Businesswoman Danisa Baloyi has relinquished all her posts with companies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), she said through her spokesperson on Tuesday.
”Due to the sustained media attention on my person and now my qualifications, it is apparent that my contribution to the organisations I serve cannot continue in the positive spirit I originally intended.”
Baloyi’s move follows her removal last Tuesday from the board of the Absa Group and Absa Bank due to public disclosures related to irregularities at Fidentia.
She has also ”stepped aside” as chancellor of the University of Fort Hare and director of Metrofile Holdings.
”I have … decided to resign from all boards and positions that I hold in public and private organisations in order to dedicate all my energies to the challenges I face.”
Although the Don Group said it had decided to retain Baloyi as director of the hotel group, she said she was withdrawing from all 16 companies, as well as the NGOs she served ”until all matters relating to the alleged irregularities with respect to Fidentia have been resolved”.
”After yesterday [Monday] morning, when my children refused to go to school, I need no convincing that it is now time out.”
Baloyi, Businesswoman of the Year in 2003, was a director and trustee of Fidentia which was placed under final curatorship in the Cape High Court on Tuesday morning.
Her qualifications were also questioned when Sake24 reported on Tuesday that she might not hold a doctorate as stated in Absa’s annual report.
It said this emerged from enquiries made by the ITI internet news service at Columbia University in New York.
The university could not confirm that she had a doctorate, saying she had obtained MA and M.Ed degrees.
Baloyi started studying for an Ed.D doctorate but never completed her studies, the university said.
Baloyi intends challenging the Absa move saying: ”I stand guilty of no offence under the Company’s Act, Banks’ Act and Absa’s Regulations [sic].”
Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown and fellow Fidentia director Graham Maddock were arrested by the Scorpions on March 6, on fraud and theft charges involving at this stage just over R200-million.
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 allegedly paid to her — which Brown denied had been written off, saying that it was a legitimate loan to help her capitalise her business assets. – Sapa