How Yashoda Ram exposed the Prudential Authority’s abuse of curatorship as a tool to destroy black business.
Yashoda Ram may go down as the curator that ended the PA’s curatorship reign of terror on black business. So far the reserve bank and the PA have used curatorship successfully to reverse all the gains of transformation in the banking and financial services industry.
So far the reserve bank has destroyed all black banks even those that existed under apartheid and has so far liquidated black insurance companies.
There are 3 black insurance companies that have been liquidated or are being liquidated and 3Sixty Life is the fourth target of the PA. The other black insurance companies are New Era (absorbed into Limpopo Development Cooperation), Bophelo Life and NestLife of Vusi Sithole. The appointment of Yashoda as Curator for 3Sixty life was supposed to result in 3Sixty Life following on the same route towards liquidations and she is not following through with that mandate of the PA.
So far the PA has not been challenged by the black insurance owners whose businesses were placed under curatorship and destroyed, the spirited challenge of the PA by 3Sixty Life and Yashoda’s quest for independence as a curator have exposed the methods of the PA which have so far remained unknown to the public.
The PA has always gone to court unchallenged and only their narrative gets to be heard and the public is no wiser to accept the outcome. But what is being written in stone by the PA is that no black person or black group must own a bank or an insurance company, they are also driving a narrative that no black person is capable of running a bank and insurance company. Leseja Kganyago, the Governor of the Reserve Bank has gone out to the public to say he has not found any suitable person or group to own the African Bank and he will therefore fractionalize it in the JSE. Lets pause for a moment and ask if Leseja means in the current crop of black executives and BEE players none is worth of owning a bank, really? And where is the BBC, APSIB, BMF when such impressions are created and acted upon?
The PA is not accustomed to being challenged in court, when you look at the papers the PA challenged Khandani Msibi’s right to oppose curatorship from being made permanent. The PA went further to intimidate him by saying he should pay costs in his personal capacity.
Whilst the Board of 3Sixty Life (on whose mandate Msibi is acting) has been divested of its power, the court allowed it to challenge the curatorship being made permanent. What is a curiosity is that Msibi’s central argument is that PA misled the court in that the shareholder of 3Sixty Life offered to capitalize 3Sixty Life and the PA ignored them and rushed to court to place 3Sixty Life under curatorship. Msibi went further to say the PA lied by saying 3Sixty Life has liquidity crises.
On both the solvency and liquidity Msibi provided actuarial reports to court to prove that the property transaction would capitalize 3Sixty LIfe sufficiently. Why is the PA hellbent on keeping 3Sixty Life under curatorship we must ask.
Then there is the case f the PA’s attempt to remove Yashoda as curator of 3Sixty Life on an urgent bases. Although Msibi has questioned the suitability of Yashoda’s appointment the PA claims that it has come to their attention that Yashoda Ram has misled them and that they have no faith in her integrity, this is a few days after they have defended her. The PA then claims that it found Yashoda’s email on the BDO website when it was searching for curators. In court on the 21 February BDO contradicted the PA and said that the PA is mistaken when it says it found Yashoda’s CV on its website as it was not on its website at the time that the PA said it found it there, Yashoda’s CV was placed on the BDO website after she was appointed curator. Secondly BDO says says Yasahoda didn’t mislead the PA as the CV that BDO handed to the PA didn’t a claim that Yashoda has a BSc. So basically, BDO called the PA a liar on 2 counts over Yashoda. We should ask the obvious questions then, who Doctored Yashoda’s CV? Is the PA lying and did the PA lie under oath?
The PA went to court to try remove Yashoda and the court dismissed this attempt as an incompetent motion. In Court the PA has argued that the curator should work under its control, which means the curator works for and fulfils the desires of the PA. That is allowed in our law, the PA misunderstood the law as the curator works under the PA to the extent that 3Sixty Life is under the PA but the curator is independent and only reports to court. The curator has put the cat amongst the pigeons by stating that 3Sixty Life should never have been placed under curatorship, she did so twice in a affidavit submitted in court. This opinion she formed after soliciting the input of a third actuarial firm and property valuators, if the recapitalization is accepted 3Sixty life solvency would be restored, so why is the PA still insisting on curatorship.
Then there is the curious case of BDO who is a service provider to the PA and to the curator, the curator we have made a point that she is independent even though she is an employee of BDO. How can BDO suspend her and discipline her? What is BDO’s interest in this curatorship such that they want it so badly? Is it because BDO wants 3Sixty Life to become a carcass so it can feast?
Since the PA lied saying it found Yashoda’s cv on the BDO website and BDO says Yashoda didn’t mislead the PA then why is BDO and the PA still working together? Judgement on this case is reserved and the outcome is either that the Judge removes curatorship or maintains the curator. If the curatorship is maintained both the PA and BDO have a curator that has said there is no need for curatorship, the drama will still be far from over.