Ex-President's wife seeks financial aid pending divorce

A former President must come clean about his ‘secretive’ financial affairs, financial support from influential people in neighbouring countries and about his assets, most of which are not in his name. That, says a Sunday Times report, is the challenge by his soon-to-be ex-wife, who had filed papers in the High Court in which she laid bare her own financial situation. She is seeking a divorce from the former President and has begun a rule 43 application to provide her with interim financial relief during court proceedings. The woman, who says she relies on her husband financially, says he must fully disclose his finances. She believes his salary ‘for life’ is about R3m a year. ‘He is also exceptionally wealthy in his own right. Most of his assets, which are beneficially owned, are not registered in his own name.’ She says these assets include a hotel in Eshowe, a shareholding in an Mpumalanga bus company, Buscor – denied by Buscor's boss – and interests in companies and close corporations in which his interests are ‘masked’. The wife says she has personal knowledge that her husband has financial support and backing of influential individuals in neighbouring states ‘and if called upon by the court I will be in a position to back this’. She wants her husband to provide copies of his bank accounts for the past six months.

She alleges her husband subjected her to ‘emotional and psychological’ suffering, had ‘given her the silent treatment’, deprived her of financial support for two years, and ‘allowed third parties, with whom he surrounds himself, to interfere in the marriage’. ‘I have devoted the past 28 years of my life to him and feel betrayed by his behaviour,’ she says. According to the Sunday Times, she wants maintenance of R20 000 a month each for her two minor children, plus education and medical costs. In the divorce action, she is ultimately claiming spousal maintenance of R150 000 a month. She says she was at his side during his rise to power and when he faced his critics. ‘I fulfilled the role of first lady with diplomacy, decorum and fortitude and sacrificed my own ambitions for his.’ In terms of rule 43 on interim maintenance, she wants R190 000 a month for herself and the children, and medical and educational expenses, along with an initial contribution of R50 000 to her legal fees.