{"id":4492,"date":"2016-05-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-05-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amabhungane.org\/amabhungane\/stories\/guptas-backed-maines-r140k-a-month-bond\/"},"modified":"2016-05-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-05-01T00:00:00","slug":"guptas-backed-maines-r140k-a-month-bond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/guptas-backed-maines-r140k-a-month-bond\/","title":{"rendered":"Guptas &#8220;backed&#8221; Maine&#8217;s R140k-a-month bond"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Picture: Delwyn Verasamy, M&amp;G<\/em><\/p>\n<p>ANC Youth League boss Collen Maine\u2019s bond on his golf estate home requires him to pay a\u00a0whopping R140 000 a month. And while he refuses to say how he affords it, the evidence\u00a0suggests the Guptas have lent a helping hand.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/cdn.mg.co.za\/content\/documents\/2016\/05\/01\/151215mortgagebondmaine.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">See the bond document<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Maine and his wife, Kelebogile, bought the R5.4 million property east of Pretoria last\u00a0October, six weeks after he was elected league\u00a0president.<\/p>\n<p>Maine has publicly defended the influential family a number of times \u2013 earning him the\u00a0epithet \u201cthat Gupta- controlled Oros [man]\u201d from Economic Freedom Fighters deputy leader\u00a0Floyd Shivambu on Twitter.<\/p>\n<p>But he insisted this week he was independent of the Guptas. \u201cI was dealing with those issues\u00a0as a matter of principle, not that I have anything to do with them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Maine\u2019s double-storey, triple-garage home is set on a large, manicured erf in the Woodhill\u00a0Residential Estate and Country Club. It backs on to the greens of an 18-hole championship\u00a0golf course.<\/p>\n<p>The homeowners\u2019 association board has included luminaries such as Gautrain boss Jack van\u00a0der Merwe and Deloitte chief financial officer Chris Beukman.<\/p>\n<p>A person with direct knowledge of the sale, speaking on condition of anonymity, told\u00a0amaBhungane this week that Maine had originally submitted a cash offer, meaning the\u00a0purchase was not dependent on him raising a bond.<\/p>\n<p>A cash buyer usually has a limited period\u00a0to come up with the money or a banl guarantee,\u00a0well before the transfer is registered. In this instance, the source said, Pretoria lawyer Abdul\u00a0Jaffer remitted the full\u00a0R5.4 million, saying it came from the Bank of India.<\/p>\n<p>Jaffer has often acted for the Gupta family. Company registration records show he was the\u00a0original director of a number of their companies, indicating that he helped to register them.<\/p>\n<p>A second source, who says he was briefed on aspects of the transaction when it took place,\u00a0told amaBhungane that the Gupta family arranged with the Bank of India to grant Maine a\u00a0bond because he was a \u201cman of straw\u201d financially and did not qualify.<\/p>\n<p>The Guptas asked Jaffer to help, he said, and\u00a0the bond registration was done by a conveyancer known to Jaffer, Shamsoodeen Omar. Deeds office records confirm a Bank of India bond covering the full R5.4 million purchase price was registered to Collen and Kelebogile Maine in mid-December, with Omar as conveyancer.<\/p>\n<p>Omar, who according to deeds records has done previous bond registrations for properties\u00a0related to the Guptas, referred queries to Jaffer. Jaffer did not deny his firm\u2019s involvement in\u00a0the sale this week, but would not discuss details, citing client confidentiality.<\/p>\n<p>The bond document, obtained by amaBhungane, raises questions about how Maine can\u00a0afford his new house, because:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Rather than the standard 20 years, the repayment term is four years. This more than\u00a0doubles the monthly instalments \u2013 an unusual choice for anyone who may be stretched\u00a0financially;<\/li>\n<li>The bond document says the initial monthly instalment is R135 665. At the interest\u00a0rate of prime plus 1.5% specified by the document, this will now be about R142 000 a\u00a0month;<\/li>\n<li>Using the affordability measure that home loan repayments may not exceed 30% of\u00a0gross income, Collen and Kelebogile Maine should have jointly earned at least R450 000 a\u00a0month before tax to have qualified for the loan \u2013 unless a third party bound themselves as\u00a0security; and<\/li>\n<li>R450 000 is roughly double President Jacob Zuma\u2019s monthly paycheck.