Wessels loses bid to hold onto R3.7m home
A luxury Summerstrand house allegedly bought with IPTS funds will be auctioned off after fraud accused Andrea Wessels lost her bid to hold onto the R3.7m property.
This comes after acting judge Marius Swanepoel on Tuesday dismissed her interdict application to stop the auction and rescind an order for the forfeiture of the property.
In October 2018, the Asset Forfeiture Unit was granted a preservation order for Wessels’ double-storey home.
She then resorted to the courts to challenge the forfeiture and possible auction of her R3.7m family home.
The court granted Wessels temporary relief by way of an urgent application on March 6, provisionally interdicting the auction scheduled to take place later that day.
In his judgment, Swanepoel wrote: “The application for the rescission of the forfeiture order is dismissed, with costs. As a result, the fate of the interdict application should follow.”
He ordered that Wessels also pay the costs of the interdict application and any expenditure incurred for the cancellation of the public auction.
He said the cost orders came after advocate Hannelie Bakker, who is part of Wessels’ legal team, told the court that if the case was dismissed, Wessels should be held liable.
Wessels, together with her company, Zeranza 299 (Pty) Ltd, is on trial in the Port Elizabeth Commercial Crimes Court for fraud and money laundering related to the alleged siphoning of millions of rands meant for the city’s Integrated
He ordered that Wessels also pay the costs of the interdict application
Public Transport System.
The money was paid from the municipality’s IPTS funds to project management firm Heerkos Projects CC, AFU official Warren Myburgh argued.
In 2014, Heerkos submitted an invoice to the municipality for the development of an internet-based tender management system.
The municipality never received the system, according to the order.
The municipal transfer of R9.8m was allegedly done by a former assistant director in the municipality’s finance department, Nadia Gerwel.
From there, Myburgh wrote that R7m had been transferred to the bank account of Dankovista, owned by Wessels’ son, Rukaard Abrahams.
Then R3.7m was transferred to buy the property.
Bakker had argued that the forfeiture order be rescinded due to a procedural error.
She told the court that Wessels’ former lawyer, Carolyn Ah Shene-Verdoorn, misunderstood instructions at the time of the forfeiture order being granted in November 2018 and failed to oppose the court action.
Swanepoel said such an argument was tenuous at best.
“[It] was neither a procedural error, nor a justifiable error,” he said.
Swanepoel said Myburgh had argued in court that the rescission application was merely to delay the auction of the property, which stems from IPTS funds.
“It may very well be so [but] I do not have to make any findings in this regard,” Swanepoel said.