Johannesburg - Julius Malema has threatened to sue the National Prosecuting Authority for selling his farm, which fetched R2.5 million at an auction on Monday.
In an exclusive interview with The Star, minutes after his neighbouring farmer, Callie Calitz, bought the 139-hectare farm outside Polokwane, he blamed President Jacob Zuma for the farm’s sale.
The farm, which had been estimated at R4m, has been registered under Gwama Properties, a company owned by Malema’s business associate Lesiba Gwangwa.
Malema’s Ratanang Family Trust owned shares in On-Point Engineering, the company that allegedly illegally won a R52m Limpopo government tender.
Monday’s auction had nothing to do with Sars’s efforts to recover R16m that Malema owes the receiver. The NPA said the funds recovered from the sale of the farm would be deposited in the Criminal Assets Recovery Account.
The NPA said its Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU) was granted a forfeiture order by the Pretoria High Court in March, after it first secured a freezing order in December last year.
NPA spokeswoman Bulelwa Makeke said on Monday that the forfeiture unit proved to the court that the farm was bought from the proceeds of crime.
But the fired ANCYL leader slated the NPA for selling his “productive and lucrative” farm while his criminal case was under way. Malema, Gwangwa, another On-Point Engineering director Kagisho Dichabe, and businessman Selbie Manthata, his wife Helen and brother Makgetsi are due to appear again in the Polokwane Magistrate’s Court on June 20 on corruption-related charges in connection with the multimillion-rand tender.
For the first time, Malema publicly commended Sars, saying it “has a case” against him. Sars recovered R5.9m through a separate auction of his Sandown mansion last month to settle his R16m tax bill.
But Malema had nothing good to say about the NPA. “How do you sell the property when the matter is still before court? If we win the case, then what?” he said. “We will sue the NPA because we will win that case. We will make calculations of what the farm would have earned,” said Malema.
Criminal charges against him were “concocted” and politically motivated, he added.
Malema reiterated the allegations he first made in November that acting NPA boss Nomgcobo Jiba discussed his charges with politicians.
Malema had said Jiba had met Justice Minister Jeff Radebe, Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa, their International Relations colleague Maite Nkoana-Mashabane and police commissioner General Riah Phiyega in Cape Town to discuss charging him.
“A determination was taken that we must be charged because politically we were troublesome,” he said on Monday.
Makeke dismissed allegations of political interference as “desperate calls with no basis”.
The government’s justice, crime prevention and security cluster, headed by Radebe, confirmed the Cape Town meeting but dismissed Malema’s claims as unfounded.
Malema claimed that the ANC collaborated with the NPA by taking the farm from an “African child” and gave it to a male Afrikaner.
Gwangwa refused to comment about why he did not appeal against the ruling.
Malema said he did not appeal because, as a “shareholder”, the NPA never kept him abreast of the court action.
But the NPA said Gwangwa, “the real” farm owner, was given notice of the application, and he never appealed.
Presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj refused to comment, and ANC spokesmen Jackson Mthembu and Keith Khoza could not be reached for comment.
The Star