By Zweli Martin Dlamini

MBABANE:Nedbank Eswatini might be sued,the financial institution is accused of colluding or allowing High Court Registrar Nosipho Mazibuko and lawyer Thandeka Hlabangani to allegedly steal over three hundred Rands(R300,000.00) from the eState of the late Zachariah Mathanda Magagula.

This comes after this Swaziland News reported earlier on Tuesday that, the High Court Registrar is investigated by the police for allegedly approving an alleged forged Legal Bill prepared by the lawyer, the Bill was then used to transfer R360,000.00 from the eState Nedbank account.

The children of the late businessman alleged that, Nedbank failed to protect the eState by allowing the transfer of the monies without the knowledge of the other beneficiaries.

It has been disclosed that, the matter might be handled by Advocate Thandake Mofokeng who, when contacted by this Swaziland News referred this publication to the instructing lawyers-H N Mdladla Attorneys.

“We are not allowed to comment on cases, kindly contact the instructing Attorneys”, said the Advocate.

Efforts to reach HN Mdladla Attorneys proved unsuccessful at the time of compiling this report.

But a source close to the Advocate told this publication that, Advocate Mofokeng “will only take-up the matter if there’s a genuine case against Nedbank Eswatini and if there’s no case, he will advice accordingly” that the lawsuit against the bank be dropped.

“For example, if the resolution allows the Executor to withdraw the money that would mean there’s no case against Nedbank.So in short, the Advocate is yet to analyze the documents in this matter and we don’t know how you even got this information because the matter is still at infant stage,” said the source very close to the Advocate.

Reached for comments on Wednesday evening, Mpendulo Shongwe, the Nedbank Eswatini Head of Legal said, they cannot not speculate what actually happened until they receive a formal complaint.

“As you are saying, they might take legal action, it’s hard for us to know what happened. We will only act once we receive a complaint or the court papers so that we can verify what actually happened,” said the Nedbank Head of Legal Services.

On another note, lawyer Thandeka Hlabangani denied defrauding the eState of the late Zachariah Mathanda Magagula when responding to this publication earlier on Tuesday, she said the over R300,000.00 was for services rendered and that, High Court Registrar Nosipho Mazibuko approved a genuine Legal Bill.

“I normally read your articles and I know you are a fair person, you get both sides of the story.There was literally no fraud here but the money was for legal services rendered. What you need to understand is that, in the legal profession there’s also a hierarchy and some lawyers would take-up a matter just because they think, you don’t deserve such amount even if you worked for the money. High Court Registrar Nosipho Mazibuko taxed a genuine not a fraudulent Legal Bill. We are dealing with an eState of a polygamous family here and there are family politics,” said the lawyer.

When asked to analyze and share an independent view in the matter, a source within the Judiciary said the Legal Bill does not have a court order awarding the lawyer the costs hence there’s reasonable suspicion that, it was fraudulent.

“A legitimate Legal Bill must have a court date stamp and it must have 1% Taxing Master’s fees payable to Government through revenue stamps that are then attached at the back of the Taxed Bill. Then once you do that, the Bill then becomes legitimate and payable. The Bill signed by Nosipho does not have stamps, court or Taxing Master’s fees which is 1% of the total amount.But apart from that, there’s no court order in the file,” said the source within the Judiciary.