The money train
Noseweek|May 2020
Transnet in court battle with liquidators of Gupta-linked audit firm over R57m in ‘corrupt’ payments and invoices
Justin Brown
The money train

TRANSNET IS KEEPING ITS FOOT ON the pedal in its campaign to recover billions of rand lost to corruption when state capture forces defrauded the state-owned logistics company.

One of those Transnet recovery projects is a battle to get back R57 million in alleged fraudulent payments and invoices, related to “non-audit services”, from the liquidators of the estate of Gupta-controlled accounting and audit firm Nkonki Sizwe Ntsaluba (Nkonki Inc). The company went into liquidation following the departure of the Guptas from South Africa and the exposure of their state capture schemes.

Before Nkonki was taken over by state capture forces, it was independent black-owned auditing and accounting firm with a history dating back to 1990. In 1996, the company merged with another black firm of accountants to form Nkonki Sizwe Ntsaluba.

In September last year, in court papers lodged in the South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg, Transnet applied for the review and setting aside of a decision made by allegedly corrupt senior Transnet executives in 2017 to procure “non-audit” services from Nkonki for massive fees.

Then in December last year, Transnet followed up with a summons against the estate of Nkonki and its joint liquidators. The purpose of the summons is partly to counter the Nkonki liquidators’ demand that Transnet must still pay R19m in outstanding Nkonki bills.

In addition to countering this claim, Transnet also wants to recover R38m it had already paid to Nkonki that it allegedly shouldn’t have paid, bringing the total amount of the claim to R57m.

This story is from the May 2020 edition of Noseweek.

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This story is from the May 2020 edition of Noseweek.

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