R1.6bn in assets frozen
GUPTA-LINKED companies McKinsey and Trillian will today be handed an order to freeze R1.6 billion worth of their assets, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said yesterday.
NPA spokesperson Luvuyo Mfaku confirmed that the preservative orders freezing the companies’ assets was obtained by the Assets Forfeiture Unit (AFU) last month.
It is understood the preservation order was brought by the AFU on the basis that the assets were the proceeds of crime.
In these types of applications, the preserved assets are placed under the control of a curator and cannot be disposed of pending the final determination from the court on whether it they should be confiscated.
Mfaku refused to comment further on the nature and scope of the application due to issues of legality and said the NPA would release a full statement today after the companies have been served with papers.
However, the R1.6bn amount is the same amount of money Eskom demanded that the companies pay back last year.
Eskom issued a letter of demand to the two firms last October for the repayment of the funds for an unlawful consultancy contract.
The letter of demand also stated that there could be criminal charges “against implicated parties”, including theft, fraud and corruption.
A Treasury instruction stipulated that Eskom should have paid McKinsey and Trillian an hourly rate, but instead the companies were paid a percentage of savings achieved, allowing fees to grow astronomically.
Eskom stated that McKinsey received two unlawful payments totalling R1.028bn and Trillian, “with the consent of both McKinsey and Trillian” received four payments totalling R564.6 million.
These were raised as suspicious, based on information in the State of Capture report and subsequent Guptaleaks e-mails which pointed to alleged relationships between Eskom senior officials and the Gupta family.
Gupta family associate Salim Essa was once a director of Trillian but has since resigned.
It has been alleged that McKinsey partnered with Trillian to obtain consultancy work from Eskom due to the latter’s links to the Gupta family and that Trillian was paid despite not doing any work.
Both McKinsey and Trillian have denied wrongdoing.
Responding to South Africans witnessing, for the first time, probable action against state capture, legal analyst Paul Hoffman said it was long overdue.
SA Federation of Trade Unions, however, said that this was not evidence of NPA boss Shaun Abrahams’s work but rather occurred despite him.
The court action was also welcomed by political parties yesterday with the IFP’s Narend Singh saying it was “about time”.
“It seems the new leadership of the ANC is cracking the whip, especially the new president Cyril Ramaphosa.”
DA MP Glynnis Breytenbach said this was a result of pressure and hard work of the AFU team.