The Bank of Baroda is set to close all of the Gupta family's accounts by the end of August, Business Day reported on Thursday. While the Bank intended closing the accounts at the end of March, the bank has reportedly had trouble closing the family's large loan accounts.
The Guptas are reportedly intending to try to interdict the closure of all their accounts. South African banks closed the Gupta's accounts in 2016, and the Bank of China soon followed suit, saying the Gupta's were politically exposed.
According to The Star on Wednesday, workers at the Gupta-owned The New Age and ANN7 were called to a meeting on Tuesday afternoon, where they were told that the bank accounts were shut. They were reportedly asked to sign a petition. Workers expressed concerns about where their salaries would now be paid from.
The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) wrote to the Reserve Bank with what it says is evidence that the banks gave Gupta businesses bonds which "far exceed" the value of the properties for which they were granted, Business Day reported.
The bonds were reportedly registered years after the purchase date of the properties.
Ben Theron, Outa COO, told Business Day that the Bank of Baroda now had a problem, because it had bonded properties worth R200 million with a debt of R1 billion. He said any banks who "touched the Guptas will have a huge bullseye on their bank".
Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank reportedly told Outa it would "deal with" the Baroda issue "accordingly.