The Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU) was on Friday granted an order to seize assets worth R30-million belonging to convicted Durban businessman Shabir Shaik, spokesperson Makhosini Nkosi said.
Nkosi said the Durban High Court granted the order after the unit reached an agreement with Shaik’s legal representatives.
Shaik’s shares in the company Thint (Pty) Ltd would, according to the agreement, be placed under curatorship pending the outcome of the AFU’s application for a final confiscation order.
Shaik would also pay a cash amount of R250 000 to the AFU, Nkosi said.
The proceeds of the shares and the cash, which will make up the R30-million, would be deposited into the State’s criminal assets recovery account.
Mbeki to contemplate action on Zuma
President Thabo Mbeki said he would only contemplate action on his deputy, Jacob Zuma, after the fraud and corruption court case of Durban businessman Schabir Shaik was completed.
”Once the judge has completed the case, we will then see what action is necessary to take,” Mbeki told reporters on the sidelines of a World Economic Forum meeting in Cape Town.
Shaik, Zuma’s financial advisor, was on Thursday convicted on two charges of corruption and one of fraud related to their relationship, which the Durban High Court ruled was ”generally corrupt”.
Speaking in Zambia, Zuma denied any wrongdoing. ”I have not had the opportunity to study the judgement, and the court process is not over yet as Mr Shaik is yet to be sentenced,” he said.
”I am therefore unable to make any detailed comment at this stage, suffice to emphasise that my conscience is clear because I know that I have not committed any crime, nor was I charged with any criminal offence,” he said.
The cost of corruption
On Friday, the prosecution in the Schabir Shaik fraud and corruption case called in a senior anti-corruption expert to inform the Durban High Court about the effects of corruption on society.
Hennie van Vuuren, a police researcher from the Institute of Security Studies, said public sector corruption cost South Africa between R50-billion and R150-billion per year.
”Law is only as good as the willingness of the state to implement anti-corruption measures,” Van Vuuren told the court, which was still packed after Thursday’s judgement.
He was called to testify in aggravation of sentence for Shaik who was convicted on two counts of corruption and one of fraud on Thursday.
The conviction related to his involvement in the government’s arms deal and his relationship with Deputy President Jacob Zuma.
One of the examples cited by Van Vuuren was a report on breaches of the Public Finance Management Act tabled in parliament, in which at least 434 government officials were charged with financial misconduct.
He said more than half of the reported cases related to claims, embezzlement, misappropriation of funds, and false statements, while only R177 000 was recovered from an estimated R4,2-million lost to government in the year ending March 2002.
Van Vuuren said that out of 4 000 South Africans surveyed only two percent reported corruption. The others did not believe that ”whistle blowing” would be dealt with by the state.
”That reflected a lack of faith in state institutions,” said Van Vuuren.
He said in 2004, Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya revealed that social grants scams cost the state R2-billion a year and as much as R10-billion may have been lost to corrupt practises in the first 10 years of democracy.
Van Vuuren said the sectors most open to corruption were public servants and the construction industry, followed by the arms and defence industry.
Meanwhile Shaik, who listened attentively in court on Friday, appeared more relaxed and was seen shaking the hand of prosecutor Billy Downer, despite the guilty verdict.
He even stopped to ask some of the journalists how they were doing.
Court proceedings were adjourned until Tuesday when his advocate Francois van Zyl could possibly call witnesses in mitigation of sentence. – Sapa