Saturnia perfidy

IT is not fair for the government to allow Saturnia Pension members, to be shepherded like sheep to the slaughter, into a predetermined annual general meeting (AGM) tomorrow before pertinent issues are availed and considered. The members have no idea of the mischief that has characterised the management of the fund, including the multiple identities it is operating under contrary to the law. For a start, the companies calling the AGM, Benefiting Consulting Service Limited, Bencon, and African Life Financial Services Limited, Aflife, have very serious selfish and sectional interests to serve, which they hope to gain from the AGM, but which they failed to do through the Lusaka High Court. The two companies were defeated in a bruising legal battle against Saturnia Trustees, when they tried unsuccessfully to wrestle control of the fund from institutional capture exercised by Bencon and Aflife. It is a travesty that the two organisations are calling for an AGM whose purpose will be to change the Trustees and in the process wipe institutional memory. This should amount to a conflict of interest bordering on criminality. Two High Court judges, Justice Sharon Newa and Justice Irene Zeko Mbewe dismissed an injunction obtained fraudulently by one Hantuba Munakupya who sued Saturnia Trustees on behalf of Aflife which he said was as a member of the fund, seeking the sidelining of uncompromising Trustees who wanted to bring order and judicious use of resources to the fund. The attempt was stopped by the courts which found as a fact that Hantuba Munakupya was lying when he failed to declare that he was in fact the majority shareholder of Benefit Consulting Services Limited which was and is still serving as Service Provider to the fund. Judge Mbewe found as a fact that Hantuba’s failure to declare his true position was fatal to the injunction because it was a substantial misrepresentation. It is instructive that the court action was the result of serious boardroom disagreement between the Saturnia Trustees and the two companies, Bencon and Aflife, which managed the fund without consulting them. The Trustees had gone to the extent of establishing a secretariat and also appointed a separate estate company to manage the property portfolio. Bencon and Aflife were not amused. They invoked statutes that saw the longstanding Chairman of the Trustees, Doreen Kabunda ejected. She had served for 16 years. Other Trustees were also in the process of being ejected on technicality because they were inimical. The injunction was thus intended to stop the Trustees from effecting the changes that would have introduced more stringent oversight by introducing transparency through relevant committees to guard the pension fund. What Bencon and Aflife were unable to secure in court, they managed to obtain from the very complicit Pensions and Insurance Authority (PIA) which effectively suspended the Trustees. They have not met for more than a year, when the law requires them to meet regularly. The two companies even received a bonus when the Minister of Finance Felix Mutati ordered a forensic audit that was to be undertaken by an audit firm appointed by PIA. Six months later nobody knows the outcome of the audit undertaken by KPMG. This is the same KPMG which in South Africa was complicit in corruption cases in which the Gupta family was implicated. It is against this background that the AGM will take place tomorrow. Nobody knows how much money has been taken out by Bencon working together with Aflife. The only amount known so far is the US$40million externalised without Government approval. Little is known of other investments which the Trustees were not aware of. In our view, the AGM is misplaced. It will serve no useful purpose in recovering illicit outflows which previous audits have failed to disclose. The starting point in our view would have been the appointment of a truly independent audit or indeed a commission of inquiry by Government or Trustees to undertake a comprehensive forensic audit of the fund that will bring out all relevant facts. Such an audit should have nothing to do with complicit PIA. We are convinced beyond any reasonable doubt that such an exercise will restore lost value to the fund while enabling Government institute more stringent control measures to avoid the abuse of pension funds.