Moyo sells R1,5m South African getaway

Moyo sells R1,5m South African getaway

MOYO'S MANSION

• Moyo's mansion goes under the hammer

• Mugabe builds £6 million palace

• Hanging out with Zim first shopper

• Mugabe pulls Zim out of C'nwealth

• Mugabe threatens to pull out

• Obasanjo snubs Mugabe

• Mugabe in threat to quit C'nwealth

• Mugabe not stepping down

By Dumisani Muleya
30/01/04
INFORMATION minister Jonathan Moyo has sold his controversial R1,5 million luxury home in Johannesburg to prevent an auction which was due Thursday after he fell into arrears in his mortgage bond payments.

André Croucamp, director of the legal firm Findlay & Niemeyer, which was handling the disposal said Moyo recently sold the house to prevent the sale. The sheriff of Lenasia North had been expected to conduct the auction.

"The auction was cancelled because Moyo sold the house," Croucamp said. "It now means that we will get paid in due course."

He had bought the house through a mortgage obtained from Nedcor bank, according to reports published in South Africa. The bank, however, recently placed an advert in the newspapers saying the house would go on the block on January 29 as Moyo had failed to meet his mortgage repayments.

It was said Moyo had an outstanding balance of R1,2 million on his bond.

He also reportedly owed the Johannesburg council more than R115 000 in unpaid rates and service charges for the house located at 15 Engelwold Drive in the posh Saxonwold suburb.

City of Johannesburg invoices reportedly showed that Talunoza Trust, under which the house was registered, owed R69 064,07 in unpaid rates, while R48 961,98 was owed for electricity and water. The total - R118 026,05 - was said to have been due on January 15. Talunoza Trust was named after Moyo's children.

The house has seven bedrooms, a large modern kitchen, a double garage, Oregon pine floors and underfloor heating. Most of the home is hidden behind a high wall which has an electric fence at the top.

But reports said the house - in what was described as a metaphor for the economic ruin in Zimbabwe - was allowed to become rundown. A blocked drain was said to have been spilling sewage into the front yard and the lawn had not been cut for months. Flowerbeds were said to be overgrown with weeds while the swimming pool contained green slime.

Last year, Moyo’s wife Betsy, spoke fondly of the home - though her husband earlier denied to the South African Sunday Times that he owned the property.

While on holiday in Johannesburg, she had insisted it won’t be sold: "It is a wonderful place and my six-year-old misses the house.

"But we have no present plans to sell . . . we will be keeping it."

But Moyo had denied that he owned the Saxonwold property. "There is no evidence whatsoever that I own a house there . . . the trust does not link me as an owner. I used to live there two years ago . . . the house is owned by a trust and I am not a trust."

He added: "The trust is a children's trust and they are not going to talk . . . and even if I owned that house, I would not be interested in talking.

"I don't think it makes sense for people to be talking about their properties," Moyo said.

Johannesburg's Witwatersrand University, where Mr Moyo once worked as a researcher, claims he absconded with thousands in research money and a South African television company says he owes £10,000.

A legal writ has been issued in the Kenyan High Court against Mr Moyo by the Ford Foundation, an American educational trust that claims he stole £70,000 of its money in the late 1990s - Zim Independent
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