Letshego fires group CEO, suspends company secretary
Pauline Dikuelo | Monday May 9, 2022 06:00
On Wednesday Letshego Group Board Chairperson Enos Banda issued a statement noting that the move was due to an irreparable breakdown in trust and confidence between the two parties. Okai joined Letshego in January 2020 from Standard Chartered Bank where he was operating as global chief operating officer. Okai was brought in as a substantive CEO to lead the rebuilding of executive management and guide a new strategy.
During his tenure, Letshego was able to shrug off the effects of COVID-19 and in the six months to June 2021, grew its balance sheet by 25% to P13.34 billion and pretax profits by 20% to P544.1 million. Much of Letshego’s performance has been linked to an aggressive digitisation strategy with the Letsgo App rolled out in 10 of the 11 countries the microlender is present. Following the suspension, Letshego has appointed its Chief Operations Officer Aupa Monyatsi as the Group CEO and Executive Director for an interim period. “While the Board considers a permanent appointment, Aupa Monyatsi has been appointed with immediate effect as the Group CEO and Executive Director for an interim period.
The board fully supports and has confidence in Monyatsi and his executive team to continue to drive the company strategy. The company will announce the appointment of an interim company secretary pending the outcome of the disciplinary process of the suspended Company Secretary,” read a statement The microlender has over the years grown its reach to 11 other African countries and embarked on an aggressive digitisation strategy that has increased its customer base beyond the deducting at source core.
Letshego is an inclusive finance-focussed Group with microfinance banking and consumer lending subsidiaries across 11 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Meanwhile, Letshego’s biggest shareholder Botswana Insurance Holdings Limited had its trading suspended on the BSE, Wednesday morning. “With the objective of maintaining a fair, efficient and orderly securities trading environment, the securities have been halted to allow the company to provide clarity to the market concerning a proposed transaction involving Sanlam. The halting of the company’s securities from trading will only be lifted once the company has published full details providing clarity on BSE X-news,” read a statement from BSE.