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Estate agent watchdog to clean up act   Article Date :28 Oct 2005 Further comments from EAAB re forensic audit report. THE Estate Agency Affairs Board, the regulatory body for estate agents, said last week it would report all financial irregularities involving board members to the police and the treasury. This follows a forensic audit report that was commissioned by board CEO Nomonde Mapetla, which found financial irregularities and contraventions of corporate governance rules and the Public Finance Management Act. Mapetla said that on becoming board CEO about a year ago, she commissioned a full audit of the Fidelity Fund and the act. She said "the findings of the report have led to the resignations of five members of the board". The estate agents' board consists of 12 members. Mapetla said action had been taken to rectify financial irregularities found and further disciplinary action would be implemented in terms of the act. She would not name the board members, except to say that it was Trade and Industry Minister Mandisi Mpahlwa's prerogative to do so. Earlier last week, the trade and industry department said that Mpahlwa was evaluating the recommendations of the act as well as those of the department on the findings. Astrid Ludin, who is the trade and industry department's deputy director-general for consumer and corporate regulation, said that he would issue a statement once the minister had made a decision. Ludin said all five members who had resigned were in one way or another involved in either financial irregularities or breaches of the act and corporate governance rules. For instance, Mapetla said, one board member had conducted an evaluation of a property and charged the party concerned when he or she should not have done so. She said "the full substance of the findings" would be announced by Mpahlwa. Mapetla said some board members had had court judgments granted against them. Therefore, she said, those board members should not have been appointed to the agents' board in the first place. Others did not have South African citizenship and, in terms of the act, they should never have had places on the board in the first place. Mapetla said that the Fidelity Fund, from which claims were paid to people who had lost money from doing business with a registered estate agent, was financially sound. She said that no irregularities were found within the Fidelity Fund. CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO THE MAIN NEWS PAGE