Mortgage lender Shelter Afrique has picked a Zimbabwean banker to implement proposals made in a forensic audit into cases of accounts manipulation and professional misconduct at the institution.
The troubled housing lender has hired Stanley Tsikirayi as a ‘change agent’ for a term of eight weeks following the exit of South African national Dave Jennings.
Mr Tsikirayi, a former StanChart managing director took office on Tuesday.
He is expected roll out the policies and measures spelt out in the Deloitte forensic audit report with a view to shoring up corporate governance and risk policies at the loss-making Shelter Afrique.
“His terms of reference are similar to those of Dave Jennings, the only major point of departure is that he will be more hands-on during the implementation stage,” Shelter Afrique said in a statement.
“He will also be with us for eight weeks, but that is likely to be extended at the discretion of the board.”
The incoming consultant worked as StanChart chief executive in charge of Sierra Leone, The Gambia, and Tanzania for more than seven years.
The undercurrents at Shelter Afrique burst to the fore in last September after the firm’s head of finance Godfrey Waweru blew the whistle via an email on the financial health of the mortgage lender.
Deloitte’s forensic audit report affirmed the allegations of subprime lending and creative accounting at Shelter Afrique. The report led to the exit of managing director James Mugerwa.
Shelter Afrique adopted the forensic audit report at an extra-ordinary board meeting held on January 31 in Nairobi.
Some of the recommendations to be rolled out include benchmarking Shelter Afrique’s accounting policies with global best practices and Central Bank of Kenya prudential guidelines.
Mr. Tsikirayi will implement new standards on issues such as loan loss provisioning, grading of non-performing loans, valuation of projects, credit policies, board and executives remuneration, and human resource guidelines.
Moody’s and South African rating agency GCR have recently downgraded Shelter Afrique’s long-term issuer rating to B3 and B (KE) respectively from Ba3 rating and A1(KE) previously.
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Credit: Business Daily
