Joburg - Billionaire businessman Christo Wiese says he will only consider forgiving disgraced former Steinhoff chief executive Markus Jooste, if he comes clean, admits to alleged crimes he committed and accounts for the damage he caused for thousands of people.
Wiese was speaking to Talk Radio 702’s Clement Manyathela on Thursday in a wide-ranging interview which also saw him offer his thoughts on the state of the country, Eskom, business and other topics.
Last month, when the SA Reserve Bank attached Jooste’s assets worth billions of rand, an optimistic Wiese said he expected the case to be a long drawn-out affair, but he was encouraged that justice would be done.
Wiese sold his farm to Jooste who offered him Steinhoff shares in exchange for the Lanzerac Wine Estate.
He said he was willing to “give him back his worthless shares”, in exchange for his Lanzerac wine farm.
On Thursday, Wiese admitted that the Steinhoff scandal was the biggest challenge of his life, having lost over R59bn in the scandal.
He managed to recover R8bn.
“Fortunately, I made up my mind about how to deal with that and so far it’s working out,” he said.
On forgiving Jooste, he said it would take Jooste owning up first before he considered it.
“I will only consider forgiving him, because I am a Christian, when he owns up to what he has done.
“If he stops playing games to try (to) stay out of jail and he owns up to what he did, I will consider forgiving him,” he said.
The SARB attached billions of rand of assets including those of the Silver Oak Trust, art worth about R98.78 million, financial assets worth R1.21 billion, loans receivable of R131.12m, Jooste’s house in Voelklip, Hermanus, six luxury vehicles, jewellery and other art worth some R795 400, books, documents, electronic devices and passwords, and the Lanzerac Wine Estate in Stellenbosch.
Jooste is the alleged ringleader in financial fraud that saw investors lose more than R200bn and resulted in the 95% collapse of the Steinhoff share price in 2017.
Wiese, who also served on the Steinhoff board and was at one stage the executive chairman, described Jooste as a “clever schemer” who worked with other colleagues in Europe to get his way.
“He constructed this very carefully over a long period of time.
“It’s not only top business people including myself that he managed to defraud, but he managed to get through the internal auditors at Steinhoff, component auditors all around the world, and the statutory auditors and Deloitte – one of the largest firms in the world, and he managed to get through the Reserve Bank,” he said, adding that ratings agencies and regulators were also fooled. “He managed to mislead all those people.
“As we know it’s a highly complicated matter, people often criticise our prosecuting authority for having not put him in the dock yet, but the Germans have been looking for six or seven years and they haven’t put anyone in the dock. But the wheels are turning,” he said.
Wiese said he was optimistic and patient, that Jooste, one day will have his day in court as the matter was complex.
“I have no doubt, at the end of the day, money always leads a trail, you cannot just make it disappear in some cloud,” he said.
IOL