Paseka 'Mboro' Motsoeneng is facing legal issues due to his failure to repay a significant loan of R600,000, borrowed from a former member of his congregation.
Image: File picture: Nhlanhla Phillips/African News Agency
Controversial 'Prophet' Paseka “Mboro” Motsoeneng of the Incredible Happenings Ministry is embroiled in a legal battle with a former church member over an unpaid R600,000 loan.
Image: Itumeleng English/ Independent Newspapers
Paseka "Mboro" Motsoeneng, a controversial self-described prophet, is currently dealing with additional legal issues due to his inability to repay an R600,000 loan from a former member of his Incredible Happenings Ministry.
In June 2012, Motsoeneng verbally agreed to a loan of R600,000 from Khulu Radebe, a former member of the Incredible Happenings Ministry whose wife served as the church's treasurer.
In terms of their agreement, Motsoeneng would pay back R100,000 from July 2012 but failed to effect payments, and Radebe confronted him.
The two men then agreed that Motsoeneng would pay R10,000 from August 2015 and continued until August the following year, by which time he had paid R130,000.
Motsoeneng still owed R470,000 and in January 2017 Radebe sent him a letter of demand, in which he demanded that he settle the amount within 14 days, but no payment was ever received.
Details of the loan and ensuing legal tussle are contained in papers filed at the Gauteng High Court, Johannesburg, where Mboro wanted to overturn a default judgment ordering him to pay R470,000 plus interest.
Radebe’s lawyers issued and served summons on Motsoeneng and they were received by his son in December 2017.
He was demanding payment of R470,000 including interest but Mboro never entered an appearance, which led to Radebe obtaining a default judgment in March 2018.
Motsoeneng has denied entering into an oral agreement with Radebe.
Instead, he stated that Radebe and his wife, who was Incredible Happenings Ministry’s treasurer, were responsible for his and the church’s financial affairs.
According to Motsoeneng, the church was doing well financially and could never have borrowed money from an individual.
He stated that his relationship with Radebe and his wife ended in 2016 due to mismanagement of the church’s finances by the now former treasurer.
“I maintain that I have never entered into any oral agreement with the respondent (Radebe) nor has the respondent loaned me money. Instead, it is the respondent and his spouse that owe my church all the monies that they have appropriated from my church,” Motsoeneng told the high court.
Responding to Mboro’s denial of the loan, Radebe produced bank statements showing R600,000 that was debited from his account in June 2012 and R10,000 monthly payments between August 2015 and October 2016 indicating that they were from the Incredible Happenings Ministry.
Mboro also failed to file an answering affidavit responding to Radebe and refuting what he presented in court.
In addition, he argued that should the court find that he concluded a loan agreement with Radebe in June 2012 then the debt prescribed after three years in June 2015 despite agreeing and starting to pay R10,000 a month in August 2015.
“It is trite law that a debt is extinguished after the lapse of the prescribed period applicable to that debt and that such a debt cannot be revived by an acknowledgement of debt,” Judge Motsamai Makume found.
The judge said in August 2015 Mboro and Radebe entered into a new contract.
“The applicant (Mboro) breached the agreement that was concluded in August 2015, not the 2012 agreement.
When the applicant commenced payment of R10,000 in August 2015, it was in satisfaction of a new agreement and that was never meant to revive the 2012 agreement,” Judge Makume ruled last month.
He said an application for rescission of a judgment must demonstrate a bona fide (in good faith) defence or a triable issue, which Mboro has failed to do and instead relied on a technical defence of prescription.
“He had no bona fide defence and must accordingly fail,” stated Judge Makume in dismissing Mboro’s application for rescission of the default judgment with costs.
Gogome Attorneys, Mboro’s legal representatives, did not respond to questions on Tuesday while Radebe’s lawyers, Diemieniet Attorneys, had also not indicated their next course of action despite promising to do so.
Meanwhile, Mboro is also facing kidnapping, possession of dangerous weapons and assault charges over a 2024 incident over which he was arrested after he stormed a primary school in Katlehong to demand the release of his grandchildren.
loyiso.sidimba@inl.co.za