The DA will write to the Financial Services Board (FSB) to request that they investigate Regiments Capital and their directors for possible breaches of the Financial and Intermediary Services (FAIS) Act.
This follows the astonishing revelations that Regiments Capital, between December 2015 and April 2016, made unlawful payments of more than R500 million from the Transnet Second Defined Benefit Fund to Gupta-linked Trillian and Albatime.
The fund entered into a contract with Regiments to manage its assets in August 2014, which was later cancelled in September 2016.
The FAIS Act states that it is the responsibility of Financial Service Providers (FSP), such as Regiments, to “specify […] who supplies the products and give specific information [relating] to the nature and features of the products as well as the cost for the client in obtaining any product”.
Given that Regiments and its directors failed to disclose to whom and what the pension money was being invested in, it would appear to be a breach of the FAIS Act.
Thousands of Transnet workers, some of them already retired, spent their whole lives doing back-breaking work, only to have their hard-earned money essentially stolen by the greedy and corrupt Guptas and their henchmen.
Although the fund has laid charges against Regiments, Trillian and Albatime for these unlawful payments, Transnet is equally to blame for their complete negligence in this entire scandal.
There were no existing contracts or obligation for the fund to make any payments to either, Albatime or Trillian. Yet the money left the pension fund without anyone at Transnet noticing that these large sums of money were disappearing from the workers’ pension fund.
The DA, therefore, urges the FSB to also investigate the directors of Transnet’s pension funds.
At the end of the day, it was the responsibility of Transnet fund managers to perform their fiduciary duty and ensure proper oversight on every activity regarding the monies in the pension fund.
They failed in their duty, and must, therefore, be held accountable for their failure to protect the pensions of Transnet workers.
This is also not the first time Transnet has come under fire for alleged mismanagement of pension funds. In 2012, the Public Protector agreed to launch a preliminary investigation into alleged financial mismanagement of two Transnet pension funds, following a complaint from the DA.
The DA will not sit by quietly as those implicated in State Capture, raid the pension funds of our hardworking and dedicated workers.