Fraud Accused Markus Jooste’s Assets Seized, SAFTU Demands Arrests

The South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) has welcomed the move by the SA Reserve Bank (SARB) to seize the assets of fraud-accused Markus Jooste, the former head honcho at Steinhoff International.

The once highly acclaimed accounting graduate of the University of Stellenbosch fell from grace when he became the subject of an investigation into a massive financial scandal at Steinhoff, several years ago.

Markus Jooste’s resignation from Steinhoff on 5 December 2017 followed the unearthing of the company’s questionable accounting practices in its European business.

The resulting uncertainty saw some €10 billion (R160 billion) of Steinhoff’s value wiped off the markets in a matter of days.

This week it emerged that the High Court in Cape Town granted an order in favour of the SARB to seize Markus Jooste’s assets that include his wife’s jewelry, paintings, and firearms with a realisable value of R795 000.

The court order lists Markus Jooste as the fourth respondent. Other respondents include Jooste’s wife Ingrid, son Michael, Gary Harlow, and Rian du Plessis.

The trustees of the Jooste family trust Silver Oak, Lanzerac Estate Investments, the Registrar of Deeds in Cape Town, and Petrus Albertus Venter were also named as respondents in court documents.

Markus Jooste, the horse breeder and son of a postal worker, who was formerly regarded as South Africa’s richest man, owns a magnificent property in Hermanus worth more than R80 million, Lanzerac wine farm, and several luxury vehicles, which were all seized.

The order was jointly served on Markus Jootste and his Silver Oak Trust, whose assets including art worth about R98.78 million, financial assets worth R1.21 billion, and loans receivable of about R131 million, were also seized.

On Tuesday, authorities raided Markus Jooste’s properties and collected documents, DVDs, computers and other items they considered relevant to their probe into the fraud.

Commenting on the development, SAFTU said it, “welcomes the court order granted in favour of the SARB to seize the assets of Markus Joost”.

“Preliminary reports indicate that SA Reserve Bank has seized Jooste’s assets on suspicion that he violated exchange controls at the time he led Steinhoff International,” SAFTU said.

“Markus Jooste engineered a fraud – artificial inflation of Steinhoff profits and assets – which precipitated the greatest corporate scandal of the recent period, in the wake of which Steinhoff’s share price crashed by 95%.

“In that corporate crash, the government pension holder, the Government Employee Pension Fund (GEPF), lost more than R20 billion.
“Primarily for this reason, SAFTU has vested interest in the matter – to bring Jooste and his accomplices to book.”

The federation of trade unions added: “Due to our stance against corruption and that more than R20 billion of public service workers’ pensions were lost, we want a warrant of arrest to be issued against Markus Jooste.”

SAFTU said other executives who were “directly involved in the fraud must also have their assets seized and be arrested”.