PSMAS postpones AGM, executive jittery over looming forensic audit

The Premier Service Medical Aid Society (PSMAS) annual general meeting (AGM) which was scheduled for tomorrow (Thursday) has been postponed until further notice.

Speculative reports suggest that their financial books are in shambles and one of the major proposals tabled at the AGM is an extended forensic audit to all the company’s investments.

“The executive is in panic mode and this postponement is a deliberate ploy to buy time and conceal fraudulent activities before the proposed forensic audit,” said a source privy to the goings on.

But PSMAS Public Relations officer Paidamoyo Chipunza said: “I have not yet received communication to that effect from my superiors.”

The AGM was meant to solve trust issues pertaining to management of its sister company, Premier Service Medical Investments (PSMI) and put a final nail in the coffin on issues that haunted the company following the removal of former chief executive Cuthbert Dube in 2014.

According to the notice of the AGM which was supposed to be held tomorrow, the AGM was supposed to dissolve Premier Service Holding Company (Pvt) Ltd and the Trust.

But “if the answer to above is No, to consider and approve that the Board of Trustees be appointed from Government, Security Services, Labour Unions and the Private Sector.

“To approve the Deed of Trust for the Trust formed for PSMAS members.

“To define a member as ‘an individual or entity that pays 50% or more of the beneficiaries’ subscriptions”.

The meeting was also supposed to introduce weighted voting on the PSMAS board based on level of subscription contribution.

“To define the term ‘dependants’ in the Society’s Constitution as ‘spouse, children , mother, father and in laws’, to extend the forensic audit to all PSMAS investments and to deliberate on PSMAS’ mandate, card acceptance, value chain and its non-core business.”

PSMAS was formed in 1930 and created PSMI in 2003 to ensure service access for members following a rapid rise in medical costs.

The model has grown successfully and has now attracted interested parties, including a rumoured approach by politically-connected business people interested in taking it over. Civil servants have vowed to resist any moves to take it over.

PSMAS has a membership of over 90 000 with the majority of them being civil servants.