Zunaid Moti

Joburgers tend to be a hard-bitten bunch, but the story that broke earlier this year shocked many to the core: the City was getting rid of a number of its parks, and, to add insult to injury, they were being sold for peanuts to none other than sleazy businessman Zunaid Moti (noses118,119,120,124&126).

It turned out that in March some 33 pieces of public property, including parks like Norscot Koppies and Kingfisher in Fourways, and Mushroom and Ernest Ullman in Sandton, were indeed transferred to Moti-linked companies Zamien Investments 45 and Zambrotti Investments 31. Transfer of ownership from the City was done via a company called Eildoug Investments, through the office of controversial Pretoria attorney and conveyancer Peet Viljoen.

In July, as the spotlight turned on him – he is apparently being investigated by the Law Society and the Hawks for his role in the matter – Viljoen gave noseweek his version of events.

Viljoen says he was approached early this year by “the City’s external property agent, Edwin Maringa”, and asked to find buyers for a list of properties the City had decided to sell. He contacted Moti and in March the deal was sealed, earning him a R5m “finder’s fee”.

Viljoen’s story is sure to keep changing as investigations hot up. For starters: Edwin Maringa is certainly not what Viljoen claims he is. Viljoen told noseweek that “everyone knows that Maringa is the City’s property agent – all deals go through him”. That was news to the legal department of the Joburg Property Company, which deals with all land transactions for the City. They claim that Maringa has never been on their panel of attorneys, and has never been mandated to sell City properties. They had of course heard of him – Maringa and Viljoen are listed as respondents in the City’s court application to have the illegal transfers of the properties in question reversed.

Noseweek also suspects that, whatever else may be back-to-front about the affairs of the Joburg City Council, their property department is highly unlikely to have asked a Pretoria conveyancer “to find buyers” for prime land – in the middle of land-hungry Fourways nogal. Pull the other one, guy.

For their part, Moti and Co are claiming, with a great show of innocence, that they were duped. In May, in response to the City’s court challenge, Moti’s right-hand man, Zambrotti director Irshad Sulliman, claimed in an affidavit that they were approached by Viljoen with a list of City properties, supplied to him by one of his clients, Eildoug Investments. They asked for guarantees that rezoning for redevelopment would be possible and, when Viljoen secured these guarantees from the City, the deal was done.

Sulliman claims that City “property portfolio manager Dora Madisa” confirmed in writing that the deal was above-board. (Madisa is employed by the Joburg Property Company as “assistant property portfolio manager: schools” – and was away on “sick leave” when noseweek tried to contact her.)

Sulliman’s affidavit says the total purchase price was pegged at R83.7m, R15m payable on signature, with the balance to be paid after rezoning had taken place. An amount of The R20m was paid to Viljoen; the R15m plus a R5m finder’s fee. No money, of course, ever reached the City – but Sulliman and Moti claim that that had nothing to do with them.

Sulliman declared, with suitable anguish, that Zamien and Zambrotti were “the subjects of an elaborate scam involving the City, Eildoug and possibly other parties ... as a result of which [Zamien and Zambrotti] may be deprived of the properties they acquired from Eildoug, with little, if any, prospect of recovering the monies paid by them. There is the probability that the matter involves fraudulent conduct on the part of a number of City officials, potentially including high-ranking officials [who] may have been working in concert with one or more officials in the offices of the Registrar of Deeds. Zamien and Zambrotti have been defrauded on a considerable scale. The matter displays the hallmarks of organised criminal conduct, which, as such, appears to require investigation by a specialist investigating unit”.

Noseweek was unable to reach attorney Edwin Maringa, who has fraudulently represented himself as the City’s property agent, and whose offices are located in Jeppe Street, in downtown Joburg. However, a little sleuthing uncovered that Eildoug Investments, the company through which Maringa transferred the City properties to Moti and Co, had as its sole director, until January, a man employed by Maringa as an assistant – Wayne Africa.

