By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The urgent application brought by the Minister of Labour, Thulas Nxesi against Thuja Capital has been been postponed to the 25th of January 2024.
Mdwaba appeared in the Pretoria High Court on Wednesday in a matter brought by Nxesi.
Nxesi approached the court in an urgent application to have the contentious Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) and Thuja Holdings R5-billion job-creation deal set aside.
Mdwaba accused the minister and other high-profile figures of trying to solicit R500-million in bribes for the project to be approved.
Those he implicated include ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula, who has since opened a criminal case against the businessman, Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande, and Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana.
On Wednesday, the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria adjourned the matter until 25 January 2024 after Mdwaba’s lawyers asked for a postponement.
His legal team argued that they were not afforded enough time to respond to Nxesi’s application.
Mdwaba’s attorney, Khumisi Kganare said the minister’s papers were not served to his client properly.
“The timelines that were given to all the respondents were not practical because we did not agree we had to come get a directive from the high court to say let’s work on a pre-hearing timetable that will regulate how and when answering papers are going to be filed by the respondents. There’s about eight respondents in this matter. [The timetable will state] also until when the minister will be given an opportunity to file his replying affidavit and everything else that follows like your heads of arguments,” he said.
Kganare explained that the judge did not want to deal with the issue of urgency regarding the application.
The attorney further confirmed no interdict was issued for the minister.
“What was problematic for our client was that the minister also wanted a gag order against him so we had to also deal with that issue to say if there is a gag order then let it go two ways, meaning it must apply to all litigants involved or we have a situation where there is no gag order at all. There’s a general rule that applies to litigants when a matter is under judicial consideration that in this instance you are not allowed, as a litigant, to go public in respect of the merits of the case.
“Now we have a directive from the high court that says there’s no gag order against our client… in fact there’s no gag order against everyone involved so we expect the sub judice rule to apply to everyone,” he added.
The R5bn would have gone towards starting Thuja’s operations, investment in listed and unlisted companies, with the hopes of using the equity to push for companies to employ more people, and unsecured grant funding for the unemployed to start businesses.
In return, the UIF would have received a 19% stake in the companies Thuja invested in, including an unnamed bank, and an insurance firm.