MFSA liquidation: board not responsible for anything?

That at least some staff members have been paid outstanding salaries and pension fund contributions almost a year and half after having been so unceremoniously kicked out their jobs, is nothing short of a miracle. The liquidators managed to get their job done in spite of suffering severe frustration in trying to track down directors and, even more so, trying to get them to take some sort of responsibility to sign the necessary papers to enable the liquidation process to move forward. Apparently phone calls to directors were ignored and emails and letters unanswered.

Reputation harmed

There is no doubt whatsoever that in addition to representative marketing suffering a mortal blow and the image of marketing as a discipline and profession taking an almighty nosedive, the nonchalance with which the board is perceived to have uncaringly walked away has done the reputation of marketers irreparable harm.

And many marketers are still fuming and demanding answers.

Most-asked questions

Some of the most-asked questions that have crossed my desk these past 18 months concern the whereabouts of the proceeds of the sale of the Bryanston Property owned by the Association of Marketers when this organisation became part of the MFSA. And one of the biggest questions of all was how the board could agree to the sale of the Institute of Marketing Management (IMM) for R8 million without any form of payment guarantees and allowing the MFSA to suffer an roughly R7 million loss.

But, an even bigger question is how the Association of Marketers, IMM and Direct Marketing Association could engineer a merger of the three entities without having checked the legal standing of what would become one of its more important cash cows – the IMM? It was literally weeks after the launch of the MFSA that the board discovered that the organisation was not allowed by law to “own” an academic institution.

So much for market research.

Huge fee

Quite apart from questions continuing to be asked about the whereabouts of income from, for example, annuities from the chartered marketer programme Asom's various trusts, questions are also being raised about the decision to pay a caretaker CEO what appeared to be a massive R75 000 a month fee when the organisation was technically bankrupt.

As one irate marketer put it: “Are directors of a liquidated company such as this able to remain unfettered board directors elsewhere?”

Download the publication of the liquidation accounts of the MFSA here.