In January a second director was appointed to Eildoug: Charlotte Jonck. Africa’s name as a director of Eildoug was removed from company records a day after noseweek ran a credit check on him and also called Maringa’s office – to be told Africa was “out of the office”.

Curiously, the last company to run an internet credit check on Wayne Africa, in March when the deal was being concocted, was Abalengani; in other words, Zunaid Moti. Moti would have learned that Africa has a set of judgments against him for debt: In September 2007 First Rand Bank took him to court to claim R27,000; in November the same bank was claiming R250,000. In 2008 Woolworths wrote off bad debt against Africa worth R2,800. Nor was 2009 a good year for Maringa’s clerk: Wesbank wrote off bad debt of R23,000 and Nedbank wrote off a credit-card debt of R14,000.

So not someone likely to mind being paid a little extra for his name to be used on company records. If Wayne Africa even knew this had been done – until his name appeared in the Joburg press.

The City of Johannesburg’s court application to have the transfers reversed and the bonds registered on the properties set aside, is supported by an affidavit signed by Helen Botes, MD of the City of Joburg Property Company. Botes says the original title deeds for the properties remain in the possession of the City, and that certified copies were used to effect the transfers. Forged affidavits, purportedly signed by her, and countersigned by various attorneys unknown to Botes, were submitted to the Registrar of Deeds to obtain the certified copies of the deeds in question. The “unknown” attorneys who signed, as Commissioners of Oaths, are: Masilo Modjadji, Nonhlanhla Hlongwa, Jacob Maribana and Itumeleng Sekgota.

The properties were transferred on the strength of Powers of Attorney, again purportedly signed by Botes. Botes says the forged signatures don’t even resemble hers, and that attorney Viljoen should be asked to explain how his signature came to appear on the forged Power of Attorney documents. He should also explain who in the City Property Company mandated him to prepare the transfers, and who provided the “guarantees” of rezoning.

With the spotlight suddenly on Viljoen, he came blabbing to noseweek, to protest his innocence. It’s not so lekker, he said, when everybody in Silver Lakes, Pretoria, looks at you skeef. People used to think he was just a windgat, because he drives Porsches and Ferraris. “Now they think I’m the kingpin in some massive fraud. Some even think I’m a bit of a heavy.” (Viljoen seemed to enjoy letting on to noseweek that he knows some serious “heavy ous”.)

Describing Viljoen as “controversial” would grossly understate the matter. Besides acting as a conveyancer and deal-maker, he apparently makes a fortune from introducing people who need money to people keen to lend it at exorbitant rates of interest. He also attracts trouble: An employee at his bond brokerage business alleged to the Law Society that he had given her kickbacks of R200,000 per month, a Rolex, Carol Boyes goods – and a Porsche as a company car; the Law Society once tried to strike him off the attorneys’ roll, though this fizzled out; he was accused of pocketing R500,000 from an incoming deposit (he claimed it was owing to him by a client); and among those who have “threatened to moer” him (beat him up) are ex-clients entertainer Steve Hofmeyr and former rugby star James Dalton.

Viljoen told noseweek that this was not his first involvement with City of Johannesburg properties, but the earlier deals involved “bridging finance”. He explained, by way of example, that a company with “the rights to sell a City property” would sell it for R3m, subject to the proviso that it would re-purchase it for R4.5m a few months later. The R1.5m was therefore the interest on a loan of R3m, and Viljoen would get a commission of R500,000. Viljoen calls that a “typical” deal. Given that this relates to the buying and selling of public property to generate private profit, anyone else would call it “absolutely extraordinary”.
All such deals, says Viljoen, came from “the City of Joburg’s property man”, Edwin Maringa. Initially the “seller” was Lydia Road Trading, but in due course Eildoug took that role.

Viljoen says he once took such a deal to Moti, but it fell through when Moti got wind that the City was applying for an interdict to stop the sale of the property.

