The Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) suspended the license of the former Vanderbijlpark financial services provider, N-e-FG, in December 2021 after the entity went into business rescue. The FSCA followed this up by placing N-e-FG under statutory management in June 2022.

Investors say they are currently receiving no feedback on what has become of their money and it appears as if it has simply “disappeared”. N-e-FG has since vacated the company’s posh offices in SW5. Vaalweekblad’s messages and calls to the former N-e-FG directors also remain unanswered.

Although many of the investors who spoke to Vaalweekblad in recent weeks compared their losses to those of the notorious Krion investment scheme, the money managed by N-e-FG was apparently not a similar Ponzi- or pyramid scheme.

Meanwhile, Mr. Krishen Sukdev, a qualified actuary with extensive experience in the retirement funds sector, was appointed as statutory manager by the FSCA to investigate the irregularities at N-e-FG. He found that the money or assets of members of retirement funds administered by N-e-FG were transferred to various entities without the consent or knowledge of the funds. Investment mandates were apparently violated in the process. Furthermore, members were allegedly misled about where their money or assets were invested and what the real value of their investments was.

According to information conveyed to investors by the FSCA in recent months, Sukdev’s findings are being viewed in a very serious light and a criminal case against the N-e-FG administrators and/or its management has been opened by Lion Life Insurance Company.

As far as Vaalweekblad could establish, N-e-FG managed the pensions of several large companies in the Vaal Triangle as well as in other regions of South Africa. Among those involved is a well-known private hospital whose staff are all expected to be affected by the losses.

Hardship after scheme collapses

Sad stories are unfolding of older N-e-FG investors who stand to lose their entire pension and all their life savings.

Among the victims is a woman in her 90s. Instead of being able to enjoy a pleasant old age in a high-class retirement home as she had planned, she is financially dependent on her children since her monthly N-e-FG payments have stopped.

An elderly couple from Vereeniging say that although they did not have a large pension, it was sufficient to live independently. Since their pension payments stopped last year, they have had to sell their house and car and now live in a small room in their son’s house.

Another pensioner says that the company where he worked, decided 17 years ago to move their staff’s accrued pension money from the institution where it was to N-e-FG’s Umbrella Pension Fund.

“From then on, all our monthly pension money was transferred to this fund. Every three months we were provided with reports showing where our funds were invested by N-e-FG, with an indication of the growth. Well-known companies such as Allan Gray, Coronation and BCI reflected in the reports. We were all impressed by the way our funds were invested and managed by N-e-FG. Little did we know these were fabricated reports that falsely reflected institutions’ names and growth.”

The investor says he only became aware of the apparent embezzlement of their pension money in March 2022. In the meantime, he has been diagnosed with cancer and can no longer work.

“My whole life’s savings are gone. My carefully planned existence collapsed because of this,” he says.

What angers many of the investors is that some directors of the former N-e-FG are now directors of a new, similar investment company and continue their work undisturbed.

“How can this be allowed while N-e-FG is still in business rescue? Because of them I have lost everything I have worked for for 30 years. My past, present and future have been stolen from me. New investors need to know what happened with our money at N-e -FG,” says a female investor.

White people are not the only ones affected by the losses. Vaalweekblad is aware of an elderly black man who has been saving for his retirement at N-e-FG since 1994. When his monthly payments suddenly stopped, he decided to go to their offices in Vanderbijlpark to inquire about the status of his pension. He found their doors closed and only learned later that he, like the rest of N-e-FG’s investors, had apparently lost all his money.

* Former investors at N-e-FG are welcome to contact Vaalweekblad via WhatsApp on 083 246 0523 to share their experiences with the newspaper. If preferred, they can remain anonymous.