LPC calls on all victims of unethical lawyers to come forward
Following numerous cases lodged by the members of the public with the Legal Practice Council (LPC) about legal practitioners who defrauded them of millions of their Road Accident Fund claims, the Council urged people to seize the opportunity to report any unethical behaviour towards them.
According to LPC spokesperson, Kabelo Letebele, the Legal Practice Council (LPC) has approached the high court in a bid to have the licence of a lawyer who allegedly misappropriated millions of Road Accident Fund payouts struck off the list of practitioners.
The LPC had received 51 complaints against the Joburg lawyer Arnold Mkhabela, with 21 of those being misappropriation of funds totalling R8 million.
“The LPC is also calling people who were clients and got defrauded by the Eastern Cape attorney, Mr Zuko Nonxuba to come forward as the organisation wants to disseminate the funds recovered from his Trust Account to the victims. Mr Nonxuba, through his firm targeted vulnerable, illiterate people whom he would pretend to be assisting through his legal services, only to misappropriate hundreds of millions of rands paid into his trust account and was due to his former clients after successfully litigating against the Department of Health in matters relating to medical malpractice.”
Letebele added that the LPC has retained the last remaining amount of 100 million in attorney Zuko Nonxuba’s trust account.
However, the council is struggling to locate creditors (victims) who were defrauded by the attorney.
“We hope to pay creditors (victims)sooner, but we are struggling to locate them thus far as Mr Nonxuba is not. cooperating in disclosing his files. Our investigations showed that the trust balance should have been substantially more, so hence we hope to release the funds that we have so far”, added Letebele
Letebele further indicated that Nonxuba was ordered by the courts in all cases where minors were involved to set up trusts on behalf of the claimants in the medical malpractice suits, and to ensure that they received compensation as beneficiaries of the trusts.
However, Nonxuba failed to adhere to the court orders and is alleged to have retained and misappropriated these funds.
