Hawks to probe African Bank saga

THE serious economic offences unit of the Hawks is investigating possible charges against those involved in the collapse of African Bank.

This was confirmed recently by Justice and Correctional Services Minister Michael Masutha in a written reply to a parliamentary question by DA MP Brandon Topham.

Hawks spokesman Hangwani Mulaudzi was unable to provide an update on Tuesday indicating how far the probe has progressed.

The Reserve Bank had referred its report into the collapse of African Bank to the national director of public prosecutions in May 2016, Masutha said. The prosecutions chief requested the head of the specialised commercial crime unit to attend to the matter.

In March 2017, the National Prosecuting Authority advised that its report on the bank was in its final stages of preparation. The report indicated what the next course of action should be.

“The prosecutor allocated [to] the matter finalised a comprehensive report wherein he sets out that criminal investigations related to fraud, the Banks Act 94 of 1990 and Companies Act 71 of 2008 were warranted,” Masutha said.

“He therefore recommended that the matter be referred to the South African Police Service for investigation and that a prosecutor be allocated to guide the investigations in the matter. Currently, the matter is under investigation by the serious economic offences unit of the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation [the Hawks],” Masutha said. African Bank Investments (Abil) under former chief executive Leon Kirkinis was put under curatorship by the Reserve Bank in 2014 after suffering losses of more than R7.6-billion.

The collapse, which wiped out billions of rand for investors, was investigated by advocate John Myburgh SC, who concluded in his report the bank had not made sufficient provision for bad debts and had engaged in unsustainable lending. The report also read that incompetent directors of the bank had failed in their duties and had run the bank negligently and recklessly.

The bank was restructured with the support, among others, of a consortium of six South African banks, the Reserve Bank and the Public Investment Corporation. — BDLive