Jail awaits Jono

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Jail awaits Jono

HARARE - Moeletsi Mbeki, younger brother of President Thabo Mbeki, and Witwatersrand University (Wits) have separately applied for an order to have Zimbabwe’s former Information minister Jonathan Moyo jailed the next time he visits South Africa on allegations of absconding with millions of rands that he allegedly owes.
Mbeki told The Zimbabwean that they were shocked Moyo managed to sneak into South Africa and hold an interview with the BBC news channel for the programme HardTalk a fortnight ago. He said if they had been aware of this interview prior to the visit, they could have got Moyo arrested on fraud charges.
Moyo allegedly owes Endemol, a television production company in South Africa
headed by Mbeki, R100,000.
Moyo received this amount from the TV company after he invoiced it for the
production costs of a television documentary. He allegedly did not deliver
the documentary.
Mbeki said his company was now trying to recover the money, since Moyo was no longer a minister in the Zimbabwe government. He said previous efforts to attach Moyo’s luxurious home in Johannesburg, had been fruitless.
Moyo is also facing legal action from Wits for allegedly absconding with
part of a R100 million-research grant. The university has consulted lawyers about the claim against Moyo, who received money for a research project, The Future of the African Elite, as a visiting lecturer at the university in 1998. It was allegedly never completed.
Wits registrar Derek Swenner said the money related to unaccounted-for
expenditure incurred by Moyo while he was supposed to be conducting research
for the university in East Africa.
“He told the university that he was conducting research, but instead, we
found out that he was in Zimbabwe working for President Bob’s government.
When we asked Moyo to explain how the money was spent, he chose to resign.
The case is unresolved and currently with the lawyers.”
Moyo is also being sued by the US aid agency the Ford Foundation over an alleged illegal transfer of R1 million from its Kenyan office to a trust in South Africa. Money from the trust, Talunoza, was allegedly used to buy Moyo’s Saxonwold house, on Englewold Drive. Unconfirmed reports suggest this house has been sold.
Efforts to obtain comment from Moyo were fruitless. – Own correspondent