Mpisane denied any wrongdoing and was defending the case before it was withdrawn.<\/p>\n
Sbu Mpisane told amaBhungane this week: \u201cWe would like to state that advocate Govender was never part of my legal team and any allegation that I paid her any monies is not true, which I take very seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n
Govender declined to answer detailed questions, citing the society\u2019s complaint process and her own pending legal action against Pillay.<\/p>\n
Her attorney, Reg Thomas, said: \u201cSince our client has instructed us to institute legal proceedings against Mr Pillay arising from the defamatory content and spurious nature of his affidavit, which is littered with lies and unsubstantiated claims, this matter is sub judice and she will not be drawn into litigating same via the media. We emphasise that our client\u2019s election not to respond to your questions should not be construed as an admission of any of the allegations whatsoever.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pillay\u2019s affidavit explains that he was involved in an application for a mortgage bond of R4.2-million for Govender to buy an upmarket property in Umhlanga.<\/p>\n
He says that when he inquired about her eligibility, he noted that her income was inconsistent with being able to afford the repayments on such a large bond.<\/p>\n
Pillay alleges that Govender, in response, claimed income from other sources, including \u201ca lump-sum payment in the region of R500000 to R750000 from a[n] Mpisane who was\/is her client\u201d.<\/p>\n
Pillay states: \u201cI expressed my reservations of her now-claimed additional income stream … in particular that received from Mpisane.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven more concerning was that advocate Nalini Govender presided over the Mpisane case, who is now acquitted as I understand. I expressed my reservation … to the point were she abandoned my services and I did not pursue the matter any further.\u201d<\/p>\n
the <\/strong>circumstances surrounding the NPA\u2019s decision to withdraw the charges are worth reporting<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n AmaBhungane has established that Govender went on to buy the property, but at a substantially reduced price of R3.25-million, after having obtained a bond for R2.925-million.<\/p>\n Among the questions Govender declined to answer at this stage was whether she came to an arrangement with the seller, which allowed him to reduce the purchase price.<\/p>\n Magistrates often refuse repeated postponements, citing the accused\u2019s right to a reasonably speedy trial, so no adverse inference can be drawn from Govender\u2019s decision in this case, especially given that both she and Mpisane have in effect denied any such payment took place.<\/p>\n But the circumstances surrounding the National Prosecuting Authority\u2019s (NPA\u2019s) decision to withdraw the charges are worth reporting.<\/p>\n In September 2013, prosecutor Wendy O\u2019Brien had sought a six-week postponement from acting magistrate Govender. O\u2019Brien wanted time to obtain a forensic report and to prepare an application for the case to be transferred to the high court.<\/p>\n Mpisane was accused of submitting forged documents to obtain CIDB gradings, which were then used to win five public works tenders worth R140-million.<\/p>\n The NPA withdrew the charges, citing the fact that forensic investigations couldn\u2019t be finalised by the deadline set by Govender<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n According to news reports, Govender said there was no justification for the six-week postponement and Mpisane would be prejudiced by the \u201cinordinate delay\u201d.<\/p>\n O\u2019Brien reportedly asked that the case be heard by another magistrate and Govender said that if the state was unhappy with her hearing the case it could bring an application for her to recuse herself when the trial started.<\/p>\n But it never got to that stage.<\/p>\n On January 15 2014, the NPA withdrew the charges, citing the fact that forensic investigations couldn\u2019t be finalised by the deadline set by Govender.<\/p>\n The case has never been re-enrolled but the investigation is still open.<\/p>\n Pillay appears to have made his affidavit after a falling-out with Govender. He alleges that some time this year he approached Govender about her \u201csubmissions made to me regarding her financial position\u201d as he \u201canticipated an audit\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cDuring my interactions with her for information, I was involved with an accident and engaged with her regarding problems that I was having with an errant panel repair shop … she made it clear that she will solve my problems provided that I do not disclose her irregular application for finance,\u201d Pillay claims.<\/p>\n But in August this year Govender became angry and cut him off, citing, Pillay claims, his refusal to assure her that he would \u201ccover\u201d for her.<\/p>\n The next day Pillay drew up the affidavit and delivered it to her office. It includes an implied threat.<\/p>\n \u201cIt appears that advocate Nalini Govender obtained finance under fictitious representations and that I have an obligation to advise the financial institute to review the application and cancel the granting of her facility.\u201d<\/p>\n If that letter was intended to silence Pillay, it did not succeed<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Govender responded with a lawyer\u2019s letter from Thomas, in which he warned Pillay: \u201cYou have been harassing our client via telephone calls, SMSes and visits to her office … Our client has on numerous occasions informed you that she is unable to assist you to litigate on your behalf without an attorney briefing her.<\/p>\n \u201cDespite the aforementioned, you went to our client\u2019s office on Monday August 8 2016, and dropped an affidavit signed by yourself with our client\u2019s secretary. The said document contains defamatory material about our client.<\/p>\n \u201cOur client fails to understand the purpose of you leaving this document at her office. We do, however, wish to place on record that, if you are of the view that our client will be intimidated or in any way threatened by your unfounded allegations contained therein, you are gravely mistaken.<\/p>\n \u201cOur client is considering laying a charge of intimidation\/harassment against you, and you will be informed of same accordingly.<\/p>\n \u201cWe trust that good sense will prevail and that you will not contact our client directly or indirectly in any form whatsoever.\u201d<\/p>\n If that letter was intended to silence Pillay, it did not succeed. He subsequently forwarded the complaint to the Society of Advocates.<\/p>\n The society has asked Pillay for a more detailed affidavit before deciding whether it will take up the complaint.<\/p>\n The body told him: \u201cThe society will require a far more detailed factual history before any meaningful investigation into your allegations could be undertaken.\u201d<\/p>\n It raised concerns about Pillay\u2019s complaint: \u201cYou will recall that, when I asked you about the statement in your affidavit that [Govender] had referred to plans coming from \u2018a[n] Mpisane\u2019, you told me she had actually said \u2018from the Mpisane case\u2019, which in the context is obviously an important difference. You should please think very carefully about every single detail.\u201d<\/p>\n A Durban advocate denies being paid by the controversial pair to make a fraud charge go away<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":22436,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4646","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\/4646","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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4646"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30698,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4646\/revisions\/30698"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/amabhungane.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/250x106.jpg\")
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