THE High Court last week rejected an attempt by the troubled MKM to suspend its liquidation pending the finalisation of the company’s case in the Court of Appeal.
That means the liquidation of MKM, a Ponzi scheme which was shut down in November 2007, will now begin in earnest.
As our lead story shows (Page 2 and 3), the liquidators have a battle on their hands as they begin unravelling the extent of the rot in MKM.
There is no doubt that MKM was an elaborate scheme that ripped off nearly of quarter of this country’s 1.8 million people.
That the company founded by Simon Thebe-ea-Khale was running illegal banking and insurance businesses has been confirmed by both the High Court and the Court of Appeal.
MKM was one big swindle that was bound to collapse, sooner rather than later, even if the Central Bank of Lesotho (CBL) had not closed it in 2007.
The only reason it did not crumble on its own was because someone else was quick enough to force it to shut down, never mind Thebe-ea-Khale’s assertions that the company was and is still solvent.
The tragedy is that even after MKM’s businesses were declared illegal by the courts its directors are still enjoying their ill-gotten wealth.
They are living in luxury even after the courts have ruled that theirs was an illegal operation that brought untold misery to almost 400 000 people.
This injustice should not be allowed to continue because its consequences to the economic wellbeing of this country are enormous.
No one must be allowed to enjoy the profits of an illegal enterprise.
To allow Thebe-ea-Khale and his cahoots to continue enjoying such benefits will set a wrong precedent that will spew more illegal and fraudulent businesses in this country.
Lesotho’s fragile economy and its poor people cannot afford that.
That is why we strongly urge the liquidators to go after the company’s directors and reclaim any assets they bought with investors’ funds. Thebe-ea-Khale and his fellow directors must be made to return every cent they received from investors.
It is important that the process to seize their assets starts now, lest they spirit them away or register them under proxies.
To that end, it would help if Thebe-ea-Khale and his fellow conspirators are immediately specified to guard against any further chicanery.
Their bank accounts and assets must be frozen immediately to protect the interests of investors who have been waiting for the past four years to get their monies.
While we admit that the cake to be shared is already very small but we believe it can be augmented if the liquidators take their time to trace how the money was used and who benefited from the deceitful scheme that MKM was.
If they fail to trace those assets the liquidators would have helped perpetuate Lesotho’s biggest scam.
They would have failed the investors, the very people whose interests they are supposed to protect.
The people are watching.