A cache of leaked documents from the Eswatini Financial Intelligence Unit has raised questions about the origins and purpose of a tiny Swazi bank.
The documents comprise more than 890,000 internal records from the Eswatini Financial Intelligence Unit obtained by Distributed Denial of Secrets, a nonprofit devoted to publishing and archiving leaks, which shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists . ICIJ coordinated a team of 38 journalists from 11 countries — including amaBhungane — to investigate illicit or suspicious financial flows in southern Africa and beyond.
But it’s essentially a bank in name only. For the past few years, it has been engaged in a tug-of-war with the regulator, the Central Bank of Eswatini , over its banking licence. In fact, the bank’s very location in Bulembu — a town owned by the Christian non-profit that Rijkenberg founded and was made chairperson of in 2018 — is one of several indications linking him to the bank and its Canadian owners.
Asfar told local media that he had a plan to sell off some of his properties to settle with creditors and would offer them “100 cents on the dollar”. In 2016, Bulembu was already closely associated with Rijkenberg, who was at the time a prominent businessman in the forestry industry, two years before he became finance minister.
The following year saw the emergence of Farmers Bank in Eswatini, according to findings contained in a 2022 report by the British arm of the US financial and risk advisory firm Kroll.According to the Kroll report, an unnamed CBE official said in an internal email correspondence that he received a request in “late 2016 or early 2017” from someone named Sikelela Dlamini to meet with “acquaintances of one of the princes” about the banking licence application process.
Our investigation found names of proposed executives were misspelled, that their roles were mixed up and the financial statements of the parent companies were incomplete.The bank intended to provide a “unique service to its agricultural customers”. But on the page before that in the application, the bank said its loans would be “wholesale in nature and focused on creating financial products that suits the industrial needs of Swaziland in creating an Industrial Zone around the new Airport”.
Worldwide was established only a few days before the application was submitted and was in turn owned entirely by a Canadian corporation called Tetrillion. The CBE also had concerns about the ownership of the bank and the “fitness and probity” of the Asfars “because of information obtained in the preliminary assessment of the application”. The CBE asked the EFIU to assist in vetting the “directors, executives and parent companies”.
Yet Farmers Bank downplayed John Asfar’s involvement in the bank and claimed that his role was merely to “set up the bank”, according to the Kroll report. According to the Kroll report, the source of the Tetrillion money was unclear, and three years of audited Tetrillion financial statements only further muddied the waters.
As it turned out, between August 2015 and November 2017, Alexandre Asfar had transferred R132.87-million in 15 payments to an account of South African lawyers Wynand Naudé Inc — a conduit for Farmers Bank — with most of the money coming via two Canadian law firms.
None of the funds appeared to have landed in the account of Farmers Bank and by September 2019 the funds transferred to Pentillion had left the country to purchase silver bullion, seemingly from Rand Refinery in South Africa. First, that John Asfar, through Pentillion’s control of the bullion, ultimately controlled Farmers Bank but had not completed a “fit and proper” assessment as required by banking regulations. Second, whether the bullion really existed as an asset of the bank.
According to media reports, when the appeal was lodged, Rijkenberg, who as finance minister would normally have heard the appeal, recused himself. He appointed the Minister of Commerce, Industry and Trade, Manqoba Khumalo, to adjudicate the matter. The reports did not include Rijkenberg’s reason for recusing himself.
Beyond that, the Kroll report cast doubt on Khumalo’s idea that there was “no compelling reason to doubt the source of funds” by demonstrating in detail the inconsistencies and omissions in Farmers Bank’s explanation of the source of its money, in addition to the lack of transparency in the bank’s corporate structure.
The Kroll report, which was completed during that time, could not find any rationale for the extension. The payments were relatively small but showed a link between the finance minister and those behind the bank. When approached with these allegations, Rijkenberg declined to provide answers “on illegally obtained or leaked information as it would be a breach of the laws of Eswatini”.Back in 2019, First National Bank , where Farmers Bank had two accounts, decided that it did not have the appetite for the risks associated with Farmers Bank and terminated their relationship, citing “inconsistencies … pertaining to the client’s KYC documents”.
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