No offer to purchase Terry Pheto’s Auctioned luxury home
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An Oscar award winning movie Tsotsi actress Terry Pheto has a lot on her plate following reports by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) report that was released last month about her unduly benefiting from the money that was initially meant for a charitable work.
The Unit said Pheto was among elite celebrities who from funds that were released by the National Lottery meant for community and instead of using the money for what it was meant for, they decided to use it for their own personal benefits.
Kwaito legend Arthur Mafokate was also mentioned as one of the people who benefited.
Pheto’s luxury home in Bryanston that was allegedly built with the money was put on auction by the Unit this week to recoup the money and direct it to where it was meant.
SIU Spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago said their investigations found that the money used for the purchase of the land and construction of the home came from non-profit organisations that received NLC funding meant for the roll-out of a public campaign and culturally sensitive medical intervention projects aimed at achieving traditional circumcision practice.
They were given a preservation order to freeze the home, following that, Pheto’s legal representatives contacted the SIU and the AFU indicating that they will not contest the preservation order granted by the High Court.
Fastforward to auction day, Kganyagk said they failed to secure an offer to purchase for the house.
It is said to be worth almost R 5million but they ended up having to close the auction with no offer.
“There were no takers. We had about 28 people who registered but none of them put a solid bid and therefore the house was not sold. What will then happen is that we will get a report from the auctioneers who are helping with this and therefore we will decide. Maybe it will go into an open market without going through an auction.”
“But at the end, all that we want is to get that money back, so that it can be taken back for the courses it was supposed to be used for. Obviously she would know what happened. Because how else would she explain that to the lawyers to say, there’s money coming if she did not know where the money was coming from?”
Kganyago said that either way, the money needs to come back to fulfill it’s original mandate.
