Pensioners risk loosing over R100 million to Shepherd Bushiri. Enlightened Christian Gathering Church leader is always in one controversy to another. He is grabbing the headlines most of the time with scandals more than he is with the word of God. Electrical engineering pensioners in South Africa are at the risk of lossing R100 million of their pension money which was invested in Bushiri’s investment vehicle.
A total of four pension funds which were invested in Bushiri’s operations have not been cashed out yet. Last year Bushiri and his wife were taken into custody on charges of fraud and money laundering. However many of his followers called for his release and they were released on bail.The Malawi born preacher is the founder of the Pretoria based ECG church which he also leads as a prophet. Bushiri leaves a very expensive life he owns a fleet of luxury cars and was the talk of the town back in 2017 when he bought a Maserati as a birthday gift for his six year old child. His assets have been seized by the state and this has placed the Electrical Contracting industry pension fund in quandary.
Members of the fund were informed by the trustees in a letter that they had injected R110 million in Bushiri’s upmarket waters hotel development in 2017. They did so through the fund manager JM Busha investments group. However things didn’t go as they had hoped it would Bushiri was apprehended last year while he was at the Rustenburg hotel in North West.On their initial agreement they agreed that the investment was for a period of one year however it was extended with another 12 months. As a result the fund was supposed to get a total of R140 million on maturity of the investment. However they have only received R37 million as the rest of the balance were locked when Bushiri’s asset’s were frozen.
Busha is being accussed of going above the mandate by investing in Bushiri’s assets by the trustees of the fund. They have already filed a report with the financial sector conduct authority(FSCA). They have also decided to take legal action against Bushiri who seems to be in many law cases at the moment so that they can recover their investment.
However JM Busha Ceo Joseph Bush’s who is the president of the Zimbabwen political party free Zimbabwe Congress, says he doesn’t see why he is to blame for he didn’t exceed the mandate by investing the funds with Bushiri’s company. He said he was giving daily reports of the fund and there is nothing shoddy about the job that he did. Busha said Bushiri had given him R400 million as security guarantee.
He went on to say he has already begun legal action to recover the pension funds money through Bushiri’s assets. He said the authorities frustrated his efforts by attaching Bushiri’s assets. FSCA has shared that the pension fund is not the only one waiting for Bushiri’s property but four other funds want to cash out of Bushiri’s company.
FSCA reported that The Engineering Industries Pension Fund is owed R27 million, the Metals Industry Pension Fund is owed R21 million and two SA Municipal Worker’s Unions (Samwu) funds are owed R42 million and R7 million, the FSCA reported.