’Marafaele Mohloboli
THE Lesotho Post Bank has indefinitely suspended its chief of credit Themba Sopeng for an alleged fraud involving one of the bank’s clients M7 million.
Sources privy to the matter say that the money was transferred from an account belonging to Meriti Holdings on 23 January 2019 into one belonging to a Teboho Construction held with another local bank.
The sources say the scam happened on the same day when the account holders had just submitted a new shareholding structure to the bank and were instead expecting funds to be transferred into their account.
Previously, Teboho Mothebesoane controlled 490 shares of Meriti Holdings while Xao Fung owned 510. However, as of 15 January 2019 Mr Mothebesoane became the sole shareholder of the company controlling all 1000 shares.
“On 23 January Meriti Holdings came to change their account signatories for their account at the bank and started following up on payments which they were expecting,” a source close to the bank said.
“It is then that that they received notifications of funds being transferred from their account instead of the account being credited with new deposits. The notifications showed that the transfers were being made into an account owned by Teboho Construction held with a local bank,” the source added.
Lesotho Post Bank chief risk officer Molefi Khama confirmed Mr Sopeng’s suspension and said investigations were underway into what could have transpired.
“Mr Sopeng was suspended on Wednesday pending investigations into the matter and the Directorate of Corruption and Economic Offences (DCEO) has also come on board to investigate further,” Mr Khama said.
Mr Khama also appealed to the Post Bank’s clients to keep their faith in the institution saying their funds were safe as the bank has everything under control.
“We would like to urge all our clients not to panic because what has happened as all our security checks are in order. Their money is safe with us and we want to believe that this is the first and the last case of this nature at the bank.
“Had it not been for our effective security measures, we could have not spotted the discrepancy,” Mr Khama said.
The M7million is alleged to have been withdrawn within two hours after it was reported missing.
