Housekeeping - NCC back on the list; SAVCA? and statistics

The morning was long, and gave me ample opportunity to think about my blogging activities. First I had to get up along with the birds because my licence had to be renewed. I discovered that my old licence had expired some days ago, and anticipated a good few hours in a queue with assorted fellow citizens. Not so! No waiting in line, and after half an hour we were back home, temporary licence in my pocket. Yes, its good to be legal again. I need to compliment the Tshwane council with their excellent, pleasant and efficient service.

Before I get to the statistics of the blog, I need to make some announcements:

NCC back in the loop
The NCC is back on the email list, and this time Clive le Meme will receive all the blog updates and comments as a direct feed. Now, I must add that I do this with some hesitation, as they don't seem like a very cooperative lot, and it is my sense that they are not friendly either. The reason why I decided to let them be in the first place, is that I considered them of little consequence in the matter of Edwafin. However, after some thought and after listening to the little devil on my shoulder, I fully realize that they are solidly involved in the Edwafin debacle. Let's be honest, their acronym appears on the brochures of Edwabond, the folks that dealt with the marketing of our dentures.

I quote again from the NCC's website:

We undertake to perform a risk management due diligence of our client’s practice and thereafter implement a compliance monitoring system that will not only exceed the requirements of the legislation but will also help to maintain the profitability of the practice.

According to Mr Le Meme they have been in contact with Edwabond since October last year, which to me is an indication that they must have been aware of the brewing problems since then. The question is now: "What did they do to try and remedy the situation?" Le Meme states in an email that he is satisfied that they complied with their brief, but where do we see any of the results. Is it not for us the public to decide whether a public body like the NCC has fulfilled their brief? How is it that six months later we have to deal with this mess, while the NCC has seemingly been silent all that time. One wonders what the NCC did to help maintain the profitability of Edwaband/Edwafin, or how the company was allowed to continue its activities, while they were aware of the financial difficulties.
As mentioned before, Mr Le Meme will receive our regular updates, and if he prefers not to, I shall replace his address with that of the CEO of the NCC, Adv. Opperman.
Tut, tut, tut, Mr Le Meme, we are waiting with abated breath on information about your activities in respect of Edwafin.

SAVCA revisited
You may remember that SAVCA was mentioned in the same breath as the NCC, and they were also placed on the email list. At least the NCC responded in a manner of sorts, but SAVCA is a quiet as the local graveyard that was raided by the ghost busters. Alas we found another email address, the executive officer, Mr JP Fourie, and he will be receiving updates from this blog in future. I repeat my previous quote taken from the site of SAVCA:
The codes of conduct of the SAVCA includes the following clauses:

Members will conduct their business in a responsible way and will not engage in practices which would be damaging to the image and interests of the venture capital and private equity industries.

Members will assure a high standard of their investment portfolio and will avoid financing enterprises or participating in activities which are contrary to these goals. They will take a long term view of the economy and private equity and venture capital industries, rather than engage in short-term speculation.

Each member shall promote and maintain ethical standards of conduct and deal fairly and honestly with all business concerns seeking its assistance, with all companies to or with whom it makes loans or investments, and with all other private equity and venture capital companies.

No venture capital or private equity fund may be used to promote the welfare or assist its directors, managers, employees, nominees, and representatives, except insofar as they benefit from the success of the fund according to established compensation and profit sharing contracts.

Members will be accountable to their investors by fully disclosed operating and financial reports.

Unethical conduct will be deemed to include any evasive device intended to conceal non-compliance with the Code of Conduct and any regulations enacted by the proposed Professional Standards Committee, designated by the committee of SAVCA for its enforcement.

Members will abide by the code of conduct and all rulings and regulations issued by the proposed Professional Standards Committee designated by SAVCA committee.

Isn't it interesting, but perhaps typical, that two of the more important bodies who's emblems and acronyms were used to promote Edwabond, are now tiptoeing through the tulips. One presumes that their work is easy when all goes well, but that it increases in complexity when trouble brews and actual active attention needs to be given to resolving a problem.

Statistics
A few days ago, I installed a statistics module in this blog, and I'm sorry that I had not thought of it before, as one has no idea about how many people have visited the site since its inception. Some figures for the period 6 April until today (2.5 days):

Total visitors: 488
Documents accessed: 186

Entering the sixth month of financial draught

As we statrted April, we started the sixth month of essentially non-payment by Edwafin. For me it is also thee fourth month that I have been trying to get my investment back from our friend Stapleton.
Perhaps you will recall that NCC is used as a credential on the promotional material of Edwabond, the Edwafin subsidiary that promotes and handles the debenture products. A few days ago I added the email address of the CEO of the NCC to the blog mailing list. I sense that that did not go down well.
Somewhere I missed a beat or two, as the NCC's Clive le Meme informed me via email that they have been in contact with Edwabond since October last year already, and that he will be attending the meeting with the FSB and Edwabond on 8 April. As far as I was aware, the problems around Edwafin (and its subsidiaries) only became the subject of government scrutiny during recent weeks. Anyway, read for yourself:
20090404 Email From CNN 1

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I removed the NCC's email from the list as it is clear that we don't share the same planet, and that we have to do here with a highly evolved species that clearly does like interacting with standard humans. Thus I provided Mr Le Meme, with my arguments:
20090404 Mario Responds to CNN 1

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To which the response was:
20090404 Email From CNN 2

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Well, clearly that was the wrong address, and is a clear indication that elements of 19th century snobbery is well an alive in the 21st century. The point that I tried to convey to Mr Le Meme is that people bought into Edwabond/Edwafin based on various factors, and one of those is the credibility that organizations like the NCC gives to such a financial institution. Five/six months after things begin to collapse at Edwafin, they provide the enquirer with a curt "we feel that we have done enough, and our duty." My -my, during those intervening months attempts were still made by Edwabond to rope investors into their scheme.