Viljoen stood to make a great deal of money from the Maringa/Moti deals: the initial agreement was that Moti would pay him R500,000 per property, but this was later changed to a fixed fee of R5m. It was subject to the proviso that if Moti could sell shares in the property portfolio to his super-wealthy “uncle” Rafik Mohamed, he and Viljoen would split the profit 50:50.

Moti paid an initial R15m to Eildoug, but R3.5m of this was Viljoen’s, for conveyancing fees. On top of that there was the R5m finder’s fee. For each City property Viljoen transferred to Eildoug, and then to Zamien or Zambrotti 31, he received a cheque for commission from Moti's Sandton attorney, Connie Myburgh.

Then Moti did the dirty on Viljoen: he suddenly claimed that he was entitled to a share of Viljoen’s finder’s fee. Says Viljoen: “Moti said his father was bringing in $1m per week to fund this deal. ‘I found my father for you, so I want my share. And I want it in cash’.”

Each time Viljoen received his money from Connie Myburgh, he had to write a cash cheque for Moti’s share (as much as R400,000), go to the bank with Irshad Sulliman, then hand over the cash. Viljoen claims that he therefore received roughly half of the R5m commission – which made him very angry. He got angrier when Moti persuaded Rafik Mohamed to buy a R40m share in his property portfolio, but didn’t share the profit with Viljoen.

In Viljoen’s version of events, Moti figures as the real villian: he says Moti told him that he had no intention of paying the R72m balance due on rezoning and development, and described the deal as a “steal”. 

“Moti’s a bright boy,” says Viljoen, “but he’s bad news – he’s a compulsive liar and he has no moral compass. And you know, what really irritates me is that he contributes nothing to the economy. He just screws people.”

Talking to noseweek Viljoen spent some time slagging off Moti, but we’ll spare you the sordid details.

Except for this: Viljoen says Moti boasts that his family “owns Investec”. Viljoen also says that when the City deals were first exposed, Moti told him he would kill Maringa if he didn’t set up a meeting with the City. “He threatened to kill me when I refused to help him in opposing the City’s application. It’s well known that he has a police captain in his pocket, Captain Jan Judeel of the Commercial Branch in Johannesburg. Within days of telling Moti that I wouldn’t oppose the City’s application, Captain Judeel raided my offices, ostensibly looking for Eildoug files, all of which were already with Moti’s attorneys, Knowles Hussain. I wrote a letter to Senior Superintendent JM Ramokolo of the Commercial Branch about this, suggesting that a lifestyle audit of Captain Judeel will possibly reveal his extra income.” 
Viljoen says he believes Helen Botes is involved in the scam, but was unable to produce any evidence to back this up. He claims that he has in his possession an affidavit from one of the attorneys who signed as Commissioner, saying Botes (who says her signature was forged) did sign in his presence – but couldn’t produce it. He claims that Botes has failed to take steps against employees who may have been involved in the fraud, but he was unable to name anyone involved.

Viljoen claims that the City’s Dora Madisa signed a letter confirming that the deal was legitimate, but the letter he showed noseweek to prove this did not bear a name.

The day after noseweek spoke to Viljoen, Business Report reported that various officials at the Deeds Office in Pretoria had been suspended on suspicion of being involved in the fraudulent transfers of City of Johannesburg properties. These include the registrar, Pogiso Mesefo, and acting deputy registrar Edmund Sibisi, who allegedly facilitated the fraudulent transfers.

Noseweek went back to Viljoen for comment, as his conveyancing secretary, Annelene van der Berg, had signed an affidavit saying she “approached Mr Sibisi of the Deeds Office to request whether these transactions can be expedited. Mr Sibisi then had to go to Mr Mesefo, being the Chief Registrar, for the necessary permission.The reason for the request that the transactions be expedited is because [Zamien] wanted rezoning of the said properties to be done as soon as possible. The Deeds Office consented to the transactions being expedited and they were indeed transferred”.

Viljoen insisted that Annelene’s visit to the Deeds Office was innocent, and she had been told by Sibisi that there would be no problem in expediting the transfers because the Office “had a policy of expediting transfer of all City properties”.