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Cape Town - The SA Reserve Bank (Sarb) does not feel under fire and will not be commenting on the detail of the leaked preliminary report by Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane that recommends Absa pays back R2.25bn it received as part of an unlawful apartheid-era bailout.
Sarb governor Lesetja Kganyago told Biznews's Alec Hogg in an interview in Davos that, from Sarb's reading of the report, there are factual errors which can easily be corrected if the Public Protector had paid attention to particular documents. Sarb intends to point her to these documents.
The R2.25bn pertains to the bank's acquisition of Bankorp in 1992. Bankorp started receiving assistance from Sarb in 1985. Sarb, National Treasury and the Presidency are implicated in the preliminary report. In a statement, Absa has since indicated that all obligations to the Sarb had been discharged in full by October 1995.
READ: Absa report leak may be politically motivated
"Once you have seen these documents, you would probably arrive at a different decision to the one that she probably would have arrived and until the final report is availed, we will not be commenting on the detail of the report," said Kganyago.
"We had to go back and dig out information and all the governors from Chris Stals to Tito Mboweni, to Gill Marcus, had all corroborated with us recollecting to search for these documents and one of the things that is striking is that there’s a wealth of documents and information from the Tollgate Enquiry, which people do not seem to have been aware of."
He also pointed out that there were the Jules Braud Enquiry, the Dennis Davis Enquiry and now the Public Protector Enquiry on the matter.
"We have received the provisional report and we have a duty, in terms of the constitution to assist the Public Protector in his or her duties," said Kganyago.
Mkhwebane used a 1997 report by Ciex, a British company founded by ex-British spies that approached the democratic South African government to help it recover "billions" looted from state coffers during apartheid, according to Huffington Post.
Ciex “sold an operation called ‘Spear’ to government, which claimed it can recover an amount of R3.2bn from Absa, between R3bn and R6bn from Sanlam and the then-Rembrandt Cigarette Company and up to R5.5bn from Aerospatiale/Daimler-Chrysler,” Huffington Post’s Pieter du Toit explained.
Three years after the Ciex report, the Davis Panel of experts appointed by Mboweni found that Absa’s shareholders did not derive any undue benefit from the Sarb’s intervention, and as such no claim of restitution could be pursued against Absa, the bank said in a statement on January 13.
Absa said the public protector has been invited to inspect confidential documents in its possession pertinent to the successful finalisation of the investigation.
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