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Depositors of the liquidated SME Bank will have to contend with receiving five cents on the dollar as liquidators Bruni & McLaren have failed to raise enough to pay its thousands of depositors.This follows a meeting held yesterday with disgruntled depositors who wanted to know when the liquidators would make the next series of payments.The bank had - at some point - held as much as N$1.2 billion in depositor funds.Addressing the depositors, David Bruni of Bruni & McLaren said there was no more money to pay out in bigger ratios.“There is no money, no funds... there was N$1.2 billion of depositors’ money; that money is not there any more,” he said.The liquidators were engaged in efforts to raise as much money as is possible, he assured the depositors.“We’ve sued [Enoch] Kamushinda and a whole lot of them; it’s gone,” he added.The liquidators sued Zimbabwean businessman and banker Kamushinda and related companies for N$1 billion for liabilities of the collapsed bank, while minority shareholders were declared liable jointly and individually for the bank’s contracted debt.Into thin airThe SME Bank was closed in 2017 after approximately N$200 million the bank ‘invested’ with South African entities vanished into thin air.It is alleged that a lot of the SME Bank funds were deposited into Venda Building Society (VBS) Mutual Bank, a South African bank that is also now under curatorship.Kamushinda’s lawyers argued that if he were to be held liable, then all board members - including those who were serving on behalf of the government - should be held accountable too.The directors were secretary to the Cabinet George Simataa, defence minister Frans Kapofi, former government executive director Andrew Ndishishi, Social Security Commission executive officer Milka Mungunda, diplomat Petrina Nakale and businessman Justus Hausiku.Pay back the moneyBruni said efforts were also underway via the courts to get the bank’s former directors to pay back all directors’ fees they had earned.“We’ve sued all the directors. We are in court, court is a long process,” he said.The liquidators would not be able to increase the payouts by five cents even if they wanted to, Bruni explained.“We’ve got N$48 million in the bank. It is not enough to pay everyone, not even 10 cents on the dollar.”He, however, assured depositors that they could get the remainder of their monies by the end of June, depending on how long the Master of the High Court takes to finalise the payment process.

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Namibian Sun 2025-07-02

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Namibian Sun 2025-07-02

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