Absa may have to pay back apartheid-era bailout billions

Mega-bank Absa could be forced to pay R2.25‑billion to the fiscus for an unlawful apartheid-era bank bailout if a preliminary report by the public protector remains unchanged.

The report has its roots in a 1997 investigation by Ciex, a covert United Kingdom-based asset recovery agency headed by former UK intelligence official Michael Oatley. Oatley allegedly approached the South African government to investigate and recover public funds and assets misappropriated during the apartheid era.

From 1985 to 1992, the apartheid government, through the Reserve Bank, provided Bankorp with a series of bailouts to offset bad loans that threatened the bank’s survival. One of these was a payment of R225‑million a year for five years.According to one investigation, these were deliberately engineered for secrecy, in one case using what amounted to a front company.

The public protector’s report also describes how different investigations into the same matter came to different conclusions. Mkhwebane would not comment further, saying the leak of provisional reports undermined the investigative process. In building her report, Mkhwebane refers to evidence provided by the former Reserve Bank governor, Dr Chris Stals, who placed responsibility at Absa’s door for repaying the Bankorp bailout.

Mbeki could not immediately be reached but Manuel said he could not comment as he “would not like to prejudice a necessary discussion about this matter”.

Athi_Saba phillipdewet Cosato& SACP joining Our_DA in attacking our fearless PP, AdvBMkhwebane proves what we've always known.The pravingordhan & CyrilRamaphosa WMC MYANC are in cahoots wt Our_DA in maintaining the current WMC-dominated economic status-quo sabcnews morninglive PublicProtector

Athi_Saba phillipdewet Isn't it also strange that so-called 'Liberation' forces like the SACP & Cosato are jumping into bed with the racist Our_DA to gang up against PP AdvBMkhwebane? The others are well-known WMC-funded puppets. TheMoneyShow sabcnews eNCA pravingordhan thulimadonsela

Athi_Saba phillipdewet I wasnt talking abt who broke the CIEX story, I said you 'forgot' to mention that the propaganda campaign against our brave PP, AdvBMkhwebane was imitated by Our_DA after the PP published her CIEX report. The DA name was completely omitted eNCA morninglive PublicProtector

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