Manyi, Gupta deal ‘a front’
Lodidox company not known even to people staying at its ‘HQ’
Mzwanele Manyi occasionally goes to Soweto where Lodidox company is based.
This was revealed by his nephew Lobby Manyi, who lives at the house. However, he knew nothing of a business from the premises and had not heard of Lodidox – a company that Manyi used to buy TV station ANN7 and The New Age newspaper, owned by the controversial Gupta family.
Lobby said his uncle did not live there, but that he had an office on the property and occasionally, activities of the Decolonisation Foundation took place there.
Lobby tried to call Manyi to chat to us but his phone was switched off.
Sowetan visited the premises registered as the Lodidox business headquarters on the Companies Intellectual Properties Commission yesterday.
The house has a single garage and is tightly wedged between two other properties. It appeared to be a home with no business branding. Even the house number
‘‘ It is nothing less than fronting and a disgrace to the notion of real BEE
is not visible from the street.
There is a fancy reception area at the front of the house with gleaming tiles, a reception counter and a phone.
In his interview with Power FM, Manyi said Lodidox business was new.
Records show he became the sole director of what appears to be a shelf company in June. The purchase of ANN7 and The New Age by former cabinet spokesman Manyi has been welcomed by some while others described it as a sham.
Yesterday, it emerged that the Guptaowned holding company, Oakbay Investments, was pulling out of its media interests‚ selling its shareholding in Infinity Media and the TNA for a combined R450-million.
The company said Lodidox and management would purchase the companies.
Lodidox was registered in 2012 and had two directors, Manyi and Christian Gouws, who resigned in June, leaving Manyi as the sole director.
Oakbay’s shareholding in Infinity Media‚ which operates the ANN7 news channel‚ will be sold for R300-million; and its two-thirds stake in TNA Media‚ the publisher of The New Age newspaper‚ will be sold for R150-million.
Last year, the country’s four big banks – FNB, Absa, Standard Bank and Nedbank – closed the Gupta companies’ bank accounts‚ with the Bank of China following suit, mainly because it viewed the family as politically exposed.
Recently, India’s Bank of Baroda indicated it would close the accounts of the controversial family at the end of the month. Staff salaries were currently being paid through the Bank of Baroda‚ but this would be the last month.
Civil society group Save SA said the “sale” of the Guptas’ propaganda machine to Manyi is an outrageous example of what President Jacob Zuma and his cronies really mean when they talk about “radical economic transformation”. “It is nothing less than blatant fronting and a disgrace to the notion of real black economic empowerment,” it said in a statement.
“Given that most of the family’s money has been siphoned from the public purse, they are effectively using dirty public money to hand over an asset from one rogue business to another, and using a questionable financial model to do so.
“And if the Guptas, or the Zuma clique, believe a change in ownership will change perceptions of their propaganda arms, they can forget it,” Save SA said.
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