rands it claims he owes the company.
”The action was instituted in 2000 and we held off for some considerable time because of Mzi’s apparent inability to repay at that time,” JCI head Brett Kebble said in a statement.
”In spite of our reasonable approach, Mzi made no effort to repay us even after his windfall last year, which netted him a considerable amount of money,” he said.
According to the Business Report newspaper, JCI claims Khumalo owes it R30-million, dating back to 1998 when he was forced to resign amid allegations of mismanagement.
Documents filed at the Johannesburg High Court in 2000 revealed a share loan agreement between JCI associate company Consolidated African Mines (CAM) and Khumalo, but that Khumalo never returned the shares or paid for them.
Instead the papers allege the shares were unlawfully transferred into a trust account, or sold on without CAM’s permission.
Khumalo, in an answering affidavit, contended he had not acted wrongfully or unlawfully, and vowed to oppose any court action, the newspaper said.
The JCI Group confirmed that the outstanding monies dated back to 1998 when JCI and CAM — which was collapsed into JCI last year — assisted Khumalo in ”obtaining a R30-million loan”.
”Having not heard from him it became apparent that we would not get our money back except through legal action.”
The matter was set to be heard in the Johannesburg High Court in November this year, Kebble said.
Khumalo hit the headlines last week when it was alleged the entrepreneur and former political prisoner had hijacked an empowerment deal involving the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) and Harmony Gold, and earned himself more than a billion rand.
He apparently took control of Simane Security Systems three days after it secured funding from the IDC to trigger the transaction with Harmony.
The Scorpions are investigating two former senior IDC officials for their role in the deal. – Sapa