Land Bank loan - no repayments required

[Dave A]

I want a loan for R600 million that I only pay back if I ever get in the mood!

There is a spat going on between Lulu Xingwana, the land affairs minister, and Themba Langa, who she fired this week as the chairman of the embattled state-owned Land Bank.

Amongst all the usual red-herrings, we have this gem:

Another issue involved a loan, which Langa said was worth R600 million, to Ushukela, a black empowered sugar company. Langa claimed not a cent had yet been repaid.

Ushukela now owed the Land Bank R640 million, including interest, yet the bank had not even sent a letter of demand to the debtor, he said.

A clearly angry Xingwana (Minister of Land Affairs) said: "I cannot discuss confidential matters of clients with a third party." She said she had become involved when the possible closure of a sugar mill Ushukela had purchased from Illovo Sugar threatened the harvest of about 5 000 black small farmers.
full story from Business Report here

The last Board of the Land Bank was dismissed amongst accusations of misspending R2 billion, loans to the connected for all sorts of speculative ventures. So I can't help wondering if the minister or someone close has an interest in Ushukela.

The plundering continues

[wynn]

Check out todays www.dispatch.co.za and see how Stofile and his mates have been raping the East Cape Development Corporation R200m plus over 10 years.

[Dave A]

That's a hot story, Wynn - or it should be, my goodness.

Three top ANC leaders – including a current national minister – have been named in an explosive report into corruption in the Eastern Cape as the figures behind the systematic “siphoning� of nearly R200m in public money in dodgy deals which benefited them and their families
The Pillay Commission report, leaked to the Dispatch on Wednesday and which the current Eastern Cape Premier Nosimo Balindlela has resisted releasing publicly for a year, also reveals how nearly a quarter of a billion rand simply disappeared from the province’s public coffers over a decade.

The report indicts the administration of Makhenkosi Stofile, the former Eastern Cape premier and current national sports minister, who presided over, what Judge Ronnie Pillay, described as a “clearly orchestrated siphoning off of public money from the fiscus�.

The report refers to investigative report – called Project Spin - by state investigators which the enquiry only laid its hands on in its final days.
Full story from Daily Dispatch here

Project Spin? What a name!

[Dave A]

More smoke billowing from the Land Bank.

An explosive dossier outlining irregularities at the beleaguered Land Bank implicates Land and Agriculture Minister Lulu Xingwana in allegedly removing files on suspicious Land Bank deals and ordering the bank to pay out a farmers’ union.

The Mail & Guardian is in possession of the dossier compiled by former Land Bank chief financial officer Xolile Ncame, who was suspended by Xingwana two days after presenting the dossier to acting Land Bank chief executive Saki Zamxaka.

Ncame was fired three weeks ago after an internal disciplinary hearing found him guilty of breaching policy by also forwarding the dossier to the bank’s external auditors, Ernst & Young.
full story from M&G here

[Dave A]

A year later and the rhetoric continues - Land Bank skeletons kick up debate in Parliament.

[Marq]

Lulu Xingwana is seems has created scenes as Minister of Land Affairs at the top end like this story and at the bottom end with all the small guys including BEE farmers.

She is now the Minister of the Department of Arts and Culture along with Paul Mashatile as deputy. Now he has also been accused of various grime and corruption type deals in the past but has avoided most issues which appear to be at arms length through friends and other family members.

What is interesting is that these two, held senior positions before, but are now siting in a department that talks about libraries and mundane matters that the majority of South Africans appear not to have an interest in. What went on behind the scenes? What can we expect from two anc members that have a dubious past yet still control some of our money out there.

The libraries were in a shambles before they walked in - Do you think they will get better. Her idea of running this portfolio is to build more libraries in previously disadvantaged areas......I did not hear about fixing the existing libraries and I did not hear anything about what goes on inside the libraries.

The ONLY people interested in street and building renaming programmes are these MP and council types who have a need to tell the sheeple that they are 'busy' out there. Expect more of this useless time wasting, money absorbing, pointless exercise routines as they show the world how they support the struggling and starving poor.

Yes I am sure you will eat and sleep better at night, knowing that we have changed your lives forever by replacing your street name that had some white capitalistic apartheid innuendo like West or North streets to some long unpronouncible double barreled name of a councilor from putusonderfontein that nobody (especially their constituents) has ever heard of. You can now beg and grovel and sleep in in peace on this street cause it has a much better and longer sounding name, thats not linked to those nasty white apartheid names like Broadway or Northway.

Oh and remember to vote for us....we were the guys that made it impossible for the tourists to find their way around - ha, did you see them trying to pronounce our names - haha....and the local da guys...ha we showed them too. But we made work for all our struggle heros - ya - just look at them punch out those new signs....and look at our councilors up the pole cleaning them....hah work for all hey. Good cultural stuff.

Well you could always live on this street....comes close to some of ours, but still appears to take first prize.

[Dave A]

What p's me off about this whole Land Bank debacle is it's the people who are paying.

We're paying because there is less cheap finance available to farmers which means less food production which means higher food prices. Not to mention fewer jobs. It's in the public interest that those b*stards who plundered this national resource to speculate on golf estates and the like are brought to book, along with the cretins who authorised these deals.

It's the people who have been shafted here. The protection of the plunderers has got to stop!

[Marq]

mmmm...your new suit has just arrived....go and get em..