FSB begins audit after ex-CFO accused of graft

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa's financial services regulator is carrying out an internal audit in response to allegations that its former chief financial officer extorted money from a local business by threatening to scrutinise its books.

The Financial Services Board (FSB) said Dawood Seedat, who was its CFO for more than eight years, stepped down shortly after local media reported the allegations two weeks ago.

Media reports said Africa Cash & Carry had paid Seedat 12 million rand ($1.12 million) so that he would not shut the firm down through audits by the FSB and the Revenue Service.

The wholesaler paid in different tranches and the final instalment of 2 million rand was secretly filmed, the reports said.

Seedat could not be immediately reached for comment. His lawyer, Darryl Ackerman, told Reuters there was "absolutely no truth" in the allegations.

Seedat had told the watchdog he was innocent but would resign to protect the integrity of the institution, FSB spokeswoman Tembisa Marele said.

The FSB said that, while Africa Cash & Carry did not fall under its jurisdiction, it would investigate whether Seedat had breached the integrity of his support role.

"It's an internal audit and an external verification by the Office of the Auditor General to make sure that whatever duties he performed for us while he was still at the FSB have not been affected or tainted by whatever he is being alleged to have done outside," Marele said.

The FSB said that before his resignation, Seedat had disclosed that he had done some consulting work for Africa Cash & Carry. But he had not, as required, alerted his employer before his dealings with the company.

Before joining the regulator, Seedat was a consultant at the government's tax collection agency and, prior to that, the head of forensic accounting services at the National Prosecuting Authority.

($1 = 10.7512 South African Rand)