SUGAR GIANT’S “RESCUE” EXPOSED: COURT UNCOVERS SHOCKING LEGAL LOOPHOLE AS MILLIONS VANISH
This isn’t just a business deal. It’s a LEGAL NIGHTMARE unfolding in real time. The Supreme Court just dropped a BOMBSHELL ruling that tears apart the so-called “rescue” of fallen sugar titan Tongaat Hulett. The massive mills are running, but the financial foundation is ROTTEN.
For years, the company’s handlers tried to dodge MILLIONS in mandatory industry payments. They called it “business rescue.” The Supreme Court of Appeal calls it UNLAWFUL. In a brutal December ruling, judges declared payments to the South African Sugar Association (Sasa) are NOT negotiable—they are the LAW. A last-ditch legal shield has been SHATTERED.
Why does this matter? While slick lawyers played games in boardrooms, our most critical sector—the bedrock of KZN and Mpumalanga’s rural economies—was being STARVED. Sasa’s executive director welcomed the ruling for “sustainability,” but the truth is darker. This was a calculated attempt to sideline statutory debts, leaving communities and farmers holding the bag.
The “new owner,” the Vision Group, may have settled the big bank debts, but now faces a WALL of mandatory levies. And the final handshake is FROZEN. A critical lifeline from the state’s Industrial Development Corporation is stuck, with funding approved in nervous, month-to-month dribbles. The company admits it’s “critical” yet provides NO timeline. This is chaos.
Meanwhile, a rival bidder, the RGS Group, wages vicious legal warfare, adding costly “uncertainty and complexity.” The “rescue” practitioners call it “vexatious litigation.” We call it a circus.
They claim the mills are “fully operational.” They promise a “reasonable prospect” of rescue. But the highest court in the land just proved they tried to operate outside the law. The money men carved up the carcass, hoping no one would notice the statutory bills left unpaid.
One question burns as the legal dust settles: who were they really rescuing?
Author: Kayitsi.com
