Dr Danisa Baloyi, the former head of the Black Business Council (BBC), has been acquitted of the theft and money laundering charges she faced.
The Star has confirmed that Baloyi and her co-accused, namely Dominic Ntsele, Hawa Khan and Abubaker Khan, walked free on Friday at the Palm Ridge Commercial Crimes Court.
The four were accused of stealing R5.7 million from the coffers of the BBC.
The business lobby group received the money as a sponsorship from the Airports Company SA (Acsa). Ntsele, as a BBC fundraiser, approached Acsa.
It was paid into the bank account of Merit Energy, a private company in which Hawa and Abubaker were directors.
Baloyi asked then Acsa chief executive Bongani Maseko to deposit the R5.7m into Merit Energy’s account on grounds that the company had done work for the BBC.
Acsa paid the money into Merit Energy’s account in April 2017 and May 2017 in two tranches.
It was alleged that Merit Energy then transferred over R3m into the account of Incentive Driven Marketing’s account, of which Ntsele is the sole signatory.
Confirming their acquittal, Ntsele told The Star that the decision to ask Acsa to pay the R5.7m into Merit Energy’s account was above board.
The decision was taken because the BBC’s bank account was overdrawn, meaning the money would have been lost to the business lobby group had it been transferred to it, said Ntsele.
Said Ntsele: “The court agreed that if money had been paid into the BBC account it would have disappeared as the BBC account was an overdrawn dark hole with a SARS lean on it.”
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