ECSPONENT LOSS: I WILL TALK WHEN MINISTER, FSRA NEED INFORMATION - EX-CEO

MBABANE – Former Financial Servicers Regulatory Authority (FSRA) long-serving Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Sandile ‘Chief’ Dlamini says he would only speak about the Ecsponent issues when called upon by authorities to do so.

In an interview with this publication yesterday, Dlamini said he could not respond to mere allegations or people’s assumptions of him being implicated in the loss of funds to the tune of E340 million. Dlamini said he could not comment on these issues unless he has been asked by the relevant authorities to respond on the matter.

Available

“If FSRA and the minister (of Finance) need something from me, I will be available and they know where to find me,” said Dlamini. This comes after a circulating WhatsApp screenshot purporting the role played by Dlamini in the licensing of Ecsponent. The information on the screenshot is said to have been written by someone purporting to be a former FSRA employee, who happened to be the one who was supposed to grant the licence to Ecsponent but had refused to do so.

The unknown individual wrote that he/she was with FSRA in 2012 and based on the power he/she had at that time, refused to license the said company. He then made allegations against Dlamini and his alleged role in licensing the investment company that had gone under with over E340 million of emaSwati’s investment. Dlamini said it would be wrong for him to respond on this matter, which touched on FSRA. He said FSRA offices were still there and he never left with any files.

Dlamini said he was aware that this was an ongoing matter, so if there would be a time where the management of FSRA of that time when Ecsponent was licensed needed to answer, he would avail himself in case his name came up. He stated that he recognised that this was a very serious matter where people lost their money, so it would not be prudent for him to sensationalise the matter. He said it needed to be dealt with based on facts, not allegations.

Allegations

The former CEO said this matter relied on what was recorded in the files, not just allegations. When further pressed on the matter, Dlamini said everything he did at the time he was the CEO was documented in the files he left at FSRA. When asked if he never had reservations or suspicions about Ecsponent before the company was granted the licence, Dlamini said there were reasons which he could not talk about. He said only FSRA could disclose those reasons.

“Tizatfu titsini, what were the reasons, ngito letizatfu leto lengingeke ngikhone kukhuluma ngato. Yi FSRA lengakhuluma ngato, uyabona,” said Dlamini in vernacular. Minister of Finance, Neal Rijkenberg, could not be reached for comment as he had not responded to a questionnaire sent to him by the time of compiling this report. This publication had asked the minister if the former CEO would be summoned to shed some light on the matter. Meanwhile, the House of Assembly had on Monday ordered that the Finance Minister, Rijkenberg, institute a forensic audit as a matter of urgency to investigate how the E340 million investment made by emaSwati was lost.

Audit

The MPs had thrown out a report which the minister had prepared regarding the matter and instead ordered for the forensic audit. ESW Investment Group has welcomed the resolution by Parliament on the proposed forensic audit on Ecsponent and is ready to cooperate.The Board chairperson notified investors that the company had taken note of the resolution passed by Parliament in relation to the minister of Finance’s report on the investments made with Ecsponent Eswatini Limited.

“For the record, our company fully co-operated with the parliamentary motion passed in April 2022, which culminated in the report debated in the House of Assembly this week. The latest parliamentary resolution to set up a forensic investigation is both necessary and important, to uncover what transpired between 2014 and 2019 when Ecsponent Eswatini dissolved with millions of investments belonging to emaSwati,” reads in part the notice.

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