Pretoria - The liquidator of the embattled VBS Mutual Bank, which was placed in liquidation in November 2018, obtained a court order in terms of which he can recover more than R6 million advanced by the bank for a man to buy a multi million home in Midstream, Centurion and a Porsche Cayenne.
While the liquidator did not claim that Mmuso Pelesa was involved in the fraudulent scheme, he told the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, that he was obliged to recover loans made.
He asked the court to order Pelesa to pay back R200 722.61 loaned to him to buy a Porsche as well as R6 247 582.31 to buy property.
In a bid not to pay back the loans, Pelesa pulled out all the stops, including that the loan agreements were invalid as he had obtained credit without spousal consent.
But on the loan documents before court, Pelesa signed the agreement after he had ticked the box stating that he was not married.
After some initial instalments had been paid to the bank for the Porsche, the vehicle was “written off” in an accident, causing the insurance company to make payment of R1 319 000 to VBS.
Apart from saying the agreement was invalid as his wife did not co-sign, Pelesa said the bank should have never lent him the money in the first place based on alleged reckless credit as he was already “severely in debt”.
He argued the bank was in contravention of the National Credit Act by “recklessly” lending him money.
He also made extensive reference to the fraudulent schemes perpetrated on VBS by its directors and managers.
Pelesa also questioned the truthfulness of VBS’s financial status.
Judge Norman David said the fact that VBS’ financial statements may have been manipulated did not mean all individual agreements were automatically implicated.
Regarding the issue of reckless lending, the judge said the act provided that a court may set aside a credit agreement in circumstances where the credit provider had not conducted a proper assessment of the lender’s ability to meet his prospective obligations under the proposed agreement.
He, however, found that there was no merit in this argument in this case.
“There is no merit in it, particularly when viewed against the respondent’s contention that the credits were not extended to him in the same fashion as to other ‘related parties’ to the VBS fraudsters, but on proper arm’s length considerations.”
Regarding the issue of over-indebtedness, Pelesa claimed to have fallen on hard times now that the income stream on which he had relied from a company called Gorogo Projects (Pty) Ltd, which had done “good work” for the Venda king and VBS, had dried up.
But the court also rejected this point.
Regarding the fact that it was indicated that he was not married in his contract with VBS, the court was told that Pelesa told the bank that he was single.
The only indication of a marriage is the handwritten certificate produced by him to the court, issued by a marriage officer, which indicated that he got married shortly before entering into the loan agreements.
“To all intents and purposes, all that has happened in this case, was that the respondent and his wife had gone and married at the offices of Home Affairs, and only the respondent, his wife, the marriage officer and two unidentified witnesses knew about this.
“It is difficult to fathom what enquiries made by VBS would have unearthed this fact,” the judge said.
He ordered that Pelesa had to pay back the full loans.
Pretoria News