SOE money at SME Bank unrecoverable

Loans awarded by the recently liquidated SME Bank could be recalled, but taxpayers' money invested in the financial institution is unlikely to be recovered. Speaking at a panel discussion on the closure of the SME Bank and its impact on small and medium enterprises (SMEs) on Tuesday, Eileen Rakow of the ombudsman's office explained that the liquidation process would proceed with money owed to the bank being recovered. “That money is gone and will have to be made up from somewhere else, and that is the biggest impact on the citizens and the man on the street, because they will have to recover that money,” Rakow said. She added that the legal procedures would take long and would require a lot of patience from Namibians. Rakow was speaking at a public lecture hosted by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung on Tuesday evening. The SME Bank was placed in provisional liquidation on 11 July 2017 as a result of unsound investments which led to the disappearance of N$200 million. Finance minister Calle Schlettwein recently said during a briefing on the state of the economy that there was no possibility that the monetary authorities here and in South Africa would be able to trace between N$181 million and N$196 million that had been invested in unsound financial instruments there. Another reason given for the closure was that the bank was insolvent and not in a position to service all its clients. “There were efforts by the South African Reserve Bank to trace the money; those efforts failed. It appears that it may be gone, that is the main cause of its illiquidity. That's the first point. The second is that its mandate was to serve small and medium enterprises. If looking at its structure, it did not,” said Schlettwein. “We will try to close the bank in a manner that all the depositors get their money back; we are curbing the losses. We are aware that others will be affected. A failing bank with a slow economy is a no-go, a failing bank will weaken the economy, we have to close the bank.” The liquidation order stands to be made final on 15 September 2017. About 200 people lost their jobs because of the closure of the SME Bank. -Additional reporting by own reporterNAMPA

SOE money at SME Bank unrecoverable

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Namibian Sun 2025-05-26

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SOE money at SME Bank unrecoverable

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Namibian Sun 2025-05-26

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