AfriForum gets warrant to seize EFF assets

CIVIL rights organisation AfriForum has obtained a warrant to seize movable assets belonging to the EFF and its leader, Julius Malema, to settle a debt.

The Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, granted the order to recover R337 758 in legal fees.

The court had issued two cost orders against Malema and his party, but they had failed to pay up.

The cost orders emanate from a Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, case brought by AfriForum against Malema in its bid to stop the red berets from inciting people to grab land.

In March last year, the high court ruled in favour of AfriForum and granted it an interdict against Malema to stop encouraging supporters to occupy vacant land.

Malema and his party then applied for the interdict to be set aside.

The application was scheduled to be heard on September 12 last year, but the court postponed the hearing due to late filing of heads of arguments by Malema and the EFF.

The court then issued a punitive cost order against him and the red berets.

In another court appearance in March this year, legal representatives for Malema and the EFF failed to turn up in court, and the judge ruled in favour of AfriForum and issued another cost order against Malema and the EFF.

AfriForum chief executive Kallie Kriel said his organisation would seize any of Malema and EFF’s assets and use the money to fight land grabs. “Irrespective of whether it’s a Breitling watch, luxury vehicle, or computers and furniture in the EFF’s offices … they will be seized to recover the money owed to AfriForum to send a clear message to Malema and the EFF that no one is above the law,” he said.

AfriForum had also filed a case of contempt of court against Malema scheduled to be heard later this month.

Meanwhile, AfriForum also filed a complaint against former head of department (HOD) for the KwaZulu-Natal Health Department yesterday for allegedly wasting R1.3 billion of taxpayers’ money.

The complaint, laid at the Vryheid police station, forms part of AfriForum’s national campaign against misappropriation of public funds in the health sector.

The group said it would be laying charges against the heads of all nine provincial health departments throughout this week for “wasting over R10bn during the 2016/17 financial year”.

AfriForum’s Wico Swanepoel, who is the organisation’s legal adviser on corruption, said the charges were laid against the former KZN Health HOD, Dr Sifiso Mtshali, because he was in charge of the department during the time in question.

Mtshali quit in December over the provincial “oncology crisis”, wherein the department was slammed by the South African Human Rights Commission for failing to maintain radiation therapy equipment.

In a nine-page complaint handed in to the Vryheid Police Station, Eugene van Aswegen, AfriForum’s KZN co-ordinator, said the department failed to act against any official despite more than R1.3bn being unaccounted for in its 2016/17 annual report. | African News Agency (ANA)