Businesswoman Danisa Baloyi vowed on Tuesday to fight her removal from the board of Absa Bank over her involvement in the Fidentia matter.
”After much soul-searching and consultations, I refuse to be pushed off the Absa boards as this would have given the impression that I have done something wrong,” she wrote in a statement.
Absa chairperson Danie Cronje informed Baloyi in a letter dated Monday that her membership on the board of directors at Absa Group and Absa Bank Limited had been terminated.
Absa spokesperson Makhosini Nkosi said: ”This action … follow[s] public disclosures regarding her involvement with the Fidentia matter.”
The termination was immediate, he said.
Baloyi claimed that Cronje and the Absa management went about the matter in ”ways fully deserving of contempt”.
”They engaged in behind-the-scenes, clandestine activities that exacerbated an already flammable and highly emotive issue.”
Absa denied these allegations.
Baloyi said she stood guilty of no offence under the Companies Act, the Banks Act and Absa’s regulations.
”I discharged my fiduciary duty and my duty of care … in a diligent manner. I was still prepared to continue in this manner until I was wrongfully removed.”
A Financial Services Board report on Fidentia Asset Management (FAM) accused Baloyi of being exposed to a conflict of interest in her role as a trustee on the board of the Living Hands Trust, the Mail & Guardian reported earlier this month.
Baloyi and fellow Living Hands trustee Hjalmar Mulder were both directors of Fidentia Holdings, the sole shareholder of FAM, the company managing the Living Hands Trust, the newspaper reported.
Fidentia’s curators uncovered an R8-million loan Fidentia paid to her — which Fidentia executive chairperson J Arthur Brown denied had been written off, saying that it was a legitimate loan to help her capitalise her business assets.
Baloyi was named Businesswoman of the Year in 2003 and sits on a number of boards. She is also a Chancellor at Fore Hare University, the Mail & Guardian reported. — Sapa