Client complaints, disputed signatures, cellphone records, and allegations of unauthorised policy changes may have appeared to present a compelling case for a financial adviser’s debarment. But when the Financial Services Tribunal (FST) examined the evidence, it concluded that the available facts did not justify Momentum Metropolitan Life’s finding that the adviser lacked the honesty and integrity required under the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act.
In setting aside the debarment, the Tribunal emphasised that a financial services provider must be satisfied, based on available facts and information, that a representative no longer meets the fit and proper requirements. Suspicion, conjecture, or what the Tribunal called “accumulated unease” cannot substitute for facts proving dishonesty.
From disciplinary hearing to debarment
Metropolitan’s case against the adviser, Daisy Mmoni Mmekwa, originated from alleged misconduct involving two funeral policies. The life insurer alleged that Mmekwa had knowingly, unlawfully, and intentionally misrepresented information to Metropolitan for financial gain, including through disputed consent and signature-related conduct.
A disciplinary hearing was held on 29 November 2024. By then, Mmekwa had given six months’ notice of early retirement on account of ill health, and her services terminated on 30 December 2024. The outcome, dated 20 March 2025 – almost three months after she had left Metropolitan’s employ – found in her favour on one charge (involving the “Mahlangu policy”) but against her on the other (the “Sono policy”), and recommended her debarment.
Metropolitan held a debarment inquiry on 24 July 2025, issued a provisional debarment decision on 8 August 2025, and confirmed the debarment on 11 December 2025.
Mmekwa challenged both the procedure followed and the substance of the debarment decision.
The Tribunal rejected her procedural objections, despite noting that Metropolitan’s failure to communicate the disciplinary outcome to Mmekwa timeously “reflects poorly” on its administration. But the Tribunal said disciplinary proceedings and debarment proceedings are separate, and the failure did not deprive her of a fair debarment process.
The central question was therefore whether the evidence justified Metropolitan’s conclusion that Mmekwa no longer met the statutory honesty and integrity requirements.
The section 14 threshold
Section 14 of the FAIS Act requires an FSP to debar a representative if it is satisfied, “on the basis of available facts and information”, that the person no longer complies with the fit and proper requirements or has materially contravened the Act.
Although the applicable standard is the civil standard – proof on a balance of probabilities – the Tribunal said the allegation in this case was dishonesty, adding that “a finding of dishonesty is not lightly made”.
The Tribunal also referred to Metropolitan’s own debarment policy, which recognises that, “debarment is a serious action with potentially life-changing implications for the representative or key individual”.
Metropolitan’s own Fraud Guidance Note defined fraud as the unlawful and intentional making of a misrepresentation that causes actual or potential prejudice. The Tribunal therefore examined whether the evidence established those elements.
The charge on which the debarment rested
The first charge, which involved a policyholder named as Mr Mahlangu, rested largely on an affidavit in which the client complained that premiums continued to be deducted after he believed his policy had been cancelled.
The affidavit contained no allegation that Mmekwa had acted fraudulently or forged any documentation. Mahlangu also testified on Mmekwa’s behalf at the disciplinary hearing, and the disciplinary chairperson accepted that the probabilities favoured her version.
The debarment decision likewise did not rely on the Mahlangu charge, finding that the allegations had not been sufficiently made out on a balance of probabilities. Metropolitan’s final debarment decision therefore rested solely on the charge relating to a policy in the name of a Mr Sono.
According to Metropolitan, Mmekwa enrolled Sono’s policy in 2019 without his consent, later upgraded it using a cellphone number that could not be linked to him, and submitted documentation bearing a signature that differed from later specimen signatures.
Metropolitan also relied on Sono’s affidavit complaining that deductions continued after he believed the policy had been cancelled and that people continued to be added to the policy.
What Sono’s affidavit said
The Tribunal reproduced Sono’s affidavit in full before analysing it. The affidavit complained that he had cancelled his Metropolitan policy, but that people continued to be added to it and deductions continued. It also stated that, when he contacted Metropolitan, he was allegedly told that the problem lay with Mmekwa.
The Tribunal said three things were immediately apparent. First, the affidavit alleged no fraud, no forgery, and no enrolment without consent. Second, it did not disown the original 2019 policy; it presupposed that the policy was his and complained that its cancellation had not been given effect to. Third, the attribution of blame to Mmekwa appeared to come from what Metropolitan’s own personnel allegedly told the client, not from an independent allegation by the client himself.
This mattered because the absence of a fraud allegation was central to the rejection of the Mahlangu charge. The Tribunal questioned how a materially similar affidavit could be insufficient to support a finding of dishonesty in one charge, but sufficient in the other.
The chronology undermined Metropolitan’s case
A key plank of Metropolitan’s reasoning was that Sono’s complaint about continued deductions corroborated its allegation that Mmekwa had fraudulently altered the policy in January 2022. But the documentary evidence pointed the other way.
