Bury director who failed to produce accounting records and refused to co-operate with the Insolvency Service after his company went into liquidation owing more than £200,000 in unpaid tax has been jailed.
Vezubuhle Ndlovu was sentenced to 10 months in prison when he appeared at Manchester Crown Court on Tuesday 15 October.
The 41-year-old had previously pleaded guilty to offences under the Insolvency Act and Companies Act for his VN Electrics Limited business.
Ndlovu, of Spinney Crescent, Bury, failed to provide up-to-date records to the Insolvency Service when VN Electrics was liquidated in 2019, meaning the Official Receiver could not accurately assess the company’s position and liabilities.
David Snasdell, Chief Investigator at the Insolvency Service, said:
Vezubuhle Ndlovu’s offending was persistent and he has shown no insight into his criminal actions.
If a company fails to keep proper records it exposes creditors and trading partners to unacceptable levels of risk. A company that does not keep records is more likely to fail and the Official Receiver or insolvency practitioner will be unable to identify and take steps to recover the company’s assets.
Ndlovu failed in his statutory duties to deliver up-to-date accounting records and at no point engaged with the Official Receiver or our investigators when asked to do so.
VN Electrics was established in May 2017, with Ndlovu the sole director. The company’s business was described on Companies House as ‘non-specialised wholesale trade’.
The company was liquidated in December 2019 after a petition from HM Revenue and Customs, which was owed £221,600 by VN Electrics.
The Insolvency Service wrote to Ndlovu on three separate occasions after VN Electrics was wound-up, reminding him of his statutory duty to preserve the company’s books and records and to deliver them to the Official Receiver.
Ndlovu failed to respond and did not turn up to an interview at the Official Receiver’s Office.
Civil proceedings which resulted in a seven-year director disqualification for Ndlovu began in September 2020 and concluded in April 2022. At no point did Ndlovu engage with the investigation.
Just one month after Ndlovu’s director ban, criminal investigators from the Insolvency Service invited him in for interview. Again, Ndlovu failed to respond or attend the interview.
Ndlovu’s failure to deliver books and records meant the Official Receiver was unable to establish if sales and purchases of just more than £1 million were the true level of VN Electrics’ income and expenditure between August 2017 and February 2019.
The Official Receiver was also unable to determine if VN Electrics owned any assets at any time between incorporation and liquidation, and if so, what happened to them.
