More money woes for ANCYL
MORE companies to which the ANC Youth League owes money are set to emerge as part of a liquidation process that could see the assets of the ruling party’s youth wing being sold to pay off debt.
This is despite the ANCYL paying a R200 000 legal bill relating to the defamation suit between the organisation and Western Cape Premier Helen Zille.
Yesterday, the man behind the recent final liquidation order against the ANCYL, Johan de Waal, who represented Zille in 2012 when she filed the lawsuit, said the payment would not stop the liquidation process.
“Now it is complicated because we cannot take that amount because maybe there are other creditors. Now there must be a meeting of creditors, and everybody must put their claims and so on. It has been eight years since we have been nagging and nagging for this money,” De Waal said.
The lawsuit was in connection with statements made by then ANCYL president Julius Malema and spokesperson Floyd Shivambu against Zille.
Shivambu had said: “Zille has appointed an all-male cabinet of useless people, majority of whom are her boyfriends and concubines so that she can continue to sleep around with them, yet she claims to have the moral authority to question our president.”
The matter was later settled on the basis of an apology to Zille, but costs orders were made against the ANCYL, Malema and Shivambu, which were never paid.
In 2016, De Waal took cession of Zille’s claim in exchange for waiving his claim for fees.
On Thursday, the high court in Joburg declared the ANCYL bankrupt and insolvent after De Waal made the liquidation application in November last year.
This was also after the ANCYL ignored two high court warrants of execution sent to it to recover the money.
The order was set to bring the functioning of the embattled youth body into jeopardy, as all its transactional operations, including bank accounts, will be taken over by a liquidator who will be appointed by the sheriff of the high court.
ANCYL national spokesperson Mlondi Mkhize said the youth body was not aware of either the warrants of execution or the application for liquidation.
“We were not aware that there were court papers filed. We only became aware when the order came to us. We only found out after the ruling,” Mkhize said.
De Waal’s lawyer, Hein von Lieres, accused the ANCYL of dishonesty for claiming not to know of the bill, which has taken eight years to settle.
“On September 12, 2016 an execution warrant was served on them at their offices, and again in June 2017. They were notified in May that my client was now the creditor. We served application papers on them at the end of last year,” Von Lieres said.
The ANCYL has roped in Brian Kahn to defend it and has indicated it planned to appeal the liquidation ruling.