Step higher in Zonnekus Mansion case
Owner Gary van der Merwe vows to fight on in top court to prevent Sars from stripping his family of their home
BUSINESSMAN Gary van der Merwe has vowed to take the SA Revenue Service (Sars) to the highest court in the land to challenge the sale of Zonnekus Mansion as well as take “the appropriate steps regarding damages if required”.
Van der Merwe said in an emailed communique to Sars commissioner Edward Kieswetter on July 6 that Zonnekus Mansion had allegedly been sold by auction for R15.5 million. The property’s municipal valuation is R50m and it has a market value of between R70m and R100m.
Sars spokesperson Siphithi Sibeko neither denied nor confirmed the sale of the property, saying the agency was not in a position to divulge specific information and details on the affairs of taxpayers.
“We are constrained by the law not to speak out on these matters.”
Van der Merwe said the alleged sale was subject to confirmation in two weeks and could, therefore, still be stopped without “the Van der Merwe interests” intervening.
“You well know that our family will not be stripped of our family home on this basis without perusing a damages claim. My family, the ‘Van der Merwe interests,’ currently have 10 pending matters against Sars which are mostly based on fraud by Sars officials linked to their attorneys.
“I have made numerous very reasonable offers to settle these matters, but to no avail. On June 26 I made another proposal… that would put some R11.5m into the coffers of Sars. I had no response,” he said.
In February, the Constitutional Court dismissed Van der Merwe’s application for leave to appeal an eviction order requiring him to vacate his home, held by Zonnekus Mansion, which was welcomed by Kieswetter, after a 10-year court battle.
Kieswetter said: “The Constitutional Court order paved the way for the liquidators of Zonnekus to take control of the last remaining asset of Zonnekus. The sheriff has evicted Van der Merwe from the property and placed it under the control of the liquidators. The liquidators can now
AT A CENTURIES-OLD vineyard overlooked by South Africa’s Drakenstein mountain, the country’s biggest single wine exporter Distell is battling a problem of plenty. Prestigious wines, such as Nederburg, are bottled at the vineyard in Paarl, just outside Cape Town, and shipped locally and worldwide.
But the shipping can’t keep pace with the combined impact of an abundant harvest and lockdown disruption that have led to a glut that sits maturing in French oak barrels or stored in metal vats at wine estates.
South Africa, one of the top 10 wine producers, has about 240 million litres of stock across the industry, said executives at Distell, which itself has 40 million litres.
“It is a massive problem that could take at least two years to resolve,” Distell chief executive Richard Rushton said.
He told an investor call in June the impact on prices in the industry could be severe and said the company had lost some of its listings in wine outlets abroad as exports were halted.
South Africa also banned domestic alcohol sales as part of lockdown restrictions begun in March. Last month, it allowed sales during limited trading hours, but President Cyril Ramaphosa reimposed a sales ban from Monday as new infections surged.
Industry body Vinpro said R3 billion in sales had been lost in the first nine weeks of restrictions. Exports have resumed, but there is a backlog at the Cape Town port. Rushton said Distell hoped online sales would help and it had also begun producing alcohol-based sanitisers.
Even in the best of times, managing wine stocks in finite cellar space requires thinking a few moves ahead, but not usually as many. “When you start off with oversupply, then it’s chess from day one,” Distell’s head winemaker Niel Groenewald said.
He faces a situation unprecedented in his two decades of experience. adequate response to this correspondence and… attached proposals,” he said.
Kieswetter said the Sars investigation had originated from a Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) report regarding a suspicious transaction, involving an amount of about $15m (R251m).
Van der Merwe contends that this payment was made as a gift to his daughter in 2014.
Van der Merwe and his daughter, Candice, in August last year issued summonses against Sars totalling R7.6bn. The first summons claims R5.6bn from Sars, which was the complainant in a case that put Van der Merwe through a decade-long criminal trial where he was acquitted on all tax-related charges.
The second summons was for R1bn based on Sars falsely claiming that the money his daughter received in 2013 from a friend overseas was actually his.
The third summons for R1bn was as a result of Sars claiming that Candice was a conduit for her father’s money in circumstances where this was later admitted by Sars not to be the case.