The upgraded stop order reflected the increased premium with a deduction month of April 2022, and the amended plan summary recorded 1 April 2022 as the start date of the amended plan. Sono’s affidavit was sworn on 22 March 2022 – “before a single cent of the increased premium had been deducted”.
The deductions complained of in the March 2022 affidavit therefore could not have resulted from the January 2022 alteration. They related instead to ongoing deductions under a policy he believed had already been cancelled – essentially the same type of complaint that arose in the Mahlangu matter.
Reversal, loss, and other agents
Metropolitan’s own records further weakened its case. Its forensic data analyst reported that two agents had “flipped” the policy and that “[b]oth flips were reversed with the same effective date as the original”. The provisional debarment decision also recorded that the January 2022 alteration “was later reversed in April of 2022”.
The Tribunal said a premium alteration reversed with effect from inception would yield no premium, no commission, and no loss. Metropolitan concluded that Mmekwa intended to earn commission to which she was not entitled, but the Tribunal found there was no evidence that any commission had in fact been earned on the reversed alteration or that Metropolitan had suffered any quantified loss.
Furthermore, Mmekwa was not only the person who had made changes to the Sono policy. The policy movement history reflected premium alterations by another agent in 2021 and again in April 2022, as well as a policy alteration initiated by a third employee.
The client’s complaint that “they keep on adding people on that policy” was therefore equally consistent with activity by others and could not, without more, be laid at Mmekwa’s door as dishonesty.
Cellphone evidence fell short
Metropolitan also relied on evidence that the cellphone number used for the January 2022 alteration could not be linked to Sono. But the Tribunal found that the Consumer Profile Bureau report did not establish that conclusion. It merely recorded that the number’s type, service provider and province were “unknown” and that no records were found.
That did not prove that the number did not belong to, or was not used by, Sono. On the contrary, Metropolitan’s own systems recorded the number on Sono’s policy profile: the movement history showed that, in January 2024, another agent changed the client’s cellphone number from that number to a different one.
The Tribunal also noted an inconsistency in how Metropolitan treated similar explanations. In the Mahlangu matter, Mmekwa’s explanation that clients frequently changed or forgot prepaid cellphone numbers had been accepted as plausible. No clear reason was given for rejecting the same explanation in the Sono matter.
The handwriting report
The forensic handwriting report was central to Metropolitan’s case. The Tribunal described it as “the linchpin” of the finding against Mmekwa.
The handwriting expert concluded that the disputed signatures on the 2019 application and stop order had not been written by the person who signed the later specimen signatures contained in Sono’s affidavit and identity document. The Tribunal accepted this was the report’s conclusion. What it did not accept was Metropolitan’s interpretation of what that conclusion proved.
The report showed that the specimen “signatures” consisted of Sono’s initials and surname written in print, while the disputed signatures were cursive. As the Tribunal observed, the difference was obvious: “That the two ‘differ totally in construction’ is self-evident and required no microscope.”
But difference did not establish authorship. “A comparison between a printed name and a cursive signature establishes difference; it establishes nothing about authorship,” the Tribunal said.
The handwriting expert was not asked to determine who had signed the disputed documents, and the report did not conclude that Mmekwa had done so. Nor did it exclude her explanation that she had left the application form with Sono so that he could discuss it with his wife and later collected the completed form from the client’s wife without checking the signature.
The Tribunal also noted that Sono had testified on Mmekwa’s behalf during the disciplinary proceedings and later deposed to a further affidavit. In addition, the policy had remained in force for years, with premiums deducted from his salary into 2022. Far from disowning the policy as unauthorised from the outset, his affidavit complained that Metropolitan had failed to process its cancellation.
The Tribunal’s conclusion
The Tribunal identified further shortcomings in Metropolitan’s fact-finding, including inconsistencies in the number of policy alteration attempts recorded in different documents, and incorrect dates in Metropolitan’s further reasons to the Tribunal. Individually, these were slips; collectively, they did “not inspire confidence that the ‘available facts and information’ were weighed with the care that a debarment demands”.
Measured against the statutory test, the evidence established at most that a premium alteration, later reversed without loss, had been processed under Mmekwa’s code using a cellphone number then recorded on the client’s policy profile, and the 2019 application bore a cursive signature that differed from the way Sono later printed his name on an affidavit.
“Neither fact, singly, or in combination,” the Tribunal held, proved on a balance of probabilities that Mmekwa had made a misrepresentation, acted dishonestly, or materially contravened the FAIS Act. Metropolitan therefore could not have been satisfied, “on the basis of available facts and information”, that she no longer met the honesty and integrity requirements.
Because the Mahlangu charge had already failed and the Sono charge could not sustain the debarment, the Tribunal found there was no purpose in remitting the matter to Metropolitan. It upheld Mmekwa’s application for reconsideration and set aside the debarment.
For FSPs, the judgment is a reminder that section 14 demands more than a collection of circumstances pointing towards possible wrongdoing. Where dishonesty is alleged, the available facts must establish the elements of the allegation on a balance of probabilities. As the Tribunal put it: “Suspicion, conjecture, or accumulated unease will not do.”
