Sawit’s controversial loan passed on 30 November 2007

Relief in sight for cash-strapped recipients

The controversial loan that the SA Wine Industry Trust (Sawit) made to get KWV a black economic empowerment partner and helped to land the Trust in serious financial trouble (now under question from parliament’s Scopa watchdog) is to be taken over by a little-known financial entity, after 18 months of searching and negotiations.

The ever-busy Kader Asmal is Chair of the ‘Refinancing Task Team’, and reports that ‘The proposal of CEBICapital has been welcomed with great relief and excitement’ (particularly relief, many will surely suspect). Cebi will take over the R100 million it had lent Phetogo Investments.

Apparently Cebi Capital is ‘a recently established commercial lending entity which is in the process of concluding agreements with its major investors’, but very little is known about it. (Investigative reported Nellie Brand of Sake24 reports that the registrar of companies indicate Cebi Capital as a private company with one Wellington Ncube as sole director. There is no website for Cebi Capital and no telephone numbers.)