I am not going to delve into the more personal details of the Drip story, this has already been done by Norman Masungwini’s reporting in the City Press.
But mine is to look into the publicly available information gleaned from a recent forfeiture notice by the South African Reserve Bank (SARB), which gives us another angle to the financial difficulties faced the footwear brand.
In a “Notice and Order of Forfeiture” dated 22 July 2024 and issued by Fundi Tshazibana, who is the Deputy Governor of the Prudential Cluster, the SARB confirmed that it confiscated an amount of USD 200 013.00 (approximately R3.7 million) from Drip Pty Ltd’s FirstRand Bank account.
The forfeiture, which the SARB does under the auspices and provisions of the Currency and Exchanges Act, typically means that an entity was non-compliant in its foreign exchange dealings, i.e. the inward or outward transactions in foreign currency, and probably needed SARB authorisation/clearance, which the company failed to secure.
It is a tough pill to swallow, and countless individuals and companies fall afoul of SARB regulations every week, and this sees them forfeit whatever non-compliant amounts to State, as free money for the National Treasury basically.
Disheartening to see that Drip fell to the same fate.
