Africa-Press – Eswatini. Aggrieved Emaswati who invested with the now dissolved Ecsponent Eswatini Limited want government to take the responsibility in facilitating their reimbursement.
They feel their loss was because the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) dropped the ball.
Some of the investors, including Members of Parliament and senior government officials, have indicated that if the forensic audit does not yield the expected results, they will take government to task. They are prepared to even go to court because the FRSA is a government entity and it allowed this to happen under their watch.
A majority of the investors are pensioners while others took early retirement and invested their retirement funds with the hope of benefitting from the lucrative interest returns promised by the company.
Some of the investors, who requested for their identities to be concealed, said all they were interested in was to recover at least their initial investment.
One of the MPs who invested E200 000 said he was happy with the support from his colleagues.
He said it was clear that there was something amiss with this matter and advised that the only way forward was to relentlessly pursue the matter so they could recover their investment.
“FSRA who are a government entity are responsible for this. Government should take responsibility and compensate us because it is clear that the money is gone,” he stated.
The legislator said the funds should have been invested locally instead of abroad.
“We also found out that some of the directors had credit cards with amounts of up to E6 million they used for travel and the now questionable investments,” he claimed.
Caught
Adding, the legislator said in accounting, it was clear that if the person could not be physically caught, the only way to get to the bottom of issues was to follow the money trail.
Another parliamentarian said he invested E400 000 while his wife invested E100 000.
He said his investment was due to mature in October last year while his wife’s was due to mature this year.
He said he started to get worried after he visited the company to get an update on his investment and he was informed that there were issues and he could not get a clear response.
He alleged that it was clear to him that the people he dealt with were dishonest and all he wanted was his hard earned money back.
Decision
He said what bothered him the most was that before taking the decision to invest with the company, he personally conducted extensive investigations to ascertain if this was authentic or not.
“I even went to their offices and discovered that they were certified by FSRA. On top of that, I also enquired from the Central Bank of Eswatini and I was confident when I was assured that the company was authentic before investing with them,” he said.
He welcomed the forensic audit but stated that if the audit did not bring about the desired result, they would take the matter further and hold government accountable.
“If need be, we will sue government because it was a government entity that let us down,” he said.
Another investor who took early retirement said she invested E50 000 with the hope of benefiting from the proposed good returns.
She indicated that one of the company’s financiers approached them at their workplace where they were promised heaven on earth.
Frustrated
She was now frustrated because she could not even get the money she invested in the first place.
Former Commissioner General of His Majesty’s Correctional Services Isaiah Mzuthini Ntshangase is among some of the aggrieved parties as he filed an application in court where he wanted E2m of his investment from ESW Investments Group, which was previously trading as Ecsponent.
Ntshangase sought an order directing the ESW Investments to effect full payment of the sum of E2 127 673 to him as per the parties’ specific financial service agreement dated February 15, 2016.
During the House of Assembly sitting on Monday, legislators rejected a report from Minister of Finance Neal Rijkenberg and further directed him to institute a forensic audit at Ecsponent within 60 days.
The minister was initially granted 14 days to facilitate the forensic audit but upon indicating that the process could take longer, the period was extended to 60 days following the resolution made by the legislators.
The MPs rejected the report of responses following a motion directing the minister to facilitate the repayment of E340 million in monies invested by Emaswati in Ecsponent.
The reasons behind the rejection of the report were that it did not inspire any confidence that the funds would be recovered.
The MPs revealed that it would be wrong for them to just ignore this matter and demanded that the investors who were mainly pensioners should get their hard earned monies.
FSRA Head of Stakeholder and Consumer Affairs Mbuso Gamedze said he did not think it was proper for them to comment on the matter as yet.
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