![]() ![]() Murray provided a supporting affidavit and along with that a preliminary report from forensic auditor, Stephen Robinson, who confirmed that the bulk of the cash Eskom paid Trillian was immediately dissipated to related entities and third parties. SARS submitted an affidavit from Cloete Murray, the curator appointed in its preservation case and who is being joined in the proceedings at Wood’s insistence. Liquidation would not only serve the interests of SARS, but those of the general body of creditors, as it would enable a liquidator to go after the beneficiaries of some of those payments.Īnd it would allow for an investigation and the possible reversal of impeachable transactions and for a liquidator to unravel how Trillian came to be insolvent despite it having raked in hundreds of millions of rand from Eskom. The tax collection agency is a creditor Trillian is essentially broke and it is just and equitable that it be wound up, Swart says. SARS says unless the company is liquidated immediately, it would be unable to hunt down assets from those who illegally benefited and that the public at large would be impacted. In this regard, SARS found Trillian ledger entries for expenses billed as VAT in respect of the company which had also on-paid the cash it received from Trillian to the conduit companies. Trillian also made payments totalling R67-million to another company, Cutting Edge Commerce, shortly after it received funds from Eskom. While SARS has no record of Ahmed having worked as a “consultant”, the conduits he ran did not declare to SARS that they were employers and it could find no record to support claims it had traded at the time, Swart says. “This cannot be true,” Swart says of the services provided. Trillian’s own records show that some of the conduits had extracted a total of around R84-million from Trillian for consulting services in the 2017 tax year. Swart names the conduit companies as Birsaa Projects, Medjoul and Fortime Consultants which all shared one lone director, Sabbir Ahmed, who left South Africa for Addis Ababa in September 2016 and has never returned. ![]() The basis for the assessment is that Trillian had funnelled cash it received from Eskom to several “conduits” which could not have performed any services to have warranted those payments, Swart said. Swart says Trillian Management Consulting was selected for audit in October 2019 and the company has had ample time to show that it was not indebted to SARS. Ironically, the figure sought by SARS relates to Trillian’s income from the tainted Eskom deal, cash that served as the lifeblood of the company as it made up the bulk of its income, according to the court papers. While Eskom’s liquidation bid is conditional upon an insolvent Trillian or Wood paying up within five days of a fresh court order, SARS wants an urgent liquidation in terms of the Tax Administration Act.Īn affidavit, submitted by Louise Swart, SARS specialist legal counsel at its illicit economy unit, states that Trillian Management Consulting owes the taxman nearly R400-million in unpaid taxes, VAT, understatement, administrative penalties and interest.ĭaily Maverick was not able to reach Trillian or Wood’s attorneys but court papers do state that the company has a legal right to challenge the assessment raised by SARS. It does not believe that the cash frozen under its preservation order would be enough to cover Trillian’s entire body of creditors. ![]() In court papers filed in the Eskom matter, SARS argues that the fiscus will be severely prejudiced unless it is able to immediately start tracing additional assets and setting aside questionable transfers made by Trillian. The intervention comes just weeks (31 January, 2020) after the tax agency obtained a preservation order against Trillian, Wood, his family trusts and about 20 associated companies to safeguard R377-million in terms of the Tax Administration Act. ![]() It argues that even if Eskom’s liquidation bid is not urgent, that of SARS is, in view of questionable transfers of cash that may need to be set aside so that SARS can initiate recovery efforts from beneficiaries involved. Wood has repeatedly denied that Trillian was a Gupta company although it was majority-owned by the family’s former chief lieutenant, Salim Essa, and a growing body of publicly released information suggests otherwise.ĭaily Maverick has confirmed that SARS filed an application on 25 February, 2020 to be permitted to intervene in the matter between Eskom and Trillian. The start-up boutique financial advisory firm went belly-up after the State Capture scandal erupted around it in 2016/2017 and CEO, Eric Wood, has been battling crippling legal action solo since then. ![]()
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