The Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) has ordered the liquidation of Grand Azania, a company owned by Brian Shivambu, the brother of EFF deputy president Floyd Shivambu, over unpaid tax amounting to R11.5m.

SARS applied for the provisional liquidation after conducting an audit in 2020.

It relied on a forensic report which suggested Brian Shivambu, as the sole director and shareholder of Grand Azania, directly or indirectly received gratuities of R16.1m from VBS Bank, which was placed in curatorship in 2018 after looting taxpayers and depositors of an estimated R2bn.

Of the R16.1m received from VBS Bank by Shivambu, R6.4m was paid directly to Grand Azania.

Moneyweb reports that the judgment says Grand Azania is unable to pay its debts, that SARS is a legitimate creditor, and that the company should be provisionally wound up.

SARS won a judgment for R11.5m in unpaid tax against Grand Azania in June 2021.

The case this week was to determine whether or not the company could pay its debts.

In its audit of the company, SARS established income of R828 101 and R7.6m for the 2017 and 2018 tax years respectively.

The company financial statements recorded a profit before tax of R389 384 for the 2017 tax period, and a loss before tax of R1.3m for the 2018 tax period.

Grand Azania was given an opportunity to challenge the SARS assessments, as the company had not filed returns for the 2017 and 2018 tax years.

In its answering affidavit, the company claimed SARS' estimated assessments were unreasonable, contained material procedural defects and were substantially flawed.

The order says Grand Azania had still not filed VAT returns for the relevant years.

‘In my view SARS made out a case that a provisional liquidation order should be granted,’ reads the judgment by Judge Ronel Tolmay.

Full Moneyweb report

See also full report in The Herald

See: VBS chickens come home to roost