This week Nigerian Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) drug regulators
announced they arrested 12 people in connection with the poisoning of 111 babies with a tainted teething medicine. If convicted NAFDAC says the 12 face upto 15 years behind bars or a US$ 3,500 fine.
The teething gel, ironically called "My Pikin" (my baby in pidgin) which contained a chemical substance, diethylene glycol that is commonly used as engine coolant, has already claimed 84 children’s lives.
On this side of the continent, impunity seems to be the name of the game as exhibited in the “trashed” report on defunct Nyaga Stockbrokers. By far in its time one of the more popular stockbrokers (as evidenced by long queues outside its Nation House headquarters in Nairobi), the report outlines a long standing fraud by the brokerage firm on unsuspecting investor clients.
Yesterday’s editorial in the Business Daily also pointed to further collusion in not pursuing the fraud. The paper’s journalists, as reported in the editorial, were dissuaded from investigating the Nyaga forensic report by industry insiders on the pretext that reporting on the Nyaga Stockbroker report “would erode investor confidence in the stock market”.
“Many sources talked to in the run-up to publication of our report on the Nyaga Stockbrokers fraud on Tuesday have, for instance, suggested that we should not carry the story for the simple reason that it would erode investor confidence in the stock market.
In these people’s world, stealing investors’ money, forgery, and engagement in illegal activities such as margin trading do not have any impact on investor confidence so long as the victims do not find out that they are being fleeced.” - Editorial: Investors deserve better than a landscape of fraud and graft, Business Daily, February 11, 2009
This burying of heads in the sand for the sake of keeping things “sawa” is what has led to the perpetuation of fraud and impunity in our society. When regulators and colleagues in the brokerage industry collude to hide evidence of fraud from the public, in the mistaken belief that “confidence” is at stake - of course it is at stake!
To allow the unsuspecting public to continue to invest in shams, when one knows the real story behind them, makes the abettor just as liable as the fraudster themselves.
As for the Capital Markets Authority where some of their officers did report anomalies in Nyaga and where nothing was done for five years, it is beyond comprehension how they have been allowed to sit on the forensic report since the end of last year on the pretext that they have to ensure its veracity! With such a slow pace in holding the fraud masterminds to account, it is such actions that do lead to “low investor confidence”. If our money will not be protected by the CMA who have dragged their feet in holding the wrongdoers to account, then why even be surprised when IPO’s such as Co-operative only subscribe upto 70%?
To know and not to do is not to knowJust yesterday in the UK, ex-HBOS bank chief Sir James Crosby quit as deputy director of the Financial Services Authority, after a
memo was produced suggesting he’d sacked his head of risk back in 2005 for suggesting the bank’s strategy was too risky.
In China, 2 dairy company executives were sentenced to death, whilst the company’s board chairperson will spend the rest of her life behind bars for selling milk contaminated with melamine.
Nigeria has also started proceedings against the “My Pickin” poisoning culprits.
In Kenya, financial fraud scams have not taken any lives as yet. However, if we allow the Nyaga report to go unaccounted for, then we fully deserve to be scammed by the next
Bernie Madoff that crosses our path!
Now, TODAY is the time to demand accountability – from our brokers, the regulators, our leaders, our managers, our employees, our friends, our family, and most importantly ourselves.
