MBABANE:Neal Rijikernberg, the Minister of Finance is allegedly working towards ensuring that, members of the public who lost their monies in the widely reported Ecsponent multimillion investment scandal, are refunded.
This was allegedly discussed on Wednesday during a meeting between the Finance Minister, Central Bank Governor Dr Phil Mnisi and R340million Ecsponent ‘suspect’ David Van Niekerk,the meeting was held at Fourth(4th) Floor Central Bank of Eswatini(CBE) Building from 12pm until 2pm.
A source very close to those who were part of the meeting told this Swaziland News on Monday that,the Minister proposed that, Escponent Eswatini Director David Van Niekerk and the other suspect must contribute at least R100million each for now, while the matter is being discussed.
“The Finance Minister wants the Ecsponent suspects to contribute at least R100million each for now and, Government and the Financial Services Regulatory Authority(FSRA) will also contribute. He wants refunds for the public while the matter is being dealt with by the law enforcement agencies. What was discovered here is that even the FSRA failed to screen these people before awarding them a license to operate hence the Minister wants even Government and FSRA to contribute. The Wednesday meeting was about that and the Minister will engage Parliament for approval of this proposal”, said the source.
Efforts reach the Finance Minister for a comment proved unsuccessful at the time of compiling this report.
On another note, this publication reported that,David Van Niekerk previously ran to King Mswati for alleged protection amid an investigation into the R340million scandal.
When this publication tried to reach Deputy Speaker Madala Mhlanga, the Chairman of the Ecsponent Select Committee tasked with addressing the issue,his phone rang answered.
But a Member of Parliament(MP) who preferred to remain anonymous confirmed that, the Finance Minister has been lobbying them to approve the proposal to refund members of the public their monies.
“I am aware of the proposal by the Finance Minister in fact, the Minister is also under pressure from the King to resolve this issue because it has been creating problems for Government in the eyes of the public.Even though the King was seen meeting one of the suspects David Van Niekerk, the King also wants to see this matter resolved and the public must be refunded. So the Finance Minister is under pressure to address this issue particularly because he told some of us as MPs that, FSRA and Government did not do a proper investigation on these people before awarding the license and if an investigation was properly conducted, this alleged fraud could have been avoided”, said the MP.
Finance Minister Neal Rijikernberg.