BUSINESSMAN ACCUSED OF DEFRAUDING FNB OF E5M

MBABANE – A Mbabane businessman is accused of defrauding the First National Bank (Pty) Ltd, Swaziland about E5 million.

The businessman, who cannot be identified for now as he is yet to be formally charged by the police, through his company, defrauded the bank E4.8 million. This publication has established that the entrepreneur, whose defunct business was trading in automobiles, allegedly colluded with two senior employees of Wesbank.

Wesbank, is the division of FNB that provides motor vehicle and business finance.
According to well-placed sources, procedures and processes were not followed when a business account belonging to the entrepreneur was being established with the bank. As a matter of fact, the industrialist did not qualify to have the business finance of the bank.

It is said that two employees within the higher echelons of the bank manipulated the system to favour the businessman such that he gained financing from the bank.
The web of corrupt acts, weaved together by the entrepreneur and the banks’ employees, to delude the financial institution into believing he deserved credit were uncovered during an internal audit.
The audit is said to have highlighted a number of discrepancies that raised suspicion that the businessman was being assisted by internal people in the higher echelons of power.

It is said during audit controls, the employee of the bank would gather information and alter it to present that the business entity was up to date with its information and banking while it was not the case.
According to one of the sources, there are 15 vehicles that are unaccounted for which were financed by the bank to be sold by the entrepreneur.
“The bank was able to repossess only three vehicles while the 15 are still unaccounted for. We suspect double discounting.”

The impeccable source explained that double discounting was the act of selling one vehicle to more than one person.
He explained that the vehicles that were in the establishment run by the Mbabane entrepreneur were owned by the bank and after each sale, the bank had to get its money.
The source said to maintain accountability, the bank had to execute stock audits weekly to establish whether the cars were still not sold. It was highlighted that in this case, the internal audit done by the bank questioned on why the employee entrusted with the stock audit had failed to trace the 15 vehicles.

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