Businessman claims Cipro contributed to losses
August 9, 2009
By Wiseman Khuzwayo
Swazi prince and former tycoon Dumisa Dlamini has lost 14 sugar cane farms and 10 hotels.
He says that the blame for his losses lies partly with the very institution designed to protect his business interests, South Africa's Companies and Intellectual Property Office (Cipro).
And, it seems, he is not alone.
Two weeks ago, Politicsweb reported on how last year duplicates of Sun Microsystems (SA) and SBC International Management Services were fraudulently registered as companies at Cipro.
Bank accounts were set up in these companies' names. R51 million in tax refunds due to the legitimate companies were diverted into the counterfeits' bank accounts.
Dlamini's 14 farms in Mpumalanga were auctioned after a liquidation order obtained by Absa, which said his closed corporation owed R13m.
Dlamini has persistently denied borrowing any money from Absa and says that companies that had nothing to do with him, but had the same name as his businesses were registered and took out loans that he was then saddled with.
Now he is fighting to get back his Marina Lodge in Richards Bay, which he alleges was grabbed from him in a similar fraudulent way.
He says that laying charges of fraud led him nowhere with the police in Mpumalanga. This prompted Ben Breedenkamp, who is a senior advocate at the National Directorate of Public Prosecutions, to propose that Dlamini's complaints be referred to the fraudbusters at the Directorate of Special Offences.
The Master of the High Court last month wrote to the LVK Trust, the liquidators of Dlamini's properties, saying he was in possession of a court order instructing the liquidators to return his assets.
Business Report has learnt that another move was made to surreptitiously transfer the ownership of his Paradise Game Ranch in Mpumalanga but that this move had been thwarted by an alert government official.
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