Ex-PPS boss tells regulator of R25m loss

johannesburg - a former chief financial officer of pps insurance has sent the financial services board (fsb) a letter claiming the company had lost up to r25 million due to a lack of controls.

callie masson resigned from the insurance arm of the professional provident society group (pps) in march, when he attributed the loss to poor controls and insufficient data from its new information technology (it) system.

masson yesterday confirmed he had written a letter to the fsb last month at the regulator's request.

fsb spokesperson russel michaels would not say yesterday whether the watchdog had received the letter or whether it was conducting an investigation.

pps insurance chief executive mike jackson said the disputed r25 million was a cover provision in case monthly premium collections were less than budgeted levels. masson's claims were "total nonsense", he added.

in his resignation letter, masson said the board had ignored facts given to it and his position would be compromised as a result.



jackson said masson resigned because he had declined to attend a "performance meeting". he had been under "performance management" for 18 months after "significant performance problems".

masson said he had never been under performance management.

he said that in early february, he had raised the issue of the lack of data integrity in a new it system implemented last june, which converted nearly 60 years of data.

in the latest annual report jackson says: "significant problems were encountered with data of a small percentage of members. the debit orders of about 10 000 members were affected [and they] were significantly inconvenienced."

yesterday jackson said he was happy with the system, which had improved the firm's performance.

at the end of the year, pps insurance had 134 885 policyholders and total assets of r10.8 billion.