Controversial South African forensic audit firm, ADM Financial Forensic Services, is allegedly playing cat and mouse with former Botswana Premier League (BPL) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Bennett Mamelodi in an attempt to evade appearing in court to answer for its findings.
The firm is at the heart of the forensic audit report that alleged ‘maladministration and misappropriation of funds’ by Mamelodi.
The former Botswana Premier League (BPL) Chief Executive Officer who has always maintained his innocence, upped the ante in his efforts to clear his name and took a decision to subpoena the audit firm, whose report formed the basis of his dismissal as the BPL boss.
Despite Botswana Football Association (BFA)’s attempts to shield the ‘forensic audit firm’ from being cited as respondents, their scheme crashed when courts agreed that the company be joined in the court proceedings as third respondents alongside the Botswana Football Association (BFA) and former BFA acting CEO Susan Lawrence.
In the aftermath of the court decision, Mamelodi, through his lawyer, Busang Dutch Leburu of Monthe and Marumo Attorneys, then approached the courts seeking to be granted permission to serve the audit firm with court papers, an application which was also granted.
The attempt by Mamelodi and his legal team to have the South African based firm served is however said to have hit a snag as the firm is avoiding to be served with court papers.
According to Leburu, “ADM officials contacted by our team were not cooperative and did not want to be served nor give physical address of their office.”
With ADM seemingly not keen to defend their findings in court and evading service, Mamelodi’s legal team is now seeking to approach the courts again to try and flush them off their hiding place.
“We will go back to court to vary the court order because ADM is evading the court process. It seems they don’t even have a place they are operating from. The fact that they don’t want to receive court papers makes the whole forensic audit even more suspicious. Why should they not accept the court papers?” Leburu asked.
Sunday Standard efforts to establish the authenticity of ADM auditing firm hit a snag. As part of its effort to establish the authenticity of ADM, Sunday Standard had an interview with the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners South Africa Chapter (ACFESA) to ascertain whether they have registered with them.
When asked if ADM has registered with them, Kelly McGeer, communications officer at ACFESA said “no they are not.”
She also revealed that Marlize Hollenbach, the person who authored the BPL forensic audit is not in their data base.
Chris de Beer, Executive manager of Institute of Commercial Forensic Practioners (ICFP) also did not know about the existence of ADM.
“ADM Financial Forensic Services or its employees are not registered with the ICFP,” he said.
ADM Financial Forensic Services was engaged by the BPL board under the Chairmanship of Rapula Okaile in April 2016 to audit the BPL. The matter later escalated to the BFA with association President MacLean Letshwiti and 2nd Vice President Marshlow Motlogelwa being actively involved.
The Emergency Committee of the BFA made up of Letshwiti, Motlogelwa and the 1st Vice President Segolame Ramotlhwa adopted the Report in January 2016.
Mamelodi and his legal team question the authenticity of the report and question how the report was adopted by the BFA. The former BPL CEO is contending that his expulsion was based on an illegal and unlawful document.
