By Bahle Gama
After making an appearance before the Judicial Commission of Inquiry, the late Benjamin Mshamndane Nsibandze’s children changed the battlefield and filed urgent applications concerning the distribution of their father’s multi-million estate.
Vusani and Lydia Nsibandze moved an urgent application questioning the authenticity of their father’s will, further requesting that their three siblings Phumzile, Busisiwe, and Bongiwe be removed as joint executors in the estate, and the liquidation and distribution account prepared to be halted.
In an affidavit, Vusani told the court that there were two questionable documents, both having been jointly signed by their late parents, Mshamndane and Glory.
The will was intended to be used to regulate and distribute their parent’s assets.
He stated that their father passed on after a short illness on January 13, 2021. At the time of his death, he had several rental properties around Mbabane and Manzini.
I therefore request full accountability of the funds received as well as a proper inventory detailing all of his assets.
He also requested that the office of the National Commissioner of Police be involved in investigating the authenticity of the will as has been allegedly retrieved from the estate of Glory and is now sought to be used in Mshamndane’s estate.
The office of the Master of the High Court has been encouraged to investigate the whole saga of the alleged will as well as that of the lost will that was written by Mshamndane.
“It is alleged that my father’s will cannot be found and thus it was opted that the one in my mother’s estate be retrieved,” he submitted.
He said their parents were married in Community of Property and allegedly executed a joint will on October 17, 2005, which appears in two different copies of the same content.
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Vusani said one will was stamped dated June 20, 2008, by the Master of the High Court and also certified by the same office. The other is just a document with no entities on it.
He contested that his parents signed the will on October 17, 2005, as alluded, stating that at the time their mother,
Glory, was sicky and in Pretoria, South Africa at the time having been admitted on October 3, 2005, where she passed on October 19, 2005.
“The signatures were apparently, forged and are not of the deceased, especially Glory. The will is also invalid because it was not signed in the presence of the witness contrary to dictates of the Will Act no 12 of 1977.
Apart from containing the same content, the two wills have different fonts and signatures not similar in both documents,” said Vusani.
He stated that the glaring disparities in both documents as well as the non-compliance with peremptory dictates of the Act renders the purported will null and void in the circumstances.
He told the court that he had been told his three siblings had prepared a liquidation and distribution account that is favourable and advantageous to them and is intended to benefit them at his expense.
“The distribution account is a far cry from the one that was prepared previously in that the valuation of the assets has been significantly reduced without justification
. Some of the assets are now not in the current distribution account, without an explanation.
Notably, the motor vehicles have not been included in the liquidation and distribution account, that farm that was valued at E12 million is now reduced to E3 million,” he said.
He said the matter is urgent because the executors have already prepared the liquidation and distribution account, which has also been approved by the office of the Master of the High Court under unclear circumstances.
“We only became aware of the changes through an advertisement on the morning of July 15, 2024.
Having approved the account, I now fear that the assets and funds of the estate will be distributed and consumed to my prejudice, and I will suffer irreparable harm.
The assets will be dispatched to the beneficiaries in terms of the purported will,” Vusani said.
In responding papers, his sister Busisiwe told the court that the urgency which Vusani relies on is self-created in that he has had a keen interest in the matter for the date on which Mshamndane’s estate was registered on January 21, 2021.
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She said on February 22, 2022, Vusani launched action proceedings at the High Court which sought to invalidate the joint will of their parents.
The proceedings and Vusani’s claim were dismissed on exception and set aside with costs.
The High Court’s decision was appealed, and the court ordered that the appeal be struck off the roll with costs and that the appeal be re-instated without leave of the court.
The order was delivered on November 30, 2023.
However, Vusani failed to exercise his right to seek such leave to reinstate the matter, with no explanation for the omission.
She noted that on March 15, 2024, Vusani appeared before the Commission of Inquiry alleging the subject will was invalid.
On June 20, 2024, an advert was published in one of the daily publications in the country and the Eswatini Gazette respectively. They ought to have acted upon the publication,” she said.
She said the pattern clearly shows that at all times Vusani and Lydia have had their finger on the pulse of the proceedings and have timeously sought various interventions to sabotage the distribution of Mshamndane’s estate, and now in a knee-jerk skelter claiming urgency, a clear abuse of the court’s process.
Busisiwe further told the court that Vusani has sought to get a second bite of the cherry by reinstituting a
matter in a manner that is easily inferred as an abuse of the court process in that they failed to disclose that the matter has been previously determined and finalised before the court, and the matter remains pending before the Supreme Court.
