Mogwera’s resilience salvages millions for BOPEU
Arecent Court of Appeal ruling which described a P13 million commission claim by Ernest Molome, a close buddy of Andrew Motsamai, the then all powerful executive chairman at Babereki investments,gives insight into the thuggery and thievery that characterized life at Babereki investments, where the top brass had been spoiling themselves with the loot from public officers’ funds for years unabated, until Masego Mogwera came into the picture to scare away the looters and salvage whatever she could for the 35000 members strong BOPEU.
While in some quarters Mogwera’s success in securing convictions of the looters may be heralded as the best example ever, it is squarely these selfless efforts that have led to Mogwera on going troubled leadership at BOPEU, as the affected parties who face the consequences of paying back the loot and being auctioned , had been openly influencing BOPEU union politics, that have resulted in regime toppling, all in the hope of securing freedom for themselves as well as rewarding their helpers with perks of stolen power.
The High court panel of three judges recently declared the toppling of Mogwera and her
Secretary General Topias Marenga at the April 27 2019 NEC meeting, unconstitutional and null and void.
Soon as she ascended to the Bopeu Presidency when Motsamai was appointed the executive chairman in 2017, Mogwera as both the President of Bopeu and the overseer of its business wing instituted audit of the company’s finances and heads started rolling, with Motsamai and his right hand man, the chief finance officer.
Before then the Bopeu company had failed on numerous occasions to produce audited accounts from 2014/15 to 2015/16, and 2017, raising alarms that things could be messy at the company.
A can of worms was opened at one October 2017, Babereki Investments Special Board meeting, where Mogwera informed the Board that there were six vehicles hired from Avis by the Bopeu funeral parlour operators, BKL.
It was found that three of the vehicles were used by directors of a different company to BKL, being FSI, which was an electronics shop company, and three by directors of BKL, who, curiously were not employees of BKL; including Molome, another sitting director of KBL, and the then babereki investments finance chief.
According to the information that Mogwera presented to the board the Avis account was in arrears by P468,000 as a result of this abuse which appeared to be ignored by company management. This discovery did not only lead to the sacking of Motsamai but saw Mogwera going deeper to institute forensic investigations into the affairs of the company.
A little background; for 2014/15 and 2015/16 Price Water house & Coopers was appointed to conduct an audit of Babereki Investments. The audit for the 2014/2015 financial year had failed to pass the test. Further, the financial statements were not submitted on time at the Congress and this did not comply with The Union’s Constitution. Further the audit for the 2015/2016 financial
Year also failed to pass the test due to subsidiaries not submitting audited financials for consolidation. Only a draft was presented at the Bopeu conference. For 2017, the 2016/2017 audited financials were not submitted because it was incomplete.
When Babereki parted ways with Motsamai and the finance chief over the avis vehicles scandal, that was not the only matter boiling over; there had been great concern regarding certain transactions that the departed duo had completed during their tenure, and Mogwera engaged bopeu auditors EY to conduct an audit of Babereki affairs.
After completing a large portion of its audit, EY requested that BOPEU/Babereki commission a forensic investigation into various transactions concluded by the previous Chairman and CFO of Babereki.
In particular, EY highlighted the purchasing of an interest in or providing loan facilities to BKL funeral parlours, aircraft maintenance company known as Flying Mission, lodge outfit by the name of Stoffberg; payments made by Babereki to Quality Builders in respect of the Gaborone North Investment Property; as well as investment made into FMS; as well as payment made to Molome/Mamataz in respect to a P1.2bn loan facility they were supposed to arrange for Babereki investments.
The forensic report which Mogwera has since released to NEC members further questions Molome’s financial services skills as he seemed to be the go-to-man for many Babereki transactions which were found by the forensic report to be questionable, including the claim of over P13 million when he should have got only P1.5 million.
The report identified Molome/Mamataz as having brokered deals such as BKL funeral parlour, FSI- a gadgets shop, Gaborone north property development, none of which had been a success despite millions of Pula poured into the companies.
It would seem the forensic findings were just what the doctor ordered as the report would
later be used by Mogwera in court to successfully pursue millions of pula lost to the Bopeu company during Motsamai’s tenure including a P42 million losses Bopeu put squarely on Motsamai, who has since indicated he was appealing.
Mogwera had also been successful in auctioning aircraft maintenance company where millions of Pula were invested by Motsamai without the board’s approval.
In another matter Mogwera successfully blocked a P2 million liability claim from a company called Boditse which had approached the courts with a claim to the effect that Motsamai had authorized it to make claims of up to P2 million from Babereki investments without questions asked.
Mogwera’s dedication to restoring order in the union is not only backed by her successes in the courts in securing the assets of the union. The most recent audit report of the bopeu company’s finances shows that Babereki investments doubled profits this year as well as cutting losses drastically compared to preceding years.
Profit before tax for the year ending June 2020 was P14, 612, 040, compared with P10, 740, 737 for 2019, while total comprehensive income was P14, 159, 954 for this year, compared to P6, 307, 229. The audited statement also shows that the company has slashed accumulated losses by 50%.