Numsa Investment-owned 3Sixty Life has questioned the timing of the suspension of company curator Yashoda Ram by her employer, BDO, over allegations that she misrepresented her qualifications.
Her suspension comes on the eve of her submitting her report into the affairs of 3Sixty Life – she was supposed to present her report tomorrow.
The Joburg High Court in December placed 3Sixty Life, an underwriter of life insurance and funeral policies, under provisional curatorship.
The application was brought on an urgent basis by the Prudential Authority (PA).
However, the PA has now called Ram’s integrity into question and said she was appointed under false understanding of her qualifications.
BDO South Africa has since suspended Ram “and will conduct a full independent investigation into the matter”.
Khandani Msibi, 3Sixty Life’s CEO, said the company should not have been placed under curatorship and accused the PA of abusing its power.
“This case has proven that the PA first decided to place 3Sixty Life under curatorship and has since been searching for reasons to justify their decision,” Msibi said.
The main allegation against Ram by the PA is that she claimed to have a degree in actuarial science and that she did not complete the Certified Enterprise Risk Actuary (CERA) course as allegedly contained in her CV. The PA in its application to have the court remove Ram as the curator said: “It is undesirable to allow Ms Ram to continue to be the provisional curator when the authority no longer has faith in her integrity.”
BDO has removed her qualifications from its website. However, internal documents that give brief synopsis of its senior managers’ CVs do not list an actuarial science degree as one of her qualifications. CERA is listed as “completing”.
Ram is BDO’s head of actuarial services, having been appointed last year. In her affidavit, she refutes allegations she lied about her qualifications, saying the PA was aware she did not have an actuarial science degree and said she made the PA aware she had not yet completed CERA.
“It has become clear that the applicant wishes to frustrate the delivery of the aforementioned report which I am required by court order to deliver, by launching this application. That is so because the report will show that the applicant ought never to have placed the first respondent (3Sixty Life) under curatorship,” her affidavit reads in part.
DBO referred questions to the PA. Ram declined to comment.
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