But let us forget about the NCC. An important aspect emerged from my interaction with the "entity" as Mr Le Meme refers to the NCC. Both the FSB and the NCC, can only deal with Edwabond, and have little jurisdiction over Edwafin, if any. Beside revoking Edwabonds licence, they have little to contribute to recovering any or some of the investors money. or to bring any perpetrators to book. It would, therefore, be prudent to rather concentrate efforts on recovering our money via other legal means, and on reporting progress that may be made by other Government bodies. I must say, though, that most of them are extremely quiet.

And the letters keep coming, sad, sad, sad.....

In a way I miss the Edwafin logo on my daily blog, and if it wasn't so much effort, I would delete some of the pictures in the earlier blogs, just to be able to add them here. But what, we can make do without the pictures for a while.

Except for a good number of emails in support of this blog, there were also a good number of investors and ex-employees of Edwafin and its subsidiaries. While I was working in my workshop this morning, I could only shake my head in partial disbelieve and partial dismay at the absolute disregard for human dignity and fairness the Edwafin group of companies have shown, and are probably still showing their staff and their investors.

One frustrating aspect of all these messages is the fact that most people want to remain anonymous, or would not like to have their information published because it may either identify them, or their contentions are essentially speculatory.

It struck me also this morning, that I am probably one of the lucky investors who received his interest in monthly installments. There are probably a good number who saw their investments as a type of savings account, and who expected double their money back at the end of a five year period. At least, I and other got something from the deal.

Although I had hoped otherwise, there has still been no signs of life from CIPRO or the NPA. Unless they are working on the case behind the scene, this is a sad indictment of the effectiveness of these two important bodies in a matter that affects 4000 citizens (some non-citizens though), and to the tune of many millions.

In the mean time concern is being expressed about the reason why past directors, who had vast sums of money invested in Edwafin, so easily left the company in recent times. Why also the CEO, Mr Patrick Stapleton, is now the only Stapleton member left in the company?

A question I keep asking is, if the company is not currently in a profit making situation, and in view of the fact that it could not pay its investors (and retrenched staff) in November - January (and only 25% thereafter), where did Stapleton get the money from to pay the 25% interest and his staff?

Another question that keeps cropping up is what about Mr Brian Poliah, The financial main man of Edwafin. One supposes that he is an important cog in the financial planning and execution of our most favourit company. yet, I suppose, if my field of activity had to go as pear shaped as his has done, I would also hang my head very low in shame.

If have just checked, and Edwabond still seems to be going strong (at least as far as the Internet is concerned. Earlier I mentioned that they are members of both SAVCA and NCC.

The codes of conduct of the SAVCA includes the following clauses:

Members will conduct their business in a responsible way and will not engage in practices which would be damaging to the image and interests of the venture capital and private equity industries.

Members will assure a high standard of their investment portfolio and will avoid financing enterprises or participating in activities which are contrary to these goals. They will take a long term view of the economy and private equity and venture capital industries, rather than engage in short-term speculation.

Each member shall promote and maintain ethical standards of conduct and deal fairly and honestly with all business concerns seeking its assistance, with all companies to or with whom it makes loans or investments, and with all other private equity and venture capital companies.

No venture capital or private equity fund may be used to promote the welfare or assist its directors, managers, employees, nominees, and representatives, except insofar as they benefit from the success of the fund according to established compensation and profit sharing contracts.

Members will be accountable to their investors by fully disclosed operating and financial reports.

Unethical conduct will be deemed to include any evasive device intended to conceal non-compliance with the Code of Conduct and any regulations enacted by the proposed Professional Standards Committee, designated by the committee of SAVCA for its enforcement.

Members will abide by the code of conduct and all rulings and regulations issued by the proposed Professional Standards Committee designated by SAVCA committee.

One wonders where SAVCA is in all of this, perhaps I should include their email in the blog list - sorry Verona, you had to go I needed your spot in the list. In any case you are one of the silent types, the keep it close to the chest members of staff. I would have loved to tell you how much help you provided me in trying to get my money back, but then I would have to be rude. You do the legal profession proud, I'm convinced. Anyway, off you go!

Hey, but wait, I'm not done yet. Here is another quote, this time from the annals of the NCC:

We undertake to perform a risk management due diligence of our client’s practice and thereafter implement a compliance monitoring system that will not only exceed the requirements of the legislation but will also help to maintain the profitability of the practice.

Now, where on earth were these guys - they were unknown to me, and even now with the whole debacle going on, they are simply silent. I suppose I need to put them on the list as well. The chief at the NCC is Adv. Daniel Opperman, and he will receive our emails then, it's a pity but I had to remove Edwafin's "admin" email. There are only ten spots you see - Google is rather stingy in that respect.