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Oliver Kazunga, Senior Business Reporter
A BITTER boardroom battle for the control of one of Botswana’s most prestigious companies, Choppies Enterprises Limited is being waged in Gaborone – and is reverberating through eight sub-Saharan Africa countries.

At its heart is a battle for control of Choppies Enterprises Ltd, an investment holding company listed, but presently suspended, on both Botswana Stock Exchange (BSE) and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE).

In a statement last week, the company said the battle for control was pitting founder and chief executive officer Mr Ramachandran Ottapathu and Botswana’s ex-President and present chair of the Choppies board, Mr Festus Mogae.

The group operates 260 stores in Botswana, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and Namibia, and employs more than 17 000 people.

The group told shareholders that:

“The board had resolved to suspend Mr Ottapathu until the board determines the action, if any, to be taken in implementation of the recommendations made in the investigation reports that will follow the completion of the legal and forensic investigations announced by the Company on 5 March 2019.”

Mr Ottapathu who joined Choppies in 1992 when it was a single insolvent store in Gaborone, has been replaced by the deputy chair Mr Farouk Ismail.

In its announcement to shareholders, the Choppies board said that trading of shares on both the Botswana Stock Exchange Limited (“BSEL”) and Johannesburg Stock Exchange Limited (“JSE”) remained suspended pending the company’s publication of its 2018 financial results.

It said, “The legal investigation is anticipated to conclude by the end of May 2019 (having extended from the end of April 2019)…and the forensic investigation is anticipated to conclude by the end of June 2019”.

It also announced the appointment of South African company, Redford Capital, as “chief restructuring officer” of the company to review Choppies business and identify action plans to improve it.

Mr Ottapathu cried foul and has instructed attorneys to challenge his suspension.

He says he has done nothing wrong and was “confident that investigations currently underway will not find any actionable wrong-doing on his part”.

Mr Ottapathu says he has not benefited financially from any transactions under investigation.

“We started off with a very small company – it was literally insolvent at one stage. From 1986 to ’92 we had one store. From ’92 to ’99 we had two stores. From ’99 to now, we operate almost 210 stores, ” Mr Ottapathu was quoted as saying.

“When I did my articles at an accounting firm, my principal, a Mr Menon, was one of the people who instilled discipline, hard work and ethics in me because he was a really ethical man. So, business ethics, hard work and dedication – all these things I learnt from him. It was the most valuable learning experience I had in my professional life.”

Meanwhile, Mr Ottapathu remains a director of Choppies and is its single largest shareholder and he believes his suspension comes from personal differences with “certain members of the board” and says he made a proposal at the board meeting the new directors should be appointed and that Mr Mogae should be replaced with somebody younger.

Mr Ottapathu said the decision to supend him was “premeditated, and designed to deflect collective responsibility of the board in relation to Choppies’ present situtation”, and that the board could not provide him with comfort that they had appropriately undertaken contingency measures in light of his suspension or resignation. -@okazunga