AUSTIN BEYADI, 24th October 2009 Daily News
PANDEMONIUM broke out in the packed hall that housed shareholders of the National Investment Company Limited (NICOL) after the Annual General Meeting was postponed this noon.
"Before we open the meeting we should get consultation from our legal consultant who should show us the way on how to proceed with the meeting," said the NICOL Chairman, Mr Felix Mosha.
The legal consultant advocate, Hubert Nyange informed the gathering that ven though the hall was packed, the attending shareholders only represented a minority 17.5 per cent of the shares.
According to its memorandum and article of association, for NICOL's annual general meeting to take place, the quorum must consists of shareholding members with at least 33 per cent of the shares, .
Thus, Mr Mosha had no choice but to suspend the AGM and advised members to return next weekend for the meeting while at the same time the legal consultant warned that if the quorum wasn't reached in the next meeting, the AGM will be dissolved.
The announcement caused a lot of disorder in the meeting when the shareholders had questioned the chairman to inform them what was going on in the company especially on the fact that NICOL shares had been suspended from the Dar es Salaam stock exchange.
Patrick Mvile, a shareholder who travelled from upcountry to attend the meeting dared to compare the company with now very popular pyramid scheme, DECI and that now the operations and activities of the company were running with outmost secrecy.
"The fact that we did not meet the quorum is not good enough to postpone the meeting. I think there are a lot of things going on that we are not being told and the postponement is just a ruse for preventing us away from questioning the board," he lamented.
Another shareholder said that people were warned about DECI and they continued to invest their money in DECI and now the same authorities that cautioned people against DECI have now come into inconclusive dispute.
"This has caused us to live in suspicion that we may lose our invested money just like the DECI people did after failing to see what was coming," he said.
Mr Mosha pleaded with the shareholders not to compare the company with DECI saying that the company has made major achievements which include investing more than 30bn/- in the National Microfinance Bank.
He said that the meeting did not meet the quorum because recently NICOL has sold shares to Pension funds that have outsmarted individual shareholders and become major shareholders.
According to NICOL's 2008 financial report provided during the meeting, the company has two issues to resolve with Capital Markets and Securities Agency and the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange and this has led to NICOL's suspension on the DSE.
The members had demanded to know why the NICOL shares have been suspended on the stock exchange but the board has promised to answer the questions in the upcoming meeting next week.
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