×
NewsDay

AMH is an independent media house free from political ties or outside influence. We have four newspapers: The Zimbabwe Independent, a business weekly published every Friday, The Standard, a weekly published every Sunday, and Southern and NewsDay, our daily newspapers. Each has an online edition.

Zim banker loses SA home over debt

News
FORMER Trust Bank director Christopher Goromonzi lost his plush Johannesburg home after it was auctioned to offset a reported $4,5 million debt he owes a South African bank, it has been learnt.

FORMER Trust Bank director Christopher Goromonzi lost his plush Johannesburg home after it was auctioned to offset a reported $4,5 million debt he owes a South African bank, it has been learnt.

BY STAFF REPORTER

Goromonzi, one of the crusading black bankers who invaded Zimbabwe’s financial services sector in the mid-90s had his double-storey house in Bryanston, Johannesburg auctioned.

Auctioneers Michael James Organisation, in a notice in a South African newspaper recently, said it had power of attorney to “submit for public auction” Goromonzi’s house “under case number 26658/2016”.

The 1 283m², five-bedroomed freehold property comprising a swimming pool, “in a secure estate” was set to be auctioned on September 19th 2018. It could not be established whether the auction went through.

Goromonzi joins another businessman James Makamba, who has strong Zanu PF ties, to lose his home in South Africa.

Makamba’s multi-million rand Sandhurst home is set to go under the hammer on November 29 following a court order early this year.

Makamba’s 1 650m² “Villa Royale” – property set in expansive grounds of nearly 2 300m² – is described by the auction house as “an elegant Sandhurst mansion with sweeping colonnades‚ open air parking for nearly two dozen vehicles‚ a regal porte-cochere covered entrance and sculpted dolphins dancing at the far end of the sparkling swimming pool”.

The business mogul reportedly owes South African bank, Absa which now wants to recover the $4,5 million (nearby R63m) debt.

The debt according to reports stems from mortgage‚ credit card and vehicle financing accounts the businessman opened with Absa’s wealth unit.

Another local banker is embroiled in a case in Namibia in which N$64 million was reportedly siphoned out of the south-west African country’s SME Bank.

According to court papers lodged with the Namibian Supreme Court, one of the provisional co-liquidators, David Bruni, names the person who received the cash payments totalling N$64 million as one George Markides, and says there is evidence showing that Markides had “extensive telephone contacts with the Zimbabwean businessman and former SME Bank director Enock Kamushinda”.