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In his former job as North West local government and human settlements MEC, Maine\u00a0grossed a maximum of about R152 000 a month. His current ANC salary is likely to be\u00a0considerably less.<\/p>\n<p>Kelebogile Maine\u2019s current occupation could not be established before going to press. She\u00a0previously worked for the National Youth Development Agency, where a former colleague\u00a0said she left \u201clate last year\u201d. She did not take calls or reply to text requests for comment.<\/p>\n<p>This week, Collen Maine seemed to deny the four-year-term of the bond, but would say no\u00a0more.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t know who is discussing those things with you. I have gone to the bank. I have got an\u00a0agreement with the bank on how I pay the house for 20 years, so I would not then discuss\u00a0my private issues in public any more. That\u2019s my response,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>In February, Maine was quoted as saying at a rally that \u201can attack on the Guptas is an attack\u00a0on the ANC\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>After Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas\u2019 bombshell revelation in March that the Guptas\u00a0offered him the finance minister\u2019s job, Maine joined the countercharge, calling on Jonas to\u00a0resign for ignoring ANC protocol.<\/p>\n<p>And last month, Maine visited Gupta companies after being invited to discuss the major\u00a0banks\u2019 closure of their company accounts. He was reportedly chased away by disaffected\u00a0staff.<\/p>\n<p>Vinayakumar Singh, a director of Bank of India\u2019s South African branch, would not discuss\u00a0details this week, citing client confidentiality.<\/p>\n<p>But he said that, in South Africa, they operated mainly as a merchant bank and had\u00a0granted\u00a0only \u201ctwo or three\u201d home loans. He did not\u00a0deny the bank had a relationship with\u00a0the Guptas, saying it was \u201cnot the only\u201d bank in South Africa in that position.<\/p>\n<p>The Gupta family did not reply to detailed questions emailed to family and company\u00a0spokespeople.<\/p>\n<p>The Guptas have previously been involved in property purchases involving connected\u00a0people, including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In 2012, amaBhungane and the Mail &amp; Guardian revealed a Gupta hand behind First\u00a0Lady Bongi Ngema-Zuma\u2019s R3.84 million bond from India\u2019s Bank of Baroda. A Gupta family\u00a0spokesperson denied it at the time, but last month City Press revealed board minutes of a\u00a0Gupta company agreeing to guarantee the loan. Like Maine\u2019s, Ngema-Zuma\u2019s loan was\u00a0accelerated \u2013 in her case to five years \u2013 and was handled by Omar\u2019s conveyancing firm.<\/li>\n<li>In 2006, a Gupta company bought then Cabinet minister Essop Pahad\u2019s Birdhaven,\u00a0Johannesburg home from him for R5 million, although neighbours said he continued to live\u00a0there. Again, Omar was the conveyancer. Pahad would not comment.<\/li>\n<li>In 2014, the <em>Mail &amp; Guardian <\/em>and amaBhungane revealed that Siyabonga Mahlangu,\u00a0then outgoing adviser to Minister Malusi Gigaba, agreed to buy the same home from the\u00a0Guptas. He paid R5 million in 2015 according to deed records.<\/li>\n<li>Mabengela Investments, a company co-owned by the Guptas and Duduzane Zuma,\u00a0bought a R4 million Saxonwold property, using a Bank of Baroda bond, in March 2009. This\u00a0was not long before Jacob Zuma was inaugurated as president. Duduzane lived there.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amabhungane.co.za\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/amabhungane.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/250x106.jpg\" width=\"250\" height=\"106\" align=\"left\" \/><\/a><em><br \/>\nThe amaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism produced this story. Like it? Be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.givengain.com\/cc\/amab\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">an amaB supporter<\/a> and help us do more. Know more? Send us <\/em><em><a href=\"http:\/\/amabhungane.co.za\/page\/tip-offs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a tip-off.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Evidence suggests that ANC Youth League president Collen Maine received a generous helping hand from the Gupta family to afford his golf estate home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22553,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}