South Africa Court Rules Bank Can Seize Zuma Assets, DM Says

John Viljoen
·1 min read
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(Bloomberg) -- VBS Mutual Bank won a court case allowing the curators of the lender to seize former South African President Jacob Zuma’s assets for failing to repay a loan for upgrades at his Nkandla homestead in KwaZulu-Natal Province, the Daily Maverick reported.

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VBS can seize Zuma’s cattle, furniture and other realizable assets to repay the debt, the news website reported, citing an order by the High Court in the city of Pietermaritzburg. Zuma was given a 7.8 million rand ($461,000) home loan by VBS in September 2016, but started defaulting on payments in August 2018, according to the report.

In 2014, South Africa’s graft ombudsman found that Zuma unfairly benefited from a state-funded 215.9 million-rand upgrade of the homestead, and the Constitutional Court ruled in 2016 that he broke his oath of office when he ignored a directive to pay back part of the money.

The JGZuma Foundation said in a tweet that the former president would study the judgment before potentially responding.

VBS Mutual Bank, which was based in Limpopo province, collapsed in 2018 and a probe into its failure found that at least 53 people and companies may have benefited from the looting of 1.9 billion rand. There have been many arrests since the lender collapsed.

(Adds tweet from Zuma foundation